Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures (2004)

A quick and dirty internet search does not yield much about Chris Ott, though there is a discernible scattered trail: a youtube channel, some reddit discussions, twitter threads though he no longer appears to be on twitter. To confuse matters, there is also a Chris Ott who plays the trombone. This Ott’s treatment of Joy Division’s first album is one of the first in the 33-1/3 series—#9. Ott was also a contributor to Pitchfork but there appears to be an acrimonious break there. His 33-1/3 deals less with Unknown Pleasures than with Joy Division and its origins, specifically Ian Curtis and his troubled life. Ott sounds like he is from Manchester and was there and aware of the band when they were active, but that might be the research talking. He goes into great detail on all the studio sessions and oddball releases that preceded and followed the album and even gets into Closer a little. I learned the most about Curtis and producer Martin Hannett. It's probably worth the time for any dedicated follower. I felt something was missing here but couldn’t put my finger on it. Ott seems to be speaking with authority from the inside, with direct quotes from band principals Bernard Sumner (I get the feeling Ott doesn’t like him somehow), Peter Hook, and Stephen Morris, plus insights from Curtis’s widow Deborah, which may have come from her memoir Touching From a Distance (now on my list to read), along with assorted studio hands and scenesters. In a way, Ott’s problems writing about Joy Division and Curtis—it’s obvious how much he appreciates them, but it often feels like he is holding back a little—may be similar to those of writing about Nirvana and Kurt Cobain. There’s a certain elephant in the room and it’s hard to know whether it’s better to notice it or ignore it. Among the things I learned about Curtis was how serious and debilitating his late-onset epilepsy was, how hemmed in he was by his life and circumstances. I haven’t read much Joy Division literature, so have little idea how much this contributes to or duplicates it. I was hoping for more about the album and not so much about adjacent releases in the time period, EPs and 7-inchers and whatnot. But probably because it is such an early entry in the series inevitably it’s going to suffer some from a lack of definition. It’s certainly worth looking into if you are a JD maniac, but I’m not sure how much it offers to more casual fans of the band or series. I think you might be better off spending the time listening to Unknown Pleasures a few more times.

In case the library is closed due to pandemic, which is over.

Closer (1980)

I have a distinct memory of someone somewhere writing about Joy Division and, when it came to their second and last album, portentously remarking, "The only question now was, closer to what?" It's a good question, as the album came out after Ian Curtis's suicide and bore further alarming and eloquent evidence of his state of mind. In many ways the titles by themselves paint the picture (though all songs are jointly credited to Ian Curtis, Peter Hook, Stephen Morris, and Bernard Sumner): "Atrocity Exhibition" (the album opener, featuring a tractor and Curtis repeating, "This is the way, step inside"). Then "Isolation," "Passover"—really, I'm just giving you the album sequence here. "Colony" is fourth. In a word association game, at this point, I would be saying "Kafka." It goes on. The prevailing vanity—it's not just Curtis, everyone is pitching in to make this work—is of the meditated gaze into the abyss (or "The Eternal," second-last song). "Closer to what?" indeed. At the same time, ever since I read some other wag asking how to pronounce the title, my brain has consistently flipped to the version with the "z" sound, as in "the last part of a performance, collection, or series" (and not "a person who is skilled at bringing a business transaction to a satisfactory conclusion"). We can make some guesses about how far these folks would have gone with Curtis—and we can make some guesses about how far Curtis could have ever gone—but somehow the history of what actually happened is about as far as I can imagine it. This feels like a signoff, a denouement, a finale—a closer, even if it's really just the end of the overture. The music and songs are dramatic but not sentimental in the same way as Unknown Pleasures. And it's not surprising that a band identity this close to the void could end up with someone swallowed into it.

