"DECADES" JOY DIVISION (1980)

You can get off to a fast start. You can sustain your opener with the main course, not filler. But can you end on a high note? Sometimes I wonder if recording a strong closer is the most difficult thing to pull off when it comes to album rock. When it comes to the cream of the crop in music, I can think of more strong openers than strong closers. Nonetheless, I still have my favorites which I’ll be featuring on Mental Jukebox all month.

Few bands can be described as monumental. But I’ll go ahead and say that Joy Division is truly monumental as pioneers and influencers. They were simply doing things no one else was doing. And no one else sounded like Joy Division. Much credit, of course, goes to the irreplaceable Ian Curtis. His tortured, almost catatonic vocals crawled under your skin. There are many monumental tracks in the Joy Division canon, and one of the premier examples is the closer to Closer. There’s a tactile quality about “Decades” that makes it stand out from all the other JD tracks.

Every musical component on “Decades” feels incredibly tactile, a huge credit to Martin Hannett. I don’t love everything he produced for the band, but I think he totally nailed this closing track. The synthesizer chords are like glass shards. The bass line isn’t your typical riff from Hooky, but it works as the listener feels the pluck of every note. The drum intro kicks off eerily similar to “She’s Lost Control”, only here Morris switches into a heavier, rock-like drum part at the 4:35 mark. But the hero once again is Ian. His voice sounds like a ghost that refuses to leave the premises.

“Each ritual showed up the door for our wanderings, Open then shut, then slammed in our face.”

"SHE'S LOST CONTROL" JOY DIVISION (1979)

The decade in which I was born has given me a strange perspective on its music. I discovered pretty much all of the 70’s sounds – from prog rock to punk to disco – well after they came into the world. It wasn’t until the late 80’s that I discovered what I was missing. I would characterize the decade as one where budding genres leaped off their inspiration pads and came to fruition. For the month of February, Mental Jukebox will feature some of these gems with a different 70’s song each day. #28DaysOf70sSongs

The album title Unknown Pleasures is an appropriate one. The record is full of sounds and explorations never heard before. Ian Curtis, Bernard Sumner, Hooky and Stephen Morris all did things on it that were truly inventive and inspirational for bands and instrumentalists, even still today. One of the more well known tracks, “She’s Lost Control”, was infectious, but far from accessible — and that’s what I love most about it.

There’s something strangely addictive about the song. It starts with an unusual drum part from Stephen Morris, which feels deliberately industrial. In the film biopic Control, Morris is seen spraying an aerosol can into the mic to manufacture the signature sound. Then things get even weirder with Hooky’s mesmerizing bass line played way up high on the neck. The oddness continues as Curtis stumbles in singing about a woman who suffers from epileptic seizures — and it seems he’s having one himself as he sings it. This leaves us with Bernard Sumner who’s busy carving out a grating riff that’s lower than Hooky’s bass line. It’s a strange composition that I can’t seem to stop listening to once I start.

“Confusion in her eyes that says it all. She's lost control.”

"CEREMONY" JOY DIVISION (1980)

Pick four songs from any band and you can tell a lot about their sound. This summer, I’m featuring #RockBlocks, four picks from bands across various genres. They might be wildly different from each other, but what binds them together is the fact that they’re all a part of my life soundtrack.

As one of the last Joy Division songs written by Ian Curtis, “Ceremony” always felt less like a final statement to me, and more like an open-ended question: What if Curtis was still alive today? What if the Joy Division journey carried on? I believe “Ceremony” gives us a glimpse into what that world could’ve looked like, in all its raw, unpolished glory.

“Ceremony” started and ended heavy on the guitars. These were iconic, scorching riffs from Bernard Sumner, and definitely not indicative of the synth-led musical direction that would take shape in the form of New Order. But unlike a good portion of the Joy Division canon, the mood of the melody was in direct contrast with the theme of the lyrics — a dynamic that would later be adopted by The Smiths and other bands. Still atmospheric and edgy, it showed that post punk didn’t have to be characterized by a single emotion or mood. Just like life.

“Heaven knows, it's got to be this time.”

"LOVE WILL TEAR US APART" JOY DIVISION (1980)

Pick four songs from any band and you can tell a lot about their sound. This summer, I’m featuring #RockBlocks, four picks from bands across various genres. They might be wildly different from each other, but what binds them together is the fact that they’re all a part of my life soundtrack.

