Joy Division
75 articles
Free articles
Joy Division: University Of London, London
Live Review by Paul Morley, New Musical Express, 16 February 1980
I DIDN'T KNOW which way to turn. In every corner of the second floor of the anonymous university building there seemed to be some group ...
List of articles in the library
Buzzcocks, Penetration, John Cooper Clarke, Warsaw: Electric Circus, Manchester
Live Review by Paul Morley, New Musical Express, 18 June 1977
THERE IS undoubtedly a great deal of refining and cleaning to be done on Buzzcocks' material before the album they can so definitely record comes ...
Live Review by Jon Savage, Sounds, 15 October 1977
Prime Manchester venue closes... Power cut at the Electric Circus ...
Nosebleeds, Snyde, Joy Division, V.2.: The Ritz, Manchester
Live Review by Paul Morley, New Musical Express, 3 June 1978
DROPPING INTO 1977 was 'easy'. ...
Joy Division: Band On The Wall, Manchester
Live Review by Paul Morley, New Musical Express, 9 September 1978
THOSE FAMILIAR with this young quartet. mainly through their excitable appearance on the "Short Circuit" pretty package, and to a lesser extent with their self ...
Joy Division: Band on the Wall, Manchester
Live Review by Mick Middles, Sounds, 16 September 1978
IT WAS during the unforgettable summer of '77 that I had my first encounter with Joy Division (then named Warsaw). Through a steamy Electric Circus ...
Joy Division: A short, pulsating feature on a small, pulsating band
Interview by Mick Middles, Sounds, 18 November 1978
THROB,THROB, THROB, THROB. "Hey Miss, a bottle of Newcastle please, what? Oh, a bottle of Pils then." THROB, THROB, THROB, THROB. ...
New Stirrings On The North-West Frontier
Report and Interview by Paul Morley, New Musical Express, 13 January 1979
The Underground sticks its Collective head overground to explain how the rest of the world went wrong. Please fasten your safety helmets now. Words: PAUL ...
Live Review by Chris Bohn, Melody Maker, 26 May 1979
FOUR DIVERSE samples of current Mancunian Factory products: dopey comedian John Dowie; a cute pop duo called Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark; A Certain Ratio ...
Joy Division: Unknown Pleasures (Factory Records Fact 10) *****
Review by Dave McCullough, Sounds, 14 July 1979
DEATH DISCO ...
Joy Division: Unknown Pleasures (Factory)
Review by Max Bell, New Musical Express, 14 July 1979
JUST WHEN the year's vitality was threatening to be expunged by a non-stop parade of rehashed fashions, 'ordinary geezers' with French Riviera yachts and the ...
Joy Division: Unknown Pleasures
Review by Jon Savage, Melody Maker, 21 July 1979
"To talk of life today is like talking of rope in the house of a hanged man." Where will it end? ...
Joy Division: The Factory, Russell Club, Manchester
Live Review by Mick Middles, Sounds, 28 July 1979
TOGETHERNESS IS a quality found in few bands. In these days of the inflated ego most rock outfits tend to thrive on the opposite. The Fall, ...
Live Review by Dave McCullough, Sounds, 4 August 1979
Manchester city fun ...
Report and Interview by Dave McCullough, Sounds, 11 August 1979
TRUTH, JUSTICE AND THE MANCUNIAN WAY — DAVE McCULLOUGH GETS NO JOY (INFORMATION-WISE) FROM JOY DIVISION ...
Joy Division: Take No Prisoners, Leave No Clues
Profile and Interview by Paul Rambali, New Musical Express, 11 August 1979
LET ME DRAW BACK the curtains on a probably wet and no doubt freezing night last winter. A mid-week night of no special significance, save ...
Joy Division, Teardrop Explodes, OMD, Echo & The Bunnymen et al: Leigh Rock Festival, Lancashire
Live Review by Mick Middles, Sounds, 8 September 1979
A movement with no name... and a festival with no people (But a 'staggering event' all the same, says our man Middles) ...
Live Review by Jon Savage, Melody Maker, 8 September 1979
Angst in an East Lancs wasteland ...
Joy Division, Pil et al: Futurama '79 Festival — Set The Controls For The Squalor Of Leeds
Live Review by Andy Gill, Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 15 September 1979
The World's First Science Fiction Music FestivalWords: Ian Penman and Andy Gill. Pix: Kevin Cummins ...
