Closer (Joy Division Album)
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''Closer'' is the second and final
studio album An album is a collection of audio recordings (e.g., music) issued on a medium such as compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl (record), audio tape (like 8-track cartridge, 8-track or Cassette tape, cassette), or digital distribution, dig ...
by the English
rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wale ...
band
Joy Division Joy Division were an English Rock music, rock band formed in Salford in 1976. The group consisted of vocalist, guitarist and lyricist Ian Curtis, guitarist and keyboardist Bernard Sumner, bassist Peter Hook and drummer Stephen Morris (musici ...
, released on 18 July 1980 by
Factory Records Factory Records was a Manchester-based British independent record label founded in 1978 by Tony Wilson and Alan Erasmus. The label featured several important acts on its roster, including Joy Division, New Order (band), New Order, A Certain Ra ...
. Produced by
Martin Hannett James Martin Hannett (31 May 1948 – 18 April 1991) was an English record producer, musician and an original partner/director at Tony Wilson's Factory Records. Hannett produced music by artists including Joy Division, the Durutti Column, A Cert ...
, it was released two months after the suicide of the band's lead singer and lyricist
Ian Curtis Ian Kevin Curtis (15 July 1956 – 18 May 1980) was an English singer, songwriter and musician. He was the lead singer, lyricist and occasional guitarist of the band Joy Division, with whom he released the albums ''Unknown Pleasures'' (197 ...
. The album reached No. 6 on the
UK Albums Chart The Official Albums Chart is the United Kingdom's industry-recognised national record chart for album, albums. Entries are ranked by sales and audio streaming. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the O ...
and peaked at No. 3 in New Zealand in September 1981. ''Closer'' was also named ''NME'' Album of the Year. It was
remaster A remaster is a change in the sound or image quality of previously created forms of media, whether Mastering (audio), audiophonic, Cinematography, cinematic, or Videography, videographic. The resulting product is said to be remastered. The term ...
ed and re-released in 2007. Today, ''Closer'' is widely recognised as a seminal release of the
post-punk Post-punk (originally called new musick) is a broad genre of music that emerged in late 1977 in the wake of punk rock. Post-punk musicians departed from punk's fundamental elements and raw simplicity, instead adopting a broader, more experiment ...
era. Following the release of the non-album single "
Love Will Tear Us Apart "Love Will Tear Us Apart" is a song by English rock music, rock band Joy Division, released on 27 June 1980 as a non-album single. Its lyrics were inspired by lead singer Ian Curtis' marital problems and struggles with epilepsy. The single was r ...
" in June 1980, the remaining members re-formed as New Order.


Composition and recording

The songs on ''Closer'' were mostly written or structured during
jam session A jam session is a relatively informal musical event, process, or activity where musicians, typically instrumentalists, play improvised solos and vamp over tunes, drones, songs, and chord progressions. To "jam" is to improvise music without ...
s in the band's practice room. The songs were drawn from two distinct periods. The earlier guitar-driven compositions were written during the latter half of 1979: " Atrocity Exhibition", "Passover", "Colony", "A Means to an End" and "Twenty Four Hours". All were played live during that year, with some being recorded for various radio sessions. The album's other songs were written in early 1980, and included more prominent use of
synthesiser A synthesizer (also synthesiser or synth) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...
s: "Isolation", "Heart and Soul", "The Eternal" and "Decades". "Atrocity Exhibition" features a
Synare The Synare was a series of electronic drums made by Star Instruments in the mid-1970s through the 1980s. The Synare was a drum synthesizer, meaning that it was essentially a synthesizer, but instead of being controlled by a keyboard, it was trigge ...
drum synth put through a fuzz pedal. The fiction of J. G. Ballard was a significant influence on the lyrics, especially '' The Atrocity Exhibition'' – a collection of "condensed novels" published in 1970 – which shares its title with the opening track. ''Closer'' was recorded between 18 and 30 March 1980 at
Britannia Row Studios Britannia Row Studios was a recording studio in Islington, London N1 (1975–1995), and then Fulham, London SW6, England (1995–2015). It was built by the English rock band Pink Floyd, who used it to record their albums ''Animals'' (1977) and '' T ...
in Islington, London. It was produced by Martin Hannett. His production has been highly praised, with ''
Pitchfork A pitchfork or hay fork is an agricultural tool used to pitch loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves. It has a long handle and usually two to five thin tines designed to efficiently move such materials. The term is also applie ...
'' describing it as "sepulchral." However, as with their debut album, both Sumner and bassist
Peter Hook Peter Hook (born 13 February 1956) is an English musician. He was the bassist and co-founder of the post-punk band Joy Division and its successor New Order. He often used the bass as a lead instrument, playing melodies on the high strings wi ...
were unhappy with Hannett's work. Hook later complained that the track "Atrocity Exhibition" was mixed on one of his days off, and when he heard the final product he was disappointed that the abrasiveness of his guitar part had been laden with effects and toned down. He wrote; "I was like, head in hands, oh fucking hell, it's happening again. ''Unknown Pleasures'' number two... Martin annetthad melted the guitar with his Marshall Time Waster. Made it sound like somebody strangling a cat, and to my mind, absolutely killed the song. I was so annoyed with him and went in and gave him a piece of my mind but he just turned around and told me to fuck off."