When I first started listening to Long Island’s WDRE, the band Joy Division was revered, adored and celebrated. They didn’t get the amount of airplay that other artists like The Smiths, The Cure or Depeche Mode achieved. But they certainly got more respect. They were, in many ways, viewed as the elder statesmen. They made a huge impact and helped shape the sound of many bands in their shortlived years. But this band wouldn’t have commanded the attention it deserved if it weren’t for “Love Will Tear Us Apart”. For critics and fans alike, this was the gateway song that introduced us to the rest of the Joy Division canon.

If you want to know the difference between punk and post punk, all you have to do is listen to “Love Will Tear Us Apart”. I think this one song helped define a new genre. Gone was the anger. Gone were the over-simplistic chord progressions. Gone was the rebellion. In came a flood of feelings — sadness, regret and misery — along with an instrumentation that was more atmospheric than sonic. The genius of “Love Will Tear Us Apart” isn’t that it’s simply a remarkable new sound. It also showed us a new way to express ourselves that no one else was doing with music.

“And we're changing our ways, taking different roads. Love, love will tear us apart again.”

"GLASS" JOY DIVISION (1978)

Pick four songs from any band and you can tell a lot about their sound. This summer, I’m featuring #RockBlocks, four picks from bands across various genres. They might be wildly different from each other, but what binds them together is the fact that they’re all a part of my life soundtrack.

In three years, Joy Division did more than what most bands accomplish over decades. Because the amount of recordings just isn’t much, it kind of forces listeners to pore through familiar tracks over and over again, discovering new wrinkles and things to admire about the band. One such exercise is exploring the lesser heralded Still album, a compilation of songs from the band’s beginnings to the death of Ian Curtis. “Glass”, in particular, is as close as you can get to a Joy Division deep cut without delving into some of those inaudible concert recordings that have been circulating.

For me, this is a song that has gotten better with time. It has all the markings of not just post punk, but striking resemblances to the post punk revival scene of the early 2000s. Interpol has often been cited as one such band largely influenced by Joy Division. After the dark torment of the lyrics and the eerie Ian Curtis-like baritone drone that we hear in Paul Banks’ voice, the similarities between the two bands end for the most part. But when I play “Glass” again, I hear Interpol all over it — from Kessler’s grating riffs to Fogarino’s rhythmic barrage. “Glass” is a window into one of New York City’s greatest music eras.

“Hearts fail. Young hearts fail.”

"SHE'S LOST CONTROL" JOY DIVISION (1979)

Pick four songs from any band and you can tell a lot about their sound. This summer, I’m featuring #RockBlocks, four picks from bands across various genres. They might be wildly different from each other, but what binds them together is the fact that they’re all a part of my life soundtrack.

The album title Unknown Pleasures is an appropriate one. The record is full of sounds and explorations never heard before. Ian Curtis, Bernard Sumner, Hooky and Stephen Morris all did things on it that were truly inventive and inspirational for bands and instrumentalists, even still today. One of the more well known tracks, “She’s Lost Control”, was infectious, but far from accessible — and that’s what I love most about it.

There’s something strangely addictive about the song. It starts with an unusual drum part from Stephen Morris, which feels deliberately industrial. In the film biopic Control, Morris is seen spraying an aerosol can into the mic to manufacture the signature sound. Then things get even weirder with Hooky’s mesmerizing bass line played way up high on the neck. The oddness continues as Curtis stumbles in singing about a woman who suffers from epileptic seizures — and it seems he’s having one himself as he sings it. This leaves us with Bernard Sumner who’s busy carving out a grating riff that’s lower than Hooky’s bass line. It’s a strange composition that I can’t seem to stop listening to once I start.

“And she gave away the secrets of her past and said ‘I've lost control again.’”

"ATMOSPHERE" JOY DIVISION (1980)

It’s the short-lived years of Joy Division that has given me a long-lasting infatuation with “Atmosphere”. With the majority of the band’s catalog firmly bathed in raw sound and emotion, the delicate departure of “Atmosphere” felt like the beginnings of a Joy Division that never had a chance to blossom. Instead, we’re left with one of the band’s most brilliantly produced tracks. It somehow sounds like Ian Curtis’ suicide note and a posthumous imparting of wisdom, all in the same breath.

“Abandoned too soon. Set down with due care. Don't walk away in silence. Don't walk away.”