Factory Records: Food For Thought
Report by Mary Harron, Melody Maker, 29 September 1979
Lots of people thought that Operation Julie was a bit of an anachronism. Who, in the late Seventies, could be dropping all those tabs? It ...
The Buzzcocks, Joy Division: Mountford Hall, Liverpool
Live Review by Penny Kiley, Melody Maker, 12 October 1979
OF IMAGES AND IDOLS ...
Buzzcocks/Joy Division: Rainbow, London
Live Review by Chris Bohn, Melody Maker, 17 November 1979
ON CURRENT FORM, Joy Division should have been the best thing happening on Friday night, and the Buzzcocks camp knew it too. Consequently, they treated ...
Joy Division: University of London Union
Live Review by Chris Bohn, Melody Maker, 16 February 1980
AH, THE HORROR, the horror... where's Colonel Kurtz? Somehow the demented Brando figure is there, spiritually leading the new dance. Like him, today's purveyors have ...
Joy Division, A Certain Ratio: Osbourne Club, Manchester
Live Review by Mick Middles, Sounds, 1 March 1980
TO THE centre of the city in the night waiting for Joy Division. ...
Joy Division, The Royal Family, Crawling Chaos, Section 25: Moonlight Club, London
Live Review by Adam Sweeting, New Musical Express, 19 April 1980
THE 1980 FACTORY ACT ...
Interview by uncredited writer, ZigZag, May 1980
(This article was credited to "Worried, Preston". We have no idea who Worried, Preston is. If you do, please get in touch — RBP Ed) ...
Ian Curtis: The short goodbye....
Comment by Dave McCullough, Sounds, 31 May 1980
The last JOY DIVISION feature ...
Joy Division: From Safety To Where?
Comment by Jon Savage, Melody Maker, 14 June 1980
ABOUT MIDDAY on Sunday, May 18, Ian Curtis was found dead by his wife in the kitchen of his house in Macclesfield. Although the exact ...
Joy Division: University of London
Live Review by Dave Schulps, Trouser Press, July 1980
THERE IS NO joy in Joy Division. And no division either. At the University of London the band presented an hour of unrelenting, uncompromising bleakness; ...
Joy Division: Closer (Factory)
Review by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 19 July 1980
Closer to the edge ...
Phantom of the Factory — It's Martin Hannett! A legend in his own town!! Didsbury!!!
Report and Interview by Max Bell, New Musical Express, 19 July 1980
Bassist with Arnie Prole's Blues Band! Founding member of John Cooper Clarke's Curious Yellows! Close friend of Eric the Ferret! Producer of Spiral Scratch, Jilted ...
Joy Division: Closer (Factory Records FACT XXV)
Review by Paolo Hewitt, Melody Maker, 26 July 1980
FROM THE beginning we were always dealing with something special. Joy Division, by the very nature of their set up, could never have been just ...
Retrospective by Mick Middles, The Face, November 1980
JOY DIVISION began life in romantically seedy surroundings. In late 1977, as the initial push of the new wave began to soften, hundreds of imitation ...
Letter from Britain: The Exploding Psychedelic Inevitable
Column by Penny Valentine, Creem, November 1980
"YOU CRY OUT in your sleep/And all my failings exposed," mourns Ian Curtis on the extraordinary, emotional 'Love Will Tear Us Apart'. This song, currently ...
Live Review by Paul Morley, New Musical Express, 14 February 1981
THE HAUNTING OF HEAVEN ...
Rough Trade and Factory: Business Brains in Action!
Interview by Roy Trakin, New York Rocker, July 1981
Independent Thoughts From Rough Trade's Geoff Travis And Factory's Tony Wilson ...
The Doors and Joy Division: 2 Dead Bands Still Going Strong
Essay by Jim Sullivan, The Boston Globe, 6 September 1981
TWO OF the most intriguing rock 'n' roll bands of the '80s exist on the airwaves, on vinyl and in the consciousness of fans in ...
Review by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 17 October 1981
FEATURING: 'Ice Age', 'Walked In Line' and The Kill' (from '77 sessions), 'Glass' (from Factory Sampler) 'Exercise One' and The Sound Of Music' (John Peel sessions), ...
Interview by Dave McCullough, Sounds, 12 June 1982
Dave McCullough corresponds with Factory boss TONY WILSON. ...
