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1[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/5dadbca85c5e1_5.png]]
2[[caption-width-right:350:Here are the young men: Joy Division circa 1979.[[note]]From left to right: Stephen Morris, Peter Hook, Bernard Sumner/Albrecht, Ian Curtis.[[/note]]]]
3[floatboxright:
4+Influences: Music/DavidBowie, Music/TheDoors, Music/SexPistols, Music/TheStooges, Music/IggyPop, Music/{{MC5}}, Music/VelvetUnderground, Music/{{Can}}, Music/MarcBolan, Music/VanDerGraafGenerator, Music/{{Kraftwerk}}, Music/RoxyMusic, Music/TalkingHeads, Music/ThrobbingGristle, Music/SiouxsieAndTheBanshees
5]
6[floatboxright:
7+Influenced: Music/{{The Cure|Band}}, Music/TheSmiths, Music/TalkingHeads, Music/{{U2}}, Music/{{Radiohead}}, Music/PetShopBoys, Music/DepecheMode, Music/TheJesusAndMaryChain, Music/TheBirthdayParty, Music/NickCave, Music/{{Moby}}, Music/TenThousandManiacs, Music/ArcadeFire, Music/JanesAddiction, Music/TheSmashingPumpkins, Music/TVOnTheRadio, Music/HenryRollins, Music/CelticFrost, Music/{{Interpol}}, Music/{{Editors}}, Music/TearsForFears, Music/GeorgeMichael
8]
9
10->''"When routine bites hard and ambitions are low''
11->''And resentment rides high but emotions won't grow''
12->''And we're changing our ways, taking different road''
13->''Then love, love will tear us apart again."''
14-->-- '''"Love Will Tear Us Apart"'''
15
16A well-known [[UsefulNotes/{{Britain}} English]] PostPunk band, Joy Division formed after guitarist Bernard Sumner and bassist Peter Hook attended a Music/SexPistols concert in Manchester on 4 June 1976 and were inspired to form a band. The additions of vocalist Ian Curtis and drummer Stephen Morris completed the line-up. Initially named Warsaw (under which name they recorded an unreleased album, later bootlegged), the band changed its name to Joy Division in late 1977, which got them in trouble at first because of its fascist overtones.
17
18As Joy Division, they recorded an EP which was basically UsefulNotes/{{punk}} with literary lyrics. This EP and playing around Manchester brought the group to the attention of Tony Wilson, and they joined his record label Creator/FactoryRecords. After a month in the studio with producer Martin Hannett, who completely changed their sound, their debut album ''Music/UnknownPleasures'' was released in 1979 to critical acclaim.
19
20However, the relentless touring negatively affected the band. Ian Curtis had epilepsy, and sometimes experienced seizures during concerts, leading to their cancellation. His seizures were getting worse as the band continued touring, but he pushed himself to the point of exhaustion, as the band needed to tour to become better-known in the fairly exclusive music scene of the 1970s. He concealed the extent of his disability until the breaking point. His lack of sleep, alcohol abuse, and collapsing marriage only added to his severe depression; he took his own life on 18 May 1980 (supposedly after watching ''Film/{{Stroszek}}'' on TV and listening to Music/IggyPop's ''Music/TheIdiot''). The band's second and final album ''Music/{{Closer}}'' was released two months later to both critical and commercial success, and is widely seen as their masterpiece. The band was a key influence on AlternativeRock on both sides of UsefulNotes/ThePond over the next few decades.
21
22Since they had a made a pact to change their name if anyone left, the rest of the band members renamed themselves Music/NewOrder, alongside Morris' girlfriend (now wife), keyboardist and guitarist Gillian Gilbert, who helped formulate their new sound.
23
24The band are portrayed by actors in the movies ''Film/TwentyFourHourPartyPeople'' and ''Film/{{Control}}.'' The former is a {{biopic}} of Factory Records head Tony Wilson, with Joy Division playing a major role, along with their manager Rob Gretton, in the first part of the film, with some remaining members throughout the second act as New Order personnel. The latter is a biopic of Ian Curtis himself, directed by photographer Creator/AntonCorbijn, who often worked with the band during their early years, and directed the music video for the 1988 reissue of "Atmosphere".