Release

The album cover was designed by Martyn Atkins and Peter Saville, with a photograph of the
Appiani family The Appiani family (also Appiano or d'Appiano) was an Italian nobility, Italian noble family, originally from Al Piano or Appiano, a now disappeared toponym identified with the modern La Pieve in the ''comune'' of Ponsacco, Tuscany. They held the ...
tomb in
Genoa Genoa ( ; ; ) is a city in and the capital of the Italian region of Liguria, and the sixth-largest city in Italy. As of 2025, 563,947 people live within the city's administrative limits. While its metropolitan city has 818,651 inhabitan ...
's Monumental Cemetery of Staglieno adorning much of the sleeve. The photograph was taken by Bernard Pierre Wolff in 1978. In a 2007 documentary on the band, designer Saville commented that he, upon learning of singer Ian Curtis's suicide, expressed immediate concern over the album's design as it depicted a funeral theme, remarking "we've got a tomb on the cover of the album!" ''Closer'' was released on 18 July 1980 by
Factory Records Factory Records was a Manchester-based British independent record label founded in 1978 by Tony Wilson and Alan Erasmus. The label featured several important acts on its roster, including Joy Division, New Order (band), New Order, A Certain Ra ...
, as a vinyl LP. The album reached No. 6 on the
UK Albums Chart The Official Albums Chart is the United Kingdom's industry-recognised national record chart for album, albums. Entries are ranked by sales and audio streaming. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the O ...
. It also peaked at No. 3 in New Zealand in September 1981. ''Closer'' was also named ''NME'' Album of the Year. The album, along with ''
Unknown Pleasures ''Unknown Pleasures'' is the debut studio album by the English rock band Joy Division. It was released on 15 June 1979 through Factory Records. The album was recorded and mixed over three successive weekends at Stockport's Strawberry Studios i ...
'' and ''
Still A still is an apparatus used to distillation, distill liquid mixtures by heating to selectively Boiling, boil and then cooling to Condensation, condense the vapor. A still uses the same concepts as a basic Distillation#Laboratory_procedures, ...
'', was
remastered A remaster is a change in the sound or image quality of previously created forms of media, whether Mastering (audio), audiophonic, Cinematography, cinematic, or Videography, videographic. The resulting product is said to be remastered. The term ...
and re-released in 2007. As with ''Unknown Pleasures'' and ''Still'', the remaster was packaged with a bonus live disc, recorded at the
University of London Union The University of London Union (ULU), known as Student Central after 2014, was the students' union of the federal University of London. Since the closure of its student governance, each student is instead primarily affiliated to a students' unio ...
. Factory boss
Tony Wilson Anthony Howard Wilson (20 February 1950 – 10 August 2007) was a British record label owner, radio and television presenter, nightclub manager and impresario, and a journalist for Granada Television, the BBC and Channel 4. As a co-founder ...
was pleased with the final album and predicted it would be a commercial success. Sumner recalled him saying at the time, "You know, Bernard, this time next year you'll be lounging by a swimming pool in LA with a cocktail in your hand." Sumner was less optimistic and "just thought it was the most utterly ridiculous thing anyone had ever said to me."


