40 years out from Joy Division's Closer

Frank

40 years ago, on the 18th of July into 1980, post-punk heroes Joy Division came out with both their sophomore and final album Closer. Exactly two months before its release, on May 18th, 1980, frontman Ian Curtis hanged himself after listening to side A of Iggy Pop’s The Idiot and watching Werner Herzog’s Stroszek. It was the day before Joy Division were set to tour the United States. 

Curtis’ suicide has been mythologized and romanticized for decades, to the point where it is more of a legend than of an event. The suicide of the frontman was a fitting punctuation for a band like Joy Division. It’s impossible to write about the band without mentioning Curtis’ suicide. Like Kurt Cobain, it is an inescapable part of their legacy; and that in itself, is a tragedy. I am hypocritical no doubt, as I opened this piece with a short description of Curtis’ death. But again, the band will never escape this event. It’s too fitting… too romantic… too tragic. It gives Closer a more grim context. 

Keeping in mind that this album was released after Curtis’ death gives the album a haunting quality. “Existence, well what does it matter? I exist on the best terms I can. My past is now part of my future; the present is well out of hand.” Curtis sings on “Heart and Soul”. It is not an original observation to point out that Closer plays out like a de facto suicide note. During the time of recording, Curtis had already attempted suicide once. His epilepsy was getting worse, he would pass out in the studio, blackout, go missing for hours and his marriage was rapidly disintegrating. “Looked beyond the day at hand, there’s nothing there at all, now that I’ve realized how it’s all gone wrong; Gotta find some therapy, this treatment takes too long,” Curtis says on “Twenty Four Hours”. Curtis states plainly on Closer that he doesn’t plan on having a future. These alarming messages seemingly went unnoticed, or perhaps not taken seriously enough, as if they were just lyrics written by a dramatic romantic, leaning into his existential ennui. This is not to blame any member of Joy Division or those who worked with them. None of this was anyone’s fault--as is the case in most suicides. Curtis was like any other world-weary artist. To others, these statements were merely empty threats. 

Closer takes the trademark gloom of the Unknown Pleasure and multiples it. Their icy sound was sculpted by eccentric producer Martin Hannett. He famously made the studio so cold during the recording of Unknown Pleasures that the band could see their breath. He would record each drum individually and assemble them himself, which gave it a scattered and distant sound. Joy Division set out to be a punk band, but Hannet turned them into an art project. In fact, upon listening to the completed Unknown Pleasures Joy Division hated what Hannett had done. On Closer, it sounds as if they leaned into the sound Hannet created. Their first outing (under the name Warsaw) had more Sex Pistols-Esque punk tracks--high tempos and grinding power chords (Curtis almost sounds as if he was actively attempting to imitate Johnny Rotten’s signature snarling yelp). It was the sound that Joy Division had expected to follow on Unknown Pleasures before Hannet’s inclusion; although

these more formulaic punk songs are not totally absent from the album -- notably “Interzone” and “Shadowplay”-- Unknown Pleasure also had songs more reminiscent of the ones found on Closer: atmospheric dirges that crawl along--simultaneously as static as they are dynamic. 

Closer sounds as if it exists in some sort of liminal space. The songs don't seem as though they progress -- they seem almost as if they are standing still, frozen in time, doomed like Sysiphus to repeat themselves forever. Atrocity Exhibition’s foundation--its repetitive drum lines-- sounds rickety like it could collapse at any moment. “Decades” and “Heart and Soul” all end in the same line, repeated over and over, until it turns into an ambient, almost psychedelic breakdown as if it would continue for infinity, if only it didn’t fade out. 