25----
26
27!! Principal Members (Founding members in '''bold'''):
28
29* '''Ian Curtis''' - Lead vocals, guitar, melodica (1976–80, died 1980)
30* '''[[Music/NewOrder Peter Hook]]''' - Bass, backing and lead vocals, guitar (1976–80)
31* '''[[Music/NewOrder Stephen Morris]]''' - Drums, percussion (1976–80)
32* '''[[Music/NewOrder Bernard Sumner]]''' - Guitar, keyboard, synthesizer, bass (1976–80)
33----
34
35!! Discography:
36!!! Studio albums and [=EPs=]:
37
38* 1978 - ''An Ideal for Living'' EP
39* 1979 - ''Music/UnknownPleasures''
40* 1980 - ''Music/{{Closer}}''
41
42!!! Compilations
43* 1981 - ''Still'' [[note]] First half an odds and ends compilation. [[/note]]
44* 1988 - ''[[Music/SubstanceJoyDivisionAlbum Substance]]'' [[note]] Not to be confused with the 1987 Music/NewOrder [[Music/SubstanceNewOrderAlbum compilation]] of the same name; a good number of outlets refer to the New Order album as ''Substance 1987'' (after the design of its cover art) specifically to distinguish the two albums. [[/note]]
45* 1990 - ''The Peel Sessions''
46* 1991 - ''1977-1980'' BoxedSet[[note]]Japan-exclusive; collects the band's two studio albums plus ''Still'', ''Substance'', and the "Atmosphere"/"She's Lost Control" single[[/note]]
47* 1995 - ''Permanent''
48* 1997 - ''Heart and Soul'' BoxedSet[[note]]Released in the US in 2001[[/note]]
49* 2000 - ''The Complete BBC Recordings''
50* 2007 - ''Martin Hannett's Personal Mixes''
51* 2008 - ''The Best of Joy Division''
52* 2011 - ''Total: From Joy Division to New Order''[[note]]Retrospective compilation; includes both Joy Division and Music/NewOrder material[[/note]]
53
54!!! Live Albums:
55* 1981 - ''Still'' [[note]] Second half a live recording. [[/note]]
56* 1999 - ''Preston 28 February 1980''
57* 2001 - ''Les Bains Douches 18 December 1979''
58* 2001 - ''Fractured Box''
59* 2004 - ''Re-fractured Box''
60* 2007 - ''The Factory, Manchester Live 13 July 1979''[[note]]Exclusive to the collector's edition re-release of ''Unknown Pleasures''[[/note]]
61* 2007 - ''University of London Union Live 8 February 1980''[[note]]Exclusive to the collector's edition re-release of ''Closer''[[/note]]
62* 2007 - ''Town Hall, High Wycombe Live 20 February 1980''[[note]]Exclusive to the collector's edition re-release of ''Still''[[/note]]
63
64!!! Non-Album Singles:
65
66* 1979 - "Transmission" / "Novelty"
67* 1980 - "Atmosphere" / "Dead Souls"[[note]]Reissued later in 1980 and 1988; the 1980 reissue features an archival re-recording of "She's Lost Control" as the B-side, while the 1988 reissue features "The Only Mistake" on 7" copies, "The Only Mistake" & "Sound of Music" on 12" copies, and "Transmission (Live)" & "Love Will Tear us Apart" on CD copies[[/note]]
68* 1980 - "Komakino" / "Incubation" / "As You Said"
69* 1980 - "Love Will Tear Us Apart" / "These Days"
70* 2011 - "Ceremony" / "In a Lonely Place"[[note]]Record Store Day-exclusive release of demos recorded before Ian Curtis' death, backed with the Music/NewOrder versions[[/note]]
71----
72
73!! ''Dead Tropes'':
74
75* AllPartOfTheShow: Curtis' on-stage seizures were mistaken for his frenetic dancing style at first. After it was known he had epilepsy, fans would show up sometimes ''hoping'' he would go into a seizure during shows, which Ian alludes to in the opening lines of "The Atrocity Exhibition": "''For entertainment they watch his body twist / Behind his eyes he says, 'I still exist.'''"