Critical reception

At the time of release, '' Sounds'' critic Dave McCullough wrote that there were "dark strokes of
gothic rock Gothic rock (also called goth rock or simply goth) is a style of rock music that emerged from post-punk in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s. The first post-punk bands which shifted toward dark music with gothic overtones include Siouxsie an ...
" on ''Closer''. He described the album as "breathtaking rock music, a peak of current peaks, a sharing of something that's in ..others at this time, but at the same time defining those black notions and leaving them unmatched." Writing for ''
Smash Hits ''Smash Hits'' was a British music magazine aimed at young adults, originally published by EMAP. It ran from 1978 to 2006, and, after initially appearing monthly, was issued fortnightly during most of that time. The name survived as a brand ...
'', Alastair Macaulay described the album as an "exercise in dark controlled passion" and wrote that its music "stands up on its own as the band's epitaph". Writing for ''
Melody Maker ''Melody Maker'' was a British weekly music magazine, one of the world's earliest music weeklies; according to its publisher, IPC Media, the earliest. In January 2001, it was merged into "long-standing rival" (and IPC Media sister publicatio ...
'',
Paolo Hewitt Paolo Hewitt is a music journalist and writer from Woking in Surrey. Biography Hewitt was placed in care at a very early age, and went to live with a foster family. Following years of abuse he was sent to Burbank children's home in Woking at t ...
described the album as "probably some of the most irresistible dance music we'll hear this year nda far cry for sure from the almost suffocating claustrophobic world of the debut album," adding that "the best (and most subversive?) rock music has always dealt head-on with emotions and thought rather than clichéd, standardised stances; that's what makes ''Closer'' and Joy Division so important." At the end of 1980, ''Closer'' was voted the 22nd best record of the year in the
Pazz & Jop Pazz & Jop was an annual poll of top musical releases, compiled by American newspaper ''The Village Voice'' and created by music critic Robert Christgau. It published lists of the year's top releases for 1971 and, after Christgau's two-year abse ...
, an annual poll of American critics published by ''
The Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture publication based in Greenwich Village, New York City, known for being the country's first Alternative newspaper, alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf (publisher), Dan Wolf, ...
''.
Robert Christgau Robert Thomas Christgau ( ; born April 18, 1942) is an American music journalist and essayist. Among the most influential music critics, he began his career in the late 1960s as one of the earliest professional rock critics and later became a ...
, the poll's supervisor, deemed the album an improvement over ''Unknown Pleasures'' in a retrospective review: "Curtis's torment is less oppressive here because it's less dominant—the dark, roiling, off-center rhythms have a life of their own. And if last time the dancier material had hooks, this time even the dirges have something closely resembling tunes." ''
Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. The magazine was first known fo ...
''s Mikal Gilmore, in a 1981 profile of the band's work, wrote: "The music turns leaden, gray and steady because it means to fulfill a vision of a world where suffering is unremitting and nothingness is quiescent." In a book titled '' 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die'', published in 2005, ''Closer'' is defined as a "quantum leap" in terms of progression when compared to the band's debut album. According to
Colin Larkin Colin Larkin (born 1949) is a British music writer. He founded and was the editor-in-chief of ''The Encyclopedia of Popular Music''. Along with the ten-volume encyclopedia, Larkin also wrote the book ''All Time Top 1000 Albums'', and edited th ...
, ''Closer'' has since been "deservedly regarded by many critics as the most brilliant rock album of the 80s"; Larkin himself found the record flawless, writing in his ''
Encyclopedia of Popular Music ''The Encyclopedia of Popular Music'' is an encyclopedia created in 1989 by Colin Larkin. It is the "modern man's" equivalent of the '' Grove Dictionary of Music'', which Larkin describes in less than flattering terms.''The Times'', ''The Kno ...
'' (2011) that it showed Joy Division at their creative peak and "maturity in every area" of their music. In his review of the 2007 reissue of the album, ''Pitchfork'' critic Joshua Klein described the album as "even more austere, more claustrophobic, more inventive, more beautiful and more haunting than its predecessor", calling it "Joy Division's start-to-finish masterpiece; a flawless encapsulation of everything the group sought to achieve."


