18th July - Joy Division's Closer

Artist – Album: Joy Division - Closer

Released: 18^th July 1980

Sounds Like: Tales from the crypt

If Joy Division’s debut Unknown Pleasures is a masterpiece (and it is), then their follow up Closer is... um... an even better masterpiece.

Judged solely on the basis of its songs it’s pretty good. Opener ‘Atrocity Exhibition’ is a typically harrowing welcome, with its tribal drums and Ian Curtis’ unhinged chant of “This is the way, step in inside”. Thereafter, the band guides you down the grey stoney staircase in to a cavernous crypt of despair. ‘Isolation’ is punchy and frightening, ‘A Means to an End’ is indie disco two decades ahead of its time (that coruscating backing has been unapologetically ripped off countless times by the likes of The Gossip, Justice and Bloc Party), ‘Heart and Soul’ is solemn and mumbled, whilst ‘Twenty Four Hours’ strives to escape the gloom in vain. ‘The Eternal’ may well be the bleakest six minutes ever laid down.

Given the circumstances that gave birth to it however, the album is something extra special. On 17 May 1980, the iconic Curtis, who suffered from acute depression, committed suicide. Two months later this record, with its black and white tomb cover and desperate lyrics, was released...

Aannnnddddd that’s number 200! Score!

Albumaday... rating:  9/10

1.       Atrocity Exhibition – 6:06

2.       Isolation – 2:53

3.       Passover – 4:46

4.       Colony – 3:55

5.       A Means to an End – 4:07

6.       Heart and Soul – 5:51

7.       Twenty Four Hours – 4:26

8.       The Eternal – 6:07

9.       Decades – 6:10

Listen to ‘Twenty Four Hours ’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiCc_mFXD3E

Also released on the 18^th July:

1966: The Byrds – Fifth Dimension