Overview by Barney Hoskyns, New Musical Express, 12 January 1985
From the raw to the pure, from the sublime to the meticulous — BARNEY HOSKYNS sings the praises of 24 of music's most glorious voices. ...
Interview by Len Brown, New Musical Express, 19 May 1990
"FUNNY. I WAS IN the car with Barney the other day and I just hit Unknown Pleasures into the CD. And Barney shouted, 'Get that ...
Anthony Wilson: Renaissance Manc
Interview by Stuart Maconie, New Musical Express, 30 November 1991
FACTORY: aloof, elegant, misunderstood Mancunian home of Joy Division, New Order, Happy Mondays, possibly the coolest record label in the world — but there are ...
An Interview with Martin Hannett, 29th May 1989
Interview by Jon Savage, Touch-Vagabond, 1992
JS: How did you come across Joy Division? ...
Report by Paul Lester, Melody Maker, 5 December 1992
FACTORY RECORDS, arguably the most influential record label of the Eighties, fell into the hands of the Receiver last week — after months of speculation ...
Joy Division: Someone Take These Dreams Away
Retrospective and Interview by Jon Savage, MOJO, July 1994
HERE ARE THE young men, a weight on their shouldersHere are the young men, well where have they been?We knocked on the doors of hell's ...
Deborah Curtis: Touching From A Distance: Ian Curtis And Joy Division (Faber & Faber)
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, June 1995
AS THE JOURNALIST and pop historian Jon Savage Suggests in his foreword, for one narrowly defined sub-generation, Ian Curtis's suicide was a first personal encounter ...
Interview by Len Brown, Q, June 1995
Fifteen years after he hanged himself in their Macclesfield kitchen, Joy Division leader Ian Curtis has been "outed" by his widow, Deborah, as an ill-tempered, ...
Review by Mark Cooper, MOJO, August 1995
WHEN JOY DIVISION'S UNKNOWN PLEASURES was released in June, 1979, it sounded like it came from another planet. Of course, it's easy now to historicise ...
Torn Apart: Joy Division and the death of Ian Curtis
Retrospective and Interview by Dave Simpson, Uncut, December 1997
Joy Division were the most crucial of all the post-punk bands. But, on the eve of their first US tour, lead singer Ian Curtis committed ...
Review by David Stubbs, Uncut, January 1998
JOY DIVISION were the last British band who mattered, for whom something was truly the matter. Forget Oasis' last-gasp efforts to bring the rock community ...
Review by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, January 1998
The complete JD story, from Warsaw to 'Atmosphere', compiled by the band’s surviving members with Jon Savage and including dozens of outtakes, unreleased demos, and ...
Joy Division: The Making Of Unknown Pleasures
Retrospective and Interview by Johnny Black, Q, November 1998
Joy Division settle into 10cc's Strawberry Studios in Stockport to record one of the greatest albums of the 70s. But Ian Curtis has just discovered ...
Profile by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, August 2000
IAN CURTIS has amassed more disciples since his death 20 years ago than he ever attracted as singer with Manchester post-punk legends Joy Division. ...
Joy Division: Les Bains Douches 18 December 1979
Review by Keith Cameron, MOJO, June 2001
Twenty-one years ago, Paris heard the primal scream. Official release of famous bootlegged Paris concert. Anthony Wilson contributes, typically (and justifiably) hyperbolic sleevenotes. ...
24 Hour Party People: directed by Michael Winterbottom
Review by Djuna Parnes, Rock's Backpages, May 2002
MUCH TO MY surprise, this self-serving cinematic essay about and around Anthony H. Wilson of Factory and Haçienda fame is a resounding success. It's extremely ...
Adventures in Hi-Fi: Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures
Retrospective by John McCready, MOJO, June 2003
ALREADY MAKING the transition from off-the-peg punk to something harder and darker, Joy Division were on the verge of great things in 1979. ...
Deborah Curtis: "I was just besotted"
Retrospective and Interview by Laura Barton, The Guardian, 11 April 2005
Twenty-five years ago, Ian Curtis, lead singer of Joy Division, killed himself. His wife Deborah talks to Laura Barton about getting over him, obsessive fans ...
Book Excerpt by Mick Middles, Linsday Reade, Torn Apart: The Life of Ian Curtis (Omnibus Press), 2006
The authors of this new biography are uniquely qualified to reveal the extraordinary events surrounding the life and death of Ian Curtis. Manchester-based Mick Middles was ...
