Ian Curtis and Joy Division

While much has been written on Joy Division and the cultural impact and
resonances of both the music and their visual legacy (particularly in terms of photography and design), little has been written of the sparse moving image record that exists of them. This chapter takes an overview of the various instances that Joy Division were recorded onto film and video while they performed and locates these recordings with regard to both the mainstream broadcast television sector at the time and emerging alternative ‘independent’ media practices.

Interview with Bruce Mitchell and Vini Reilly (Jan. 2013). Longer, different  version of profile for Big Issue magazine. The present doc first appeared on the band's official website. Magazine version includes comments from other musicians and collaborators and is here https://www.academia.edu/8178284/Profile_of_The_Durutti_Column_Big_Issue_article_

Pretendo analisar a música e as letras do Joy Division a partir da teoria estética de Theodor W. Adorno (1903-1969), a qual fornece chaves interpretativas interessantes para compreender a sonoridade e a poesia desta banda, tanto num sentido estritamente artístico quanto em relação ao contexto social e cultural no qual ela surgiu. Após uma breve exposição do pensamento estético de Adorno, vou descrever o cenário sociológico (a Manchester pós-industrial), artístico (o surgimento do pós-punk) e filosófico-literário (a inspiração de autores como Dostoiévski e Kafka para as letras de Ian Curtis) no qual a banda se insere. Por fim, será feita uma análise mais imanente, isto é, concentrada nos discos e composições do Joy Division.

Joy Division, relative to their Manchester Post-punk contemporaries have often been seen in proximity to industrial music, a perception reinforced by Genesis P-Orridge’s claims that Curtis was a Throbbing Gristle fan particularly appreciative of the former’s track “Weeping” from their DOA: Third and Final Report album. P-Orridge returned this fandom by referring directly to Ian Curtis in Psychick TV’s later track “I.C. Water” and reiterating their personal connection in several interviews and other texts. This paper will argue that beyond this purported connection between the two groups and individuals the resonances between Joy Division and industrial music run deeper in the ways both were haunted by post-industrial cityscapes, modernist literature (especially Ballard and Kafka but also the proto-modernist Gogol, author of Dead Souls) and especially a shared interest in Esotericism and the occult. In fact Joy Division’s track “Dead Souls” has less to do with Gogol’s satirical portrayal middle class corruption and spiritual ennui, than with being haunted by past lives, an abiding interest of the vocalist: “Someone take these dreams away/That point me to another day”. This paper will argue that more generally Joy Division were haunted by the ruins of modernism whether in the form of decaying urban environments, or literary modernism, in ways that correspond closely with the ways similar environments haunted industrial groups like Throbbing Gristle, and perhaps with greater proximity, Sheffield’s Cabaret Voltaire. In both cases, we are confronted by “missions of dead souls” (the title of the live album of TG’s final performance in 1980) with profound resonances.

"Tengo el espíritu, pero perdí las emociones", bramaba en el primer disco de Joy Division. El alma de la agrupación británica trabajó en un hospital de enfermos mentales para robar drogas y condujo al punk hacia una habitación ártica, cerrada y oscura. Hace 25 años, el hombre que reemplazó el lema "jódete" por el "estoy jodido" se colgó del techo de su casa.

This essay investigates "She's Lost Control" (SLC); four versions by Joy Division and a cover version by Grace Jones. The essay explores the assertion that 'music can represent mental states directly, including those classified as illnesses or disabilities, without the mediation of language'. (Lerner and Straus, 2006, p8). Musical and extra-musical factors contribute to the process by which the song generates meaning and remains open to interpretation by disparate social groups and generations. I argue that Joy Division's various versions are inherently unstable and heighten the loss of control indicated in the lyrics. Conversely, Jones' version is musically stable. Her theatrical vocal delivery creates a distance between her and the often-harrowing lyrics.

this short chapter examines the period 1978-1980 in North West England (principally the Liverpool-Manchester-Sheffield axis) when analogue recording equipment was used alongside experimental digital 'toys'. This haphazard bricolage created a special aural result that contributed strongly to the 'post-punk' aesthetic.

Situated within the field of popular musicology, this article sets out to explore the formation of Joy Division’s characteristic sound along three lines of enquiry. Firstly, I investigate the contextual framework through which the tale of Joy Division was shaped focusing specifically on their music’s apparent relation to Manchester. Secondly, building on this contextual framework, I examine various aspects of the band’s production aesthetics. Producer Martin Hannett is often credited with the formation of their sound, and I consider the impact of his use of technology in the studio in relation to the band’s relatively roughshod live performances. Thirdly, I explore how characteristic sonic markers of production and performance can also be identified as performative strategies in Joy Division’s music. Although Hannett played a significant role in shaping the band’s sound, their individual performances as formally untrained instrumentalists who were apparently governed solely by a shared creative vision undoubtedly affects that sound as well. The overall aim of this article, then, is to display the complexity of this particular tale and especially the ways in which sonic markers of difference have played a major role in the formation of one of pop music history’s sturdiest tales.

La domanda è: la generazione messa in ginocchio a Genova quando si rialzerà per comporre la propria Blue Monday? [Ilaria Lucaroni] redazione 26 aprile 2016 ! " # [b]di Ilaria Lucaroni[/b] Improvvisamente una mattina ci si accorge che, a forza di togliere diritti, prospettive di vita e mantenere una scala sociale pressoché immobile, visto che i "figli di" perduti non lo saranno mai mentre gli altri, fuori dai network di conoscenze e amicizie, a fatica riusciranno a farsi strada, stai smantellando le gambe che dovrebbero sorreggere te un domani.

Cultural study on the re-appropriation of Joy Division in the definition of the alt-rock canon.
Corpus: musical reviews (2000-2016)
Language: Italian.
Document: power-point presentation.
Short conclusion: totemization of Ian Curtis, ambivalence and transversality of JD in  the definition of post-punk aestethics.

Like It Never Happened:  Faux Nostalgia and the Branding of Joy Division
Though existing as an active band for less than four years, Joy Division are arguably one of the most influential artists of the 20th century.  Yet much of the cache of Joy Division has been built upon a handful of carefully posed, mostly black and white images and two albums. These are hailed as modern masterpieces-standing for a set of values, ones that have been arguably imposed and projected onto the group via the vehicles of social media and the vacuum left by Curtis’s untimely demise.  Like It Never Happened:  Faux Nostalgia and the Branding of Joy Division examines not who Joy Division were, but what they have become within the 2.0 economy, contrasting the often romanticized and accepted attributes of the group within the current marketplace. 

The key elements of what is now considered ‘Joy Division,’ I will argue, have been transformed by mass production and replication, often stripped of the very ethos which have been posthumously splayed upon them, making the former symbols of outsider and maligned now little more than fashion statement and hipster posing. This idea is substantiated by the now inescapable Joy Division goods in stores such as Urban Outfitters and even the most manufactured of bands, One Direction, having numerous snaps circulated with members clad in ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ tops.

Is this new fascination with Joy Division and post-punk authentic, or just an illustration of cultural branded demise? Or is Joy Division just one of a lexicon of icons who have been only fulfilled their potential- socially, artistically and financially- in a post-economy?