Closer

According to the narrative, two young men from Salford, England formed Joy Division in 1976 after going to a Sex Pistols show.  Peter Hook played bass.  Bernard Sumner played guitar and keyboards.  They recruited Ian Curtis as their singer and lyricist, eventually settling on Stephen Morris to play drums. 

The band originally called themselves Warsaw, but later changed their name to Joy Division.  They took the name from 'House of Dolls', a novel about sex slaves who were kept in a wing of a Nazi concentration camp called "the joy division". 

To describe their music as dark would be an understatement.  This was in no small part due to the influence of Ian Curtis, a tragic young man who suffered from depression and epilepsy.  It was not uncommon for Curtis to have seizures during live performances.  Towards the end, his seizures became uncontrollable, and so on May 18, 1980, the night before the band was scheduled to leave for a tour of North America, Ian Curtis killed himself. 

'Closer' is the second and final studio album by Joy Division.  The other members of the band would go on to form New Order after Curtis' death.  I like New Order just fine as synth-pop bands go, but their music lacks the depth and the darkness that Curtis brought to Joy Division.

You can find the full album here or here




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