76* TheBandMinusTheFace: Music/NewOrder. {{Averted|Trope}} thanks to the band's success, although literally true as in ''New Order'', Gillian was on the keyboards, not vocals.
77* BoxedSet: Three are known to exist.
78** The first is ''1977-1980'', a [[NoExportForYou Japan-exclusive]] set released in 1990 compiling the band's two studio albums, the ''Still'' and ''Substance'' compilations, and a CD version of the "Atmosphere"/"She's Lost Control" single, all uncompressed and sourced from the original master tapes. Because all other CD releases of Joy Division's material is sourced from second-generation copies and/or [[LoudnessWar noticeably brickwalled]], this set is considered a holy grail among Joy Division fans.
79** The second box set is ''Heart and Soul'', a 1997 [[LateExportForYou (issued stateside by Rhino in 2001)]] compilation of every single Joy Division recording that London Records could find in the vaults at the time, properly remastered and presented as a sort of retrospective of the band. It is rather notable for being one of only two official sources for the band's final recording, a May 14, 1980 studio rehearsal of "Ceremony" (the other official source, for those wondering, is a vinyl release of the Music/NewOrder and Joy Division versions of both "Ceremony" and "In a Lonely Place", issued exclusively for Record Store Day 2011).
80** The third box set is the ''Fractured Box'' from 2001, which compiles the ''Preston 28 February 1980'' and ''Les Bains Douches 18 December 1979'' live albums in a single package; this set got a re-release in 2004 as the ''Re-fractured Box'', with some extra tidbits added in.
81* BreatherEpisode: "Transmission" is easily their lightest song. It’s up-tempo, jaunty, and doesn’t have any LyricalDissonance.
82* CoverVersion: [[Music/WhiteLightWhiteHeat "Sister Ray"]] by The Music/VelvetUnderground, on ''Still''.
83* DarkerAndEdgier: Martin Hannett turned a thudding punk band into something remarkable, with the same songs. Compare, for instance, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBE67snG9RU the original version]] of "Transmission" to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kx3EqNYQklg the version]] after Hannett got his hands on it.
84* DeliberatelyMonochrome: All of the band's official photos were taken by photographer Anton Corbjin, who is so fond of this trope that it can be surprising to see a picture of Ian in ''colour''. This even extends to Ian's [[Film/{{Control}} 2007 biopic]], which Corbjin directed.
85* DenOfIniquity: Each studio album proper had a song describing one: "Day of the Lords" on ''Music/UnknownPleasures'', and "Atrocity Exhibition" on ''Music/{{Closer}}'' (a ShoutOut to ''J.G. Ballard'').
86* DistinctDoubleAlbum: The first disc on ''Still'' is a rarities album with the exception of a live cover of the Music/VelvetUnderground's "Sister Ray", while the second contains the band's final live show.
87* DreadfulMusician: Bernard Sumner admitted that the band members were these in the early days. Peter Hook noted in his book ''Unknown Pleasures'' that he played bass out of key on more than one occasion, but that fans accepted it. Somewhat averted with Stephen Morris, who the band recruited on the basis of him being trained as a jazz drummer (and indeed, his parts on songs like "Transmission" are widely celebrated).
88* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: The Warsaw recordings show Joy Division to be a fairly conventional punk band before they met Martin Hannett.
89* EasterEgg: Some vinyl pressings have messages from the cutting engineer in the run-out grooves, usually over both sides:
90** ''Unknown Pleasures'' has "This is the way / Step inside" (lyric from "The Atrocity Exhibition", which would later appear on ''Music/{{Closer}}'')
91** "Transmission" 12": "I've seen the real atrocities / buried in the sand" (lyric from "Ice Age")
92** "Atmosphere" 12": "Here are the young men / But where have they been" (lyric from "Decades", which would later appear on ''Music/{{Closer}}'')
93** ''Still'' has "The chicken won't stop / (chicken tracks) / (chicken tracks) / The chicken stops here" (referencing the ending of ''Film/{{Stroszek}}'', which Ian Curtis watched shortly before his death)
94* EchoingAcoustics: Martin Hannett had a trademark reverb heavy production style.