The instrumental of “Isolation”--the poppiest song on the album and clearly was intended to be the “hit”--hints at the sound that New Order would adopt later; but given the instrumental, the lyrics are unexpectedly gloomy: “Mother I tried, please believe me. I’m ashamed of the things I’ve been put through. I’m ashamed of the person I am”. Closer is so confessional it feels almost invasive at times. Curtis, newly a father at 23 sings on perhaps the most funerary track on the album, “The Eternal”: “Cry like a child, though these years make me older, with children my life is so wastefully spent” It is an almost cruel internal thought that perhaps many young parents think, but would never say. Curtis was torn between two worlds: the one of the rock star that he had always wanted, and that of the husband and father. 

One would be remiss to view Closer as just Curtis’ personal ghosts and grievances. Closer is about sadness with no discernable origin. Sadness, for Curtis, was his status quo. I know that sounds bleak, or corny, or dramatic. But we have to remember that this was proto-goth. The theatre of goth, with its almost comical levels of sadness, had not been an established part of the genre. In pop music, sad songs most often were about unrequited love. Closer has no escape route; the songs had no chance of a happy ending. In the case of a love ballad if only the lover were to return the singer's affections then things would be alright; Closer offers no such reprieve. 

Joy Division is goth; there is no doubt. But goth in sound and theme only. On stage, they dressed rather plainly: button-up dress shirt, slacks, and loafers. They would have looked just as at home in an accounting firm as they did on the stage. Other goth acts adopted a more theatrical look. The Cure, Siouxsie, and The Banshees, and Sister of Mercy not only made goth music but helped to create the goth fashion: teased-out black hair, white face paint, long, dark coats, chunky platform boots. Joy Division rejected the post-Bowie punk glam. Although they and the Buzzcocks both decided to form their respective bands after attending a Sex Pistol’s concert in Manchester, you would never see Curtis nor Summers wearing leather jackets adorned with safety pins or eyeliner. Joy Division defied classification. They were a non-image. There was a blankness to them, which is a more authentic expression of goth--a genre with an ethos that so often conflicted

with the flamboyant glamor of bands to come. An early iteration of The Cure (who played a sparsely attended show with Joy Division in 1978) would also attempt this look before Robert Smith donned his iconic eyeliner and red lipstick. There is always the threat that any countercultural movement’s fashion--be it punk, goth, hippie--will be appropriated by big-name fashion brands or made into a cheap mockery (e.g. Hot Topic and Urban Outfitters--both of which sold the now memed to death Unknown Pleasures t-shirt) but Joy Division gave them no such chance to appropriate their style. Their image and music are never in danger of being dated, or stale, or profaned by the insatiable appetite of neoliberalism. This speaks to the authentic blankness of Closer. 

Manchester in the 70s was suffering from an economic depression. The effects of austerity and anti-workerism had finally caught up with it. Much like the New York of the ’70s--with its high crime rates but low rent--Manchester became a hub for a whole slew of deeply influential bands: The Fall, The Buzzcocks, The Happy Mondays, Durutti Column, Section 25, The Smiths, and of course, the entire Factory Records roster all were informed by the working-class conditions of a city ravaged by a poorly operated post-war economic model. There is a particular sound forged by Joy Division in which this feeling is inescapable. Joy Division was a group of smart, working-class kids, who took equally from Ballard, Boroughs, and Dostoyevsky as they did from Iggy Pop, the Sex Pistols, and David Bowie. But for even those who weren’t subjected to the derelict state of Manchester or the economic stagnation of 1979’s England, Joy Division’s popularity persists. Curtis’ lyrics aren’t reserved just for dejected Mancunians. There is a timelessness to them--a universality. The lyric, “Love will tear us apart” should live on just as long as the line from Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18: “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day”. There is a reason that Curtis’ gravestone is never without a bouquet.  

Greg

Closer is so incredible that if I had to pick an album to bring you closer to a more powerful, spiritual being–this would be my pick. 

Sean

Although not printed on as many urban outfitter graphic tees Closer still stands out as one of the most important albums to the post punk genre. With influence that can even be heard clearly today in bands like Shame, and Protomartyr Closer has yet to be topped as a compass for musicians exploring sparse, and haunting sounds.