Various Artists: Zero - A Martin Hannett Story 1977-1991
Review by Jon Savage, MOJO, May 2006
The post-punk Phil Spector lives on again on a (single CD) retrospective that reveals him to be a producer both before his time and ahead ...
Retrospective by Jon Savage, MOJO, February 2007
Jon Savage returns to the claustrophobic urban landscape of post-punk northern England to re-examine the soul-scorching singular vision of the band's late vocalist, Ian Curtis, ...
Closer Still: An Interview with Control director Anton Corbijn
Interview by Ken Scrudato, Filter, September 2007
THE ESSENCE OF DEATH, much like that of war, rests in how it has irreparably changed those left to grapple with its aftermath. Its effects ...
Joy Division: Music to Brood by, Desolate and Stark
Retrospective by Simon Reynolds, The New York Times, 7 October 2007
THE MYSTIQUE surrounding Joy Division has always been way out of proportion to its record sales. Far bigger bands, like the Clash and Pink Floyd, ...
Torn Apart: The Legend Of Joy Division
Retrospective and Interview by Paul Lester, Uncut, November 2007
One of Britain's most influential bands is now the subject of a compelling new film. Paul Lester talks to Peter Hook, Stephen Morris and Bernard ...
Music books: the most debauched tales of rock'n'roll excess
Book Review by Ben Thompson, The Independent, 16 December 2007
HOW BETTER to salve the pangs of remorse induced by a season of over-indulgence than by voraciously consuming the reminiscences of those whose lifestyles make ...
Joy Division: The Joy Division Industry
Comment by Chris Roberts, The Quietus, 10 April 2008
More offcuts from the Factory ...
The Right Way To Remember Joy Division
Essay by Jude Rogers, The Quietus, 9 July 2009
As Unknown Pleasures reaches its 30th anniversary, Jude Rogers looks behind the commercialisation and Paul Morley's jowls at Joy Division's eternal truth ...
Kevin Cummins: Manchester – Looking For The Light Through The Pouring Rain (Faber & Faber)
Book Review by Keith Cameron, Q, October 2009
Manc-rock, from punk to Oasis, by legendary lensman. ...
Joy Division: "Ian was a normal, happy guy. We didn't know he was approaching his breaking point…"
Retrospective and Interview by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, March 2010
Thirty years ago, Joy Division arrived in London. Their mission: to escape Manchester, have a laugh and make a classic second album. Now, Bernard Sumner, ...
Joy Division: Torn Apart: The Life of Ian Curtis by Mick Middles and Lindsay Reade
Book Review by Leyla Sanai, Rock's Backpages, June 2010
WITH THE thirtieth anniversary of Ian Curtis's suicide (he killed himself on May 18th 1980) just gone, enough time had passed for me to want ...
Review by Mike Diver, bbc.co.uk, 6 December 2010
AVAILABLE AS EITHER a download (plus video content) or as a limited-edition vinyl box set, collecting 10 seven-inch singles and featuring art from Factory co-founder ...
"You Can't Escape Your Influences" Mark Lanegan's Favourite Albums
Interview by Julian Marszalek, The Quietus, 26 January 2012
In one of our best Baker's Dozens yet, Mark Lanegan talks Julian Marszalek through the most-played discs in his collection. ...
Bassists: Let's Stick Together
Overview by James Medd, The Word, February 2012
They are "the glue" that cements the music, the mysterious put-upon souls plying their crucial trade in a cloud of dry ice by the drum-riser. ...
Peter Hook: Unknown Pleasures – Inside Joy Division
Book Review by Andy Beckett, The Guardian, 19 September 2012
Andy Beckett on a raw, surprising account of the classic post-punk band ...
Manna for Fans: The history of the hidden track in music
Retrospective by Jude Rogers, The Guardian, 25 January 2015
From inner groove loops to absurd backmasking, artists have long found ways to embed secret songs, cryptic writings and coded messages in their albums. ...
Jon Savage: This Searing Light, the Sun and Everything Else – Joy Division, the Oral History (Faber)
Book Review by Clinton Heylin, The Spectator, 8 June 2019
The post-punk band were great performers. But they sold very few records, and their lead singer committed suicide aged 23 ...
see also Monaco
see also New Order
back to LIBRARY