95* EpicRocking: Their cover of "Sister Ray" isn't as long as the original, but it still fits this trope at 7:36. Their longest original songs are 6 minute examples that barely qualify such as "The Eternal", "Autosuggestion", "Atrocity Exhibition", "Heart and Soul", and "I Remember Nothing"
96* FakeOutFadeOut: "Isolation."
97* GrandFinale: "Love Will Tear Us Apart," released after Ian Curtis' suicide, ended up becoming their most famous song. He had the cover for the single made to look like a tombstone (which no one noticed until he was dead) and it was the only music video they filmed before he took his own life. The song sounds [[LyricalDissonance oddly triumphant]], and the RealitySubtext makes it very bittersweet.
98* GreatestHitsAlbum: The band's first two compilations, ''Still'' and ''Music/{{Substance|JoyDivisionAlbum}}'', were primarily "mopping up" releases (the former existing to curb bootlegs and the latter to collect the band's non-album singles and B-sides in the vein of Music/NewOrder's [[Music/SubstanceNewOrderAlbum identically-named compilation]]). Subsequent compilations, meanwhile, lean into the greatest hits model. The first of these was ''Permanent'', which featured tracks from both studio albums and the two prior compilations plus a new remix of "Love Will Tear Us Apart". The second, ''The Best of Joy Division'', came in both a standard one-disc version and a two-disc one with a collection of BBC Radio 1 sessions as a bonus disc. The third, ''Total: From Joy Division to New Order'', combined Joy Division and Music/NewOrder tracks as a means of capitalizing on the latter incarnation's reunion.
99* GothRock: TropeNamers; their manager described their music as being "gothic" (to the band's displeasure) and the term stuck.
100* HearingVoices:
101** "Digital":
102--->Feel it closing in
103--->Feel it closing in
104--->Day in, day out, day in, day out
105--->''Day in, day out'', [+''day in, day out''+]
106** "Dead Souls":
107--->Calling me... Calling me...
108--->They keep calling me
109--->They keep calling me.
110* HiddenTrack: The alternate version of "Love Will Tear Us Apart" on the single's B-side was unlisted on 7-inch copies, though a clue would have been that it plays at 33 rpm instead of the A-side's 45.
111* HistoricalBiographySong: "Warsaw" is a first-person account of the rise and fall of Rudolf Hess, Deputy Führer of the Nazi Party. The song chronicles Hess' life from his involvement with the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923 to his imprisonment by the British authorities after fleeing to Scotland in 1941.
112* HopeSpot:
113** One song title, by itself, from their first album ''Unknown Pleasures'', invokes this trope: "New Dawn Fades"
114** On their second album, ''Closer'', there's "24 Hours":
115--->''Oh how I realized how I wanted time'',
116--->''Put into perspective, tried so hard to find'',
117--->''Just for one moment I thought I'd found my way''.
118--->''Destiny unfolded, I watched it slip away.''
119
120--->''Just for one moment I heard somebody call,''
121--->''Looked beyond the day in hand, there's nothing there at all.''
122* IntentionallyAwkwardTitle: The band's name comes from the prostitution wing of a Nazi concentration camp from the 1955 novel ''The House of Dolls.''
123* IronicName: They were never known for joyful songs.
124* LastNoteNightmare: "Disorder", and to a lesser extent, "Isolation".
125* LeadBassist: Peter Hook carried the melody on a Rickenbacker bass, not unlike [[{{Music/Yes}} Chris Squire]] or [[Music/RushBand Geddy Lee]]. His tendency to play basslines rather high up on the bass came about because in the early days of the band, it was the only way he could be heard with a weak amplifier. Hook's playing inspired many subsequent indie rock bassists to use the upper register of the instrument. In fact, Bernard Sumner once said he's more into "rhythm and chords" than melody.
