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- She’s Lost Control’ Without question, Joy Divison’s ‘She’s Lost Control’ is one of the most difficult songs to listen to. But, in a spate of twisted irony and incredulous talent, the track is arguably their greatest too, defining the band in so many ways it would be remiss to ignore it as their best, even if it is difficult to return to.
- Love Will Tear Us Apart’ Not many songs have been as ruthlessly pawed over as Joy Division’s seminal number ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart‘. The song is such a signature, not just of the band but the entire decade, that to champion it once more within our list feels a little frivolous.
- Transmission’ Hearing Ian Curtis scream out “Dance, dance, dance, dance, dance, to the radio” is still a sincere pleasure. The way the singer yelps and squirms is all part of what made him such an attractive proposition as a frontman.
- Atmosphere’ ‘Atmosphere’ is widely regarded as one of Joy Division’s best songs. Previously released as a French-only import, the song rarely reached British shores.
Jul 16, 2024 · The opening track from Joy Division's landmark debut album Unknown Pleasures is one of the band's most accessible tracks and has had over 196 million Spotify streams and over 18 million YouTube...
- Ceremony
- Decades
- Isolation
- Disorder
- Dead Souls
- Shadowplay
- She’S Lost Control
- Atmosphere
- Transmission
- Love Will Tear Us Apart
Maybe it’s the minute-long intro, but this song sounds like it could be the soundtrack to many lives. There’s a darkness to the song that’s unnerving, an almost lonely premonition on what’s to come for the band. Written by former lead singer and lyricist Ian Curtis, Ceremony is one of the band’s strongest lyrical work. It’s obviously one of the bes...
The robotic melody and thick synthesizer make Decades an unforgettable song. It’s almost haunting, and the lyrics show proof. The song talks about the kind of suffering soldiers go through after service—what we now know as PTSD. There’s so much sadness related to this album given that it’s the band’s final studio album for several reasons. It’s an ...
Although less haunting sonically compared to the previous song, Isolation is just as heavy lyrically. Exactly two months after the suicide of Joy Division’s lead singer Ian Curtis, the two remaining members of the band decide to release their last album. Isolation is one of the songs in that album, and it’s as dark as you can imagine. Curtis sings,...
Probably with one of the best baselines ever, Disorder is an easy song to jam to. Joy Division is not the band for everybody’s taste, but this is one song that even the world of today could appreciate. It’s a simple song on the surface that’s full of so much complexity underneath. Disorder is from the band’s 1979 album, Unknown Pleasures.
It’s been rumored that Curtis dabbled quite a bit into classic literature. It’s no wonder he named one of his songs after a Gogol novel, possibly his best. Dead Souls is completely underrated and definitely underplayed. The instrumentals on this song probably could’ve just kept going on and on without any vocals. Yet every time the vocalist came in...
Here comes that bassline again. Both Bernard Summer and Peter Hook interchanged on the bass, and to have gone this far and not highlight the bass is a crime. Joy Division is nothing without its wicked and haunting instrumentals, and Shadowplay is just the track to admire for its guitar work. There isn’t anything extremely flashy here. There’s just ...
Another song from the Unknown Pleasures album, She’s Lost Control is a good example of how Joy Division was ahead of its time. The phrasing and progression on the song are totally distinctive. But then again, it’s hard to not identify the lyrics as dark. Curtis sings about a girl that suffers epilepsy, a condition that he suffered as well. It’s int...
Many believe that Atmosphere is Joy Division’s best song. It’s definitely a favorite for many. It’s a beautiful song that chronicled what it’s like to live with anxiety and depression. Curtis wrote, “People like you find it easy.” His ability to put these kinds of feelings into words is just breathtaking. No one could’ve sang it better. Joy Divisio...
Transmission is a little more fast-paced and has a higher energy than many Joy Division songs. It’s a vision, truly. This kind of music at the time when it came out was just unheard of. Joy Division was on their own platform, singing about things nobody sang about either. It’s an electric performance that also highlighted Curtis’ vocal range a bit....
Probably the most popular Joy Division song, Love Will Tear Us Apart is a dichotomy of a song. The band does well with balancing polar opposites of lyrical meaning and instrumental sound. This song is the perfect example of that. The song is happy, but the song is not. There’s joy, yet there’s division. It’s the paramount explanation for this band’...
- “Transmission” Non-album single (1979)
- “Love Will Tear Us Apart” Non-album single (1980)
- “She’s Lost Control” Single; appears on Unknown Pleasures (1979)
- “Atmosphere” Non-album single (1980)
- Stereogum
- “Dead Souls” (from Substance, 1988) Released in 1980 as the B-side to “Atmosphere,” “Dead Souls” begins with Morris’ drums rolling out a beat before the briefly disjointed guitar work of Sumner unknots into the anthemic riff that gives the otherwise unrelenting melancholy of this song its only hint of color.
- “Transmission” (from Substance, 1988) Originally released in 1979, “Transmission” highlights Joy Division’s singular type of frenetic pop, a style at least partially influenced by Curtis’ struggles with epilepsy.
- “Passover” (from Closer, 1980) An often overlooked track, “Passover” is Joy Division at their most introspective, both lyrically and musically. Hook and Morris provide a low, discordant rumble for the song’s ethereal movement, with Sumner’s guitar randomly puncturing the fog, while Curtis delivers lines more devotional than mournful, trading abbreviation for the space between the edges of his voice and the furthest echo from the instruments.
- “New Dawn Fades” (from Unknown Pleasures, 1979) You’d be hard pressed to find a Joy Division song that displays the band’s incomparable proclivity for musical entropy better than “New Dawn Fades.”
Aug 9, 2023 · Our Top 10 Joy Division songs lists takes a look at the best Joy Division songs the band released during their musical career.
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Dec 23, 2020 · “The most perfect of Joy Division’s songs; the lyrics (of which there are surprisingly few) co-exist in brilliant and haunting harmony with the score.”