Here's another weird thing for me about this album. You might think I am overly interested in morbid things, and that the death of an artist would find me plunging into the catalog, but in fact I tend to go the other way. I might spend a few days listening to music or inevitably hearing it via media in the gyrations of the moment, but generally I put things away after the event for a long time, and don't always get back to them. So it went with Closer. I finally got a copy at some point but rarely listened. I never thought it was that good, too lackluster or mannered or something, but also I felt uncomfortable listening to it. This went on so long I finally decided I must just not like it as much as Unknown Pleasures. But going back one more time turned out to be the charm as the album has finally sparked up for me pretty good. Once again it's a stacked concept product. The band is steadily improving—that's heard better on the live shows included in the later editions. Producer Martin Hannett is at the helm again and gives it a similar claustrophobic from-the-bottom-of-a-well buff. The cover art lives just as squarely in the humanities vein. Where Unknown Pleasures had looked to science, a vast universe, and the Enlightenment with its graphic representation of a pulsar, Closer ushers us into an Italian tomb, suggesting medieval darkness, with a potent grace emerging from the composition of the photo and sculptures. One album is looking up at the night sky, the other is looking into the moldy earth. One album is black, the other is white. There are a lot of binaries here—and a lot of balance as well. The vision is consistent. So is the quality. Again, it may be hard to imagine listening to them habitually, but both Unknown Pleasures and Closer are great albums.

Unknown Pleasures (1979)

Over the years the first album by Joy Division has somehow turned as cuddly as a teddy bear or a Coke in the history of rock, which is at least as remarkable a transformation as Ozzy Osbourne reinvented as a doddering papa reality TV show star. Example: the way the (wonderful and mysterious) pulsar cover art of Unknown Pleasures has been turned into a latter-day animated meme industry unto itself, including a pair of textured Doc Martens boots (also available in Power, Corruption & Lies and Technique models). Have they listened to the album? This relatively recent turn might be a result of a 2015 Scientific American article about the album cover, but what this tells us is that even Scientific American is on to Joy Division now. Even Scientific American. The question remains. Have they heard the music? When I think of it—because I don't actually listen to Joy Division that often, full disclosure—I often remember the music as "dreary." But put it on and you'll hear it's a bit more than that. It may be entertaining—it is entertaining—but it is also unnerving, not least because since singer Ian Curtis's shocking suicide in 1980, age 23, we have had the opportunity to view it the way we perhaps should, through the lens of a troubled life. We might have guessed in the first place, after all.

In a way I think both of these responses—the ongoing trivialization of the cover art by popular culture and my impulse to label the music in memory as dreary—are symptomatic and come from approximately the same place. Really, it's just not easy to engage this music on its terms and feel the horrors of Curtis's desperation, which are so visceral and so vividly represented in sound. Because the songs, and especially the production by Martin Hannett, are so good, it's hard to square this circle. You might even feel slightly foolish, or hipster-pretentious, sitting down to listen to it intentionally. Better always to keep things like this slightly buffoonish and at a distance. But Unknown Pleasures is pretty real. Joy Division was pretty real. As we learned, it's well beyond the harmless adolescent angst that is the calling card of popular rock production (from Chuck Berry to Aerosmith and beyond) and instead well into real adolescent angst, as inflected by heartless depression.

Music Complete (2015)

