Joy Division’s ‘Closer’ turns 46 on 18 July
Factory Records released Joy Division’s “Closer” on 18 July 1980, two months after singer Ian Curtis died. The album turns 46 this year.
Joy Division released their second and final studio album, “Closer,” on 18 July 1980 through Factory Records. The album turns 46 this year. “Closer” arrived two months after the death of singer Ian Curtis, who was found dead on 18 May 1980, and it remains the band’s last release before the surviving members regrouped as New Order.
The Manchester post-punk band recorded “Closer” between 18 and 30 March 1980 at Britannia Row Studios in Islington, London, produced by Martin Hannett, with Jon Caffery as engineer. The nine-track album is sequenced across two sides: “Atrocity Exhibition,” “Isolation,” “Passover,” “Colony” and “A Means to an End” open the record, followed by “Heart and Soul,” “Twenty Four Hours,” “The Eternal” and “Decades.” “Closer” streams on Spotify.
About Joy Division
Joy Division began in Salford, England, in 1976 as Warsaw, formed by Bernard Sumner and Peter Hook after seeing a Sex Pistols concert. Ian Curtis joined as vocalist, and Stephen Morris completed the lineup on drums. The band changed its name to Joy Division in 1978 to avoid confusion with the London band Warsaw Pakt, and signed to Tony Wilson’s newly founded Factory Records the same year.
Factory Records released the debut album “Unknown Pleasures” in June 1979, produced by Martin Hannett, whose production style became closely associated with the band’s sound. Joy Division toured the UK and Europe through 1979 and early 1980 while Curtis, who had been diagnosed with epilepsy, performed under increasing strain from his condition and its treatment. The band recorded its second album, “Closer,” at Britannia Row Studios in March 1980. Curtis died on 18 May 1980, the day before the band was due to leave for its first North American tour. Factory released “Closer” on 18 July 1980, alongside the single “Love Will Tear Us Apart,” which had been issued the previous month.
Sumner, Hook and Morris continued as New Order later in 1980, joined by keyboardist Gillian Gilbert, and released their debut album “Movement” on Factory in 1981. Joy Division’s two studio albums, along with the compilations “Still” (1981) and “Substance” (1988), remain in circulation through Factory-successor reissues. The band’s story, including the making of “Closer,” was documented in “Joy Division” (2007) and dramatized in “Control” (2007). The anniversary of “Closer” places the album back in Joy Division’s timeline as the record that closed the band’s original run and opened the way to New Order.
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