Favourite Albums Pt.3

It's strange to look at how people see Joy Division now.

Often it seems completely at odds to how the band were considered at the time. The perception that they were some kind of proto-goth band couldn't be further from the truth.

Joy Division were an incredibly exciting band and astonishingly loud. Not descriptions you hear very often these days.

Here we had a band which was developing at such a rate in front of our very eyes, incorporating new technology and techniques in performance and recording.

In complete control of their own destiny through Factory, like The Smiths, they were to bank roll Rough Trade through their escalating success.

After punk had long since turned to pantomime Joy Division came like a shock to the system.

I witnessed one of those literal transformations when I saw Joy Division perform supporting Buzzcocks. They were blistering and commanded the massive Odeon stage swathed in a solid green/blue light. While the reasons later became apparent at the time the solid light was so at odds with other bands.

I often wonder if the music that New Order later recorded would have been that of Joy Division and how Ian Curtis would have adapted his lyrics and how his lyrics would have changed once his private life had the chance to settle down.

Closer is an amazing document of a band developing their true potential and a lyricist tormented by his personal life at the time.

Debbie Curtis only listened to the songs on Closer after Curtis' death and realised most were about their relationship.

She discovered other as yet unrecorded lyrics left in the house and burned them.

This really is my favourite album of all and one of the greatest ever by a British band.