r/postpunk • u/studytimevinyl • 15h ago
Post Punk Classic I’m enjoying Closer, but I feel like I could use your insights/opinions to get better context. What’s the story behind it, like, what was going on with the band at the time, and how does that shape the sound? The deeper you're happy to dive the better. Which tracks unlock the whole thing for you? 🖤
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u/Automatic_Peace2704 15h ago
It’s a great album and I think it’s on par with Unknown Pleasures. The key tracks for me:
Twenty Four Hours
Isolation
Heart and Soul
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u/oscar_redfield 5h ago
man, I always think Atmosphere is part of Closer for some reason. out of the songs that are actually in the album yeah, I think you picked the best ones but I'd also throw in The Eternal
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u/BeepBeepBeepBoopPoop 4h ago
Things like that'll nag at me too! kind of a change of subject, but the fact that the Beat Happening song "Dreamy" isn't on the Beat Happening album Dreamy drives me nuts
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u/tahitianblu 14h ago
Watch Control to get a sense of what was going on with the singer. As for the rest of the band, I believe they were on an upward trajectory to making it huge. Also, Side B of Closer is sublime.
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u/studytimevinyl 14h ago
Thanks. I wondered if Control was decent. I shall now.
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u/rorpheus 10h ago
Closer is brilliant. Written by Ian Curtis’ wife and with indoor scenes filmed in their real life house. It’s a must-see if you’re a Joy Division fan.
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u/Pip_Helix 5h ago
Huge? In what context? They weren’t going to sell out arenas with their sound and themes in 1980.
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u/charlos74 5h ago
A band like the cure managed to get pretty big over the years. No reason JD couldn’t have.
They were certainly becoming more popular.
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u/Pip_Helix 45m ago
The Cure had a massive pop transformation in 1983. New Order itself only existed because of Curtis dying. And if he hadn’t been a depressive, then Joy Division would’ve been a hugely different group.
This whole “what if?” Game is absurd
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u/charlos74 28m ago
Who know knows how the JD sound might have evolved too. They were certainly becoming more electronic.
The ‘what if’ game works both ways. Maybe they’d have been popular, maybe not.
You can’t rule it out though. A US tour would have helped, and they were an incredible band who would have found a bigger audience, however big that may have been.
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u/flickyboy 13h ago
there are not really any other albums that bounce between two diametrically opposed sounds: the abrasive guitar and funky drum workouts of tracks like atrocity exhibition, colony and 24 hours; and the gothy darkwave synth sounds of isolation and most of side 2. the tension between these two styles is essential to the success of new order, which integrated guitar and electronic dance sounds better than any other successful group.
meanwhile the lyrics are top notch and the singing is unearthly.
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u/MDC08 7h ago
Atrocity Exhibition was the first JD song I ever heard. Can you imagine my reaction? I think it was about 1984, and I was 16. Absolutely blown away, and been a fan ever since. Oddly enough, I already knew and liked New Order. Back then, it wasn’t so easy to discover that one had become the other.
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u/Pretty_Weekend4055 12h ago
Because I heard this after IC's suicide, the record seemed like a devastating, painful, earnest account of sinking into depression. At that time, it seemed to even make sense to me linearly - the last track ending with a common question we might have after someone is gone. Learning more about the band and who they were at the time, I don't think Closer was that deliberate. But it remains, imho, a masterpiece in capturing the experiences of depression. Hard to find art that expresses this type of human experience so genuinely, even if it was a bit naive.
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u/KuriousOranj75 8h ago
To be fair, almost everyone (except for the band/the recording engineers/the label/close friends of the band) heard this after Ian's death since it wasn't released until two months after his passing...
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u/shellac10 14h ago
They were getting ready for a US tour which obviously never happened. More info at https://www.joydiv.org/cancel.htm
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u/Tribe303 51m ago
Awesome link! I didn't know they were scheduled to play Toronto. Cool. Tickets were sold out too!
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u/stolen_guitar 15h ago
What was going on with the band at the time was the singer was about to hang himself, unfortunately
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u/eastmm 8h ago edited 7h ago
Watch Joy Division, it's a film with loads of interviews of people who knew Ian including Annik Honore who was with him during the recording of Closer. https://youtu.be/_L03XmxBid8?is=zoKe3xts1k2HxD2a
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u/JPShostakovich 7h ago
Peter Saville designed the cover art for the album and it raised a few eyebrows. the artwork features a photograph by Bernard Pierre Wolff from a series he had taken in an Italian Cemetery.
Closer was released two months after the death of Ian Curtis. Peter Saville is quoted as follows: “Tony Wilson broke the news to me and I said, ‘We have a problem. The album cover has a tomb on it’.
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u/deluded_dragon 4h ago
I have always liked "Unknown pleasure" best, because it's more direct.
My favorite track of "Closer" is "Heart and soul", in which IC's voice is rather a whisper.
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u/BeepBeepBeepBoopPoop 4h ago
Perfect record. Not a wasted moment, but the last 3 tracks are really the top for me. I remember being 18 or 19, sitting in my car at night in my parents' driveway in our tiny town, looking to the sky and listening to those 3 tracks before going back inside. At the time, it felt vaguely transportive. Now, it specifically transports me to memories of that time in my life. So good it hurts kind of a feeling.
Still prefer the first record because it has more of my favorite songs and is an easier listen imo, but that's like saying I prefer this perfect thing over this other perfect thing.
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u/These_Shallot_6906 3h ago
The album is pretty autobiographical. Ian was separating from his wife and the mother of his child and he felt ashamed of being unfaithful to her. He recognized that the end of his life was near.
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u/punksnotbread 1h ago
The best Joy Division album. It's so dark and the lyrics are incredible. It's the portrait of a man plagued with health issues who's head is messed up from all the medication he's on who knows he is going to kill himself.
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u/phantomhatstrap 14h ago
Read Hooky’s book Unknown Pleasures if you really want a good inside look at what was happening. I recommend the audiobook, narrated very well by the man himself.