Joy Division

The Best Of

London Records – 2008

I’ve never been a big fan of Joy Division. I just know a few of their brilliant songs like “Digital”, “Transmission” and of course “Love Will Tear Us Apart”. Last year the long awaited biopic from Anton Corbijn about these brilliant 4 pieces from Manchester was released. Somehow it touched me. Life was never uncomplicated, especially for Ian. Though, the band capture every moment of it like a small victory. The music of Joy Division will never be a happy go lucky tune, but somehow deep under their monochrome sound, it makes you understand, what life is all about.

I just bought this compilation today, and I think nothing describes the music of Joy Division better than what I read in its sleeve notes, so it won’t make a sense trying to think better words to describe their music. Following are some parts of the sleeve note, and the words will tell you everything you want to know, hear and feel about Joy Division. This is the answer you are looking for. This is Joy Division.

Answers

Some answers to some questions

because it’s necessary to force a coherence on the scene that it didn’t necessarily have

because there was no philosophical core to it

because it wasn’t all just goofiness

because of the relationship between memory and the unfolding time

because of the connection between the order of things and the strange intersection of events in the world

because cultural underground develop in the void left by abdication of an official culture

because of rock music’s sheer ubiquity

because the urge to transform one’s appearance, to dance outdoors, to mock the powerful and embrace perfect strangers is not easy to suppress

because of what happens if you try and make the most of each day in life

because some things are remembered with clarity and some things are not

because we are all egotists who allow our feelings to dominate our lives

because we pay more attention to some things than to others

because memory is deceptive

because it is coloured by the events of today

because the threat of violence is very close to us all

because life is a means of extracting fiction

because mundane incidents can often be elevated to fable

because history is man made

because each life makes its myths

because myths have a force that can never be entirely tamed by ironic aesthetic contemplation

because they found their form and hit their stride

because of the relationship between the world of the imagination and the real world

because the group made an extraordinary amount of noise as if that was the only way to grasp the ungraspable

because no-one tells the story if there is no story

because memory is an internal rumour

because music isn’t just what you hear or what you listen to but everything that happens

because things moved forward one dull and/or exciting day at a time until time ran out

because we can’t see other people thoughts

because we like to know a lot that we aren’t told

because freedom which on this earth can be bought with a thousand of the hardest sacrifice must be enjoyed unrestrictedly in it fullness without any kind of programmatic calculation as long as it lasts

because the thriving city is just a few miles away from almost barren landscape

because a group of locals all helped each other and got in each other’s way

because time damages the memory and memory burns into time

because in a word, Novelty, even at the risk of some vagueness

because people looked back at the way things happened as if they had happened exactly as remembered

because of the modernist impulse of unrestraint had taken over popular thought and style

because a fact is a fact

because of an inscrutable combination of audacity and innocence

because some of this in some way has to be provisionally explained so that it might not dwell forever in the distant margins of fading appreciation

because it came to pass

because if life is not worth living songs are not worth singing

because blankness and minimalism are balms poured upon our overused optical nerves and overcrowded brain cells

because we all feel the same grief when someone is in mourning

because the source of information was permanently deficient

because the world carries weight and always weighs the same

because we need someone to explain to us what happened

because clouds came and went without thunder and lightning

because our lives, stripped of their padding and numbness and habit do appear horrific, flickering and absurd

because only the fear of life and death could beguile him to find the slightest meaning

because we all live in dream worlds

because we remember when we were young

because the helpless dead tend to be visited by the sentimental and not necessarily profitless, exertions of the living

because frozen memories gleam amid the blackness of loss

because of the music

Paul Morley 070208: adapted from chapters LIV and LXII of Piece by Piece: Writing about Joy Division 1977 – 2007 (Plexus Publishing)