126* LettingTheAirOutOfTheBand: At the end of "Candidate" and "A Means to an End". Also used to chilling effect in "The Eternal".
127* LiteraryAllusionTitle:
128** "[[Creator/NikolaiGogol Dead Souls]]"
129** "The Atrocity Exhibition", from Creator/JGBallard's book of the same name
130** "Colony", from Creator/FranzKafka's short story, "In The Penal Colony".
131* LyricalDissonance: "Isolation" is quite a bouncy SynthPop tune really, as is "Love Will Tear Us Apart".
132* MadnessMantra:
133** "Day in, day out, day in, day out, day in, day out..."
134** "Calling me... Calling me..."
135* MarionetteMotion: Ian Curtis' dance style, which incidentally, did resemble an epileptic seizure.
136* NonIndicativeName: Their sound was pretty much the opposite of joyful. It makes more sense if you know that it's an IntentionallyAwkwardTitle.
137* OopNorth: Influenced by the crumbling Manchester of the 1970's.
138* PostPunk: One of the most important bands of the genre, and the band that immediately comes to mind for many when the term is mentioned.
139* PunkRock: In their earliest days (back when they were still called Warsaw), they counted as this.
140* PuttingOnTheReich: The cover for ''An Ideal for Living'' featured a Hitler Youth drummer; their name itself is an allusion to a novel about the Nazis.
141* RepurposedPopSong: "New Dawn Fades" from ''Unknown Pleasures'' was used in a trailer for the survival MMO game ''Memories of Mars''.
142* RevolvingDoorBand: The band went through several drummers before settling on Stephen Morris, who stayed for the rest of the band's career.
143* ScaryMusicianHarmlessMusic: [[InvertedTrope Inverted]] with Stephen Morris. His drumming (aided by Martin Hannett's production) is one of the biggest contributing factors to the eeriness of Joy Division's music, but he's a goofball who loves UsefulNotes/WorldWarII history and ''Series/DoctorWho.''
144* ShoutOut:
145** The band's original name of ''Warsaw'' was directly inspired by the Music/DavidBowie song [[Music/LowDavidBowieAlbum "Warszawa"]].
146** The title of "Atrocity Exhibition" is lifted from the J.G. Ballard collection of short stories of the same name.
147* SingingVoiceDissonance: Ian's singing was American accented, whereas his normal speaking voice was [[OopNorth Northern English]].
148* SmokingIsCool: Ian Curtis was often seen with a cigarette in photos.
149* StepUpToTheMicrophone: Peter Hook sings lead on "Interzone".
150* ThoseWackyNazis: ''An Ideal for Living'''s artwork, deliberately intended to create controversy over whether the band was a Nazi band, which they weren't (this is referenced in ''24 Hour Party People'' as well). Also, "Warsaw," one of the songs from this EP, is about Rudolf Hess.
151* TransatlanticEquivalent: A band influenced by punk hailing from an economically depressed (at the time) city from the north of their country, with a depressed lead singer who dies by suicide, leaving behind a wife and a young daughter. The drummer forms a new band that turns out to be a LongRunner. We could easily be talking about Joy Division or Music/{{Nirvana}}.
152* UpdatedRerelease: In the early '90s, the cover art for ''Substance'' was reworked on the European editions. For the 2015 re-issue, a couple extra tracks were added: "As You Said" and an alternate version of "Love Will Tear Us Apart" from the single's B-side, collecting all of the band's non-album tracks.
153* VocalEvolution: Compare Ian's voice on the ''Ideal for Living'' EP to when the band starting recording with Martin Hannett. Ian's voice lowers dramatically. He also began to sound less Mancunian and more like Lou Reed.
154* {{Yarling}}: Ian adopted this kind of singing voice once Joy Division shifted to post-punk; it was even compared with UrExample [[Music/TheDoors Jim Morrison]], who was one of Ian's favorite singers.

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