Caveats mea culpa: It's possible I have lost all ability to judge New Order releases after 1989's Technique. It and everything before, including especially the anthology Substance, are more or less fine. Everything after goes on a case-by-case basis, but my problem is I'm not sure I can discern any logic on my part beyond whim or mood. Republic was a disappointment, with only one or two good songs, but Get Ready was a happy and durable surprise, though not enough to keep me on the breadcrumb trail. I don't really know the intervening sirens albums—Waiting for the Sirens' Call from 2005 and Lost Sirens from 2013. Meanwhile, I also have a lot of regard for some of the solo forays, notably Electronic and the Other Two. Somehow Music Complete won me over right away. I've played it a lot and not just because of Iggy Pop's typically moving plaint on one song, "Stray Dog." I'm not sure an Iggy appearance has ever hurt a 21st-century album, except for his own. Is it the music I like on Music Complete, or is it the idea of liking the music, the idea that the band is still up to it at all? Dare I say, it's because the songs are better than usual? Does it even matter? Questions, questions. And then I'm just as sure I'm only overthinking when the Music Complete starts to play. The warmth that New Order uncovered in themselves ages ago as always serves to temper the chilled rhythms and grooves. There's a buoyant mood and energy to this set. It's a natural. Every play turns up a little more, the songs move this way and that as you get to know them, and you remember the melodies later, they haunt your brain—all the usual recognizable effects of good pop music. Take "Tutti Frutti" as a case study. Little Richard has nothing to do with it, but it does feature Elly Jackson of La Roux. The melody is sweet and poignant on the verses, with a soaring chorus. Yet I know it's familiar too—I suspect if I wanted to dig for it, I might find something quite a bit like it on an earlier song. Maybe you know it? In that way, then, it may objectively be characterized as derivative and fading. But I have never heard it that way—"Tutti Frutti," for one, is a tender, beautiful song as it stands. So is "Nothing But a Fool." The knack for a groove is not lost either, as heard especially on "People on the High Line," "The Game," and "Superheated."  Iggy and Jackson are not the only guests here—"Singularity" and "Unlearn This Hatred" are collaborations with Chemical Brother Tom Rowlands, and Brandon Flowers of the Killers appears on "Superheated." There are extended versions and remixes of all these songs too, no surprise, but so far I think the originals remain the best. I'd say Music Complete is a good one.

31. Joy Division, "Love Will Tear Us Apart" (1980)

(listen)

As epitaphs go, you're hard put to find many more apt ones to chisel onto the gravestone of Joy Division's much lamented and still missed Ian Curtis, who wrote this song with mates Peter Hook, Stephen Morris, and Bernard Sumner, who would go on—improbably, or so I thought for a long time—to become New Order (and please don't miss the Nazi thematics bridging the two). Curtis poured a lot of himself into this, somehow you just know it even if you don't know who he is or much about him. He even picked up a guitar to play a few chords. I have never found it as ruinously bleak as the first two albums, perhaps because I happened to acquire the single shortly after it was released and spent many weeks and months puzzling over it. As sonics, it strikes an almost impossible balance between robotic and organic, even as it brims with a sadness almost impossible to put one's finger on. It's also catchy as hell, with a melody that sticks good and hard. Often, when I find myself frustrated by something yet compelled anyway to continue worrying it—a particularly knotty anacrostic, say—I have found myself singing cheerily, "There's a taste in my mouth / As desperation takes hold," humming and even whistling. Maybe that's something about me. Joy Division occupies an interesting niche at this juncture, lo these many decades on, at once overrated and underrated. I don't like Closer the way I know so many others do, but I have often been intimate with Unknown Pleasures. And this, from title to tune to verse to chorus, has long been a stone favorite, perfect, and surprisingly so, for so many occasions.

49. Electronic, "Disappointed" (1992)

(listen)

This being one of those songs that may be found in multiple versions and mixes, it's probably necessary for me to say that I think I prefer the "Electronic Mix" (aka "Original Mix") as opposed to the "Single Mix"—though certainly either is superior to any others I know. But the former uses its extra 1:20 or so to get particularly good and lush. The song itself is virtually restricted to motifs and gestures, nothing concrete about it at all, but the mood does carry a good load of its own particularities, and the thing is just so beautiful when it swells up big. It's another Electronic song all draped in Pet Shop Boys finery, and I don't think it's too much of a stretch to call it their best running away. Keyboard washes tall as skyscrapers, chukka-chukka guitar that rides it up and down, Bee Gees-like sighing "ahhhs," a focused self-determination as it fully engages, and the bonbon operatics as it cascades into the chorus. "Disappointed, once more / Disillusioned, encore." I'm not, of course, "disappointed" myself, at least not with this lovely confection (of course I have been disappointed in love, why else rank something like this so high?). All that lovely candy-coated Gilbert O'Sullivan crap, great big wads of sweet self-pity and the colossal heaving sigh that accompanies the main declaration. It's basically "Alone Again (Naturally)" updated for a world that now includes a vaster array of sonic textures and machines that make beats. Compare and contrast: "I promise myself to treat myself / And visit a nearby tower / And climbing to the top / Throw myself off" vs. "From the sound of your voice, the promise you make / You're somebody I can believe in / Someone who won't leave me feeling..." Well, you can guess the rest. And that's about it. Except: over all too soon.

Raise the Pressure (1996)

To my surprise I'm prepared to call this second Electronic album the better of the first two. It's a surprise because I was actually quite fond of that first one in its time, and dismissed this in its as something of a disappointment. But somewhere along the line it really got its hooks in. The songs that work most on me here, such as "Out of My League" and "Second Nature" and "Time Can Tell," were not necessarily the attempts to find a hit—generally this follow-up never did nearly as well as the first. I'm certainly fond of the kickoff track, "Forbidden City," which eked into the UK top 20 and sets the terms for much of what's to come: sparkling production, self-conscious mid-'90s electronica flourishes subordinated to soft mood and charged atmosphere, and the soaring finery of gifted songwriters who just happen to be clicking better than anyone, even themselves, probably could have suspected. No Neil Tennant this time, just Johnny Marr and Bernard Sumner and their merry band of keyboardists (one of the latter, Karl Bartos, gets co-writing credit with Marr and Sumner on nearly half of the 13 tracks here). It's a long album, lasting over an hour, and came at a time when the traditional approaches to listening to an album were dying their last deaths. Thus it has always tended to work best for me on shuffle, where the sequencing is remarkably apt on the fly (the vacuous 44-second "Interlude" notwithstanding). In such fashion, it has wormed its way permanently into my heart. Listening to something like "Out of My League," floating in and out of its pleasures, with its plain-spun attack, its unfeigned innocence and aching joy, and its ability to insinuate so deeply, it's hard to connect back to the various alienations and disaffections of Joy Division and the Smiths, where these fine fellows find their origins. But there you have it. I have a lot of admiration and respect and love for that early groundbreaking work, of course, and in terms of iconoclasm it still has it all over the Electronic project. But I just view the Electronic project as more horizon-broadening, more wall-tearing-down, middle-aged perhaps but worthy in its own right. If this is selling out, I'm buying.

Electronic (1991)

Here's a super-group of another vintage, a collaboration between the Smiths' guitar figurehead Johnny Marr and New Order's man about melody Bernard Sumner (also a guitar player), with both Pet Shop Boys (but especially Neil Tennant) chipping in on a couple of numbers. The result is a reasonably pleasant, occasionally engaging almost-an-hour that spawned a few singles that kinda almost went over the top. In general, the sound tends more closely toward New Order than the Smiths, except when the Pet Shop Boys check in and drape their signature sound all over their main contribution, "The Patience of a Saint" (even the title sounds like PSB product). This was the first and only fruit of the Marr-Sumner collaboration for something like five years, though there was hardly a dearth of work from them otherwise. From the sound of it, everyone got along fine, but I'm not sure there's much spark. I should say, however, as a Pet Shop Boys fan, that I did welcome "Saint" at a point when the act was starting to stretch out three years at a time between albums, so that's something to take into account. (The best thing Tennant ever did with them, "Disappointed," would show up the following year as a single, and was even more welcome—Very not far off by then.) Those with a similar passion for New Order or for Johnny Marr generally might have had similar feelings. But I can't say this album has worn particularly well. As with another New Order side project, by the Other Two, it has its charms but they pale quickly. It's polite, chugs along with its keyboard beats and inflections and washes. Very pretty. Something to pop your fingers to here and there. Most tracks certainly worthy as fodder on mix tapes-cum-CDs, guaranteed to make friends with similar taste sit up and say, "Hey, what's that?" At one time these little promising collaborations seemed to be all over the place—Jack Frost, with the Church's Steve Kilbey and the Go-Betweens' Grant McLennan, was another one, proceeding with a similar kind of careful, cautiously successful vibe. For the most part they all seem now to work best as placeholders, even if they were probably never intended any such way. Thus, 20 years later, you might want to take this overall as a caveat.