Legacy

''Closer'' has been highly acclaimed, and is often cited as Joy Division's finest work, being considered by music critics such as
Mark Fisher Mark Fisher (11 July 1968 – 13 January 2017), also known under his blogging alias k-punk, was an English writer, music critic, political and cultural theorist, philosopher, and teacher based in the Department of Visual Cultures at Golds ...
to be "the crown jewel of
post-punk Post-punk (originally called new musick) is a broad genre of music that emerged in late 1977 in the wake of punk rock. Post-punk musicians departed from punk's fundamental elements and raw simplicity, instead adopting a broader, more experiment ...
" and receiving praise from artists such as
George Michael George Michael (born Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou; 25 June 1963 – 25 December 2016) was an English singer-songwriter and record producer. Regarded as a pop culture icon, he is one of the List of best-selling music artists, best-selling rec ...
. The album was voted number 1 in the 1980 ''Albums of the Year'' poll conducted by music magazine ''
NME ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming and culture website, bimonthly magazine, and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a "Rock music, rock inkie", the ''NME'' would be ...
'', and would be listed as number 157 in ''Rolling Stone'''s 2003 list of the
500 Greatest Albums of All Time 5 (five) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number, and cardinal number, following 4 and preceding 6, and is a prime number. Humans, and many other animals, have 5 digits on their limbs. Mathematics 5 is a Fermat pri ...
, maintaining the rank in the 2012 revision, and dropping to number 309 in the 2020 edition. By 1982 ''Closer'' had sold over 250,000 copies worldwide, with the posthumous single "Love Will Tear Us Apart" having also sold over 160,000 copies. In 1995 ''Closer'' was ranked one of the top 100
alternative Alternative or alternate may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * Alternative (Kamen Rider), Alternative (''Kamen Rider''), a character in the Japanese TV series ''Kamen Rider Ryuki'' * Alternative comics, or independent comics are an altern ...
albums ever to be released by '' Spin'' magazine (placing at number 69). In 2002, the American online magazine ''
Pitchfork A pitchfork or hay fork is an agricultural tool used to pitch loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves. It has a long handle and usually two to five thin tines designed to efficiently move such materials. The term is also applie ...
'' listed ''Closer'' as the 10th best album to be released in the 1980s. The album placed at number 72 on ''NME'' list of the 100 greatest British albums ever to be released. In addition, ''Q'' magazine placed ''Closer'' at number 8 in a list compiled of the 40 greatest albums to be released in the 1980s. In 2012, ''
Slant Magazine ''Slant Magazine'' is an American online publication that features reviews of movies, music, TV, DVDs, theater, and video games, as well as interviews with actors, directors, and musicians. The site covers various film festivals like the New Yor ...
'' listed the album at number 7 upon their compiled list of the best albums of the 1980s. In 2020, ''
Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. The magazine was first known fo ...
'' included ''Closer'' in their "80 Greatest albums of 1980" list.


Track listing

Note: the original vinyl disc only contained a small etching on the disk marking the A and B sides.


Personnel

Joy Division *
Ian Curtis Ian Kevin Curtis (15 July 1956 – 18 May 1980) was an English singer, songwriter and musician. He was the lead singer, lyricist and occasional guitarist of the band Joy Division, with whom he released the albums ''Unknown Pleasures'' (197 ...
 – vocals, guitar (track 6),
melodica The melodica is a handheld free-reed instrument similar to a pump organ or harmonica. It features a musical keyboard on top, and is played by blowing air through a mouthpiece that fits into a hole in the side of the instrument. The keyboard usu ...
(track 9) * Bernard Sumner – guitar (all except tracks 1 and 6), bass guitar (track 1), synthesisers (tracks 2, 6, 8, and 9) *
Peter Hook Peter Hook (born 13 February 1956) is an English musician. He was the bassist and co-founder of the post-punk band Joy Division and its successor New Order. He often used the bass as a lead instrument, playing melodies on the high strings wi ...
 – bass guitar (all except track 1), guitar (track 1), six-string bass guitar (tracks 3, 6, and 8) * Stephen Morris – drums (all except tracks 2 and 8),
electronic drum Electronic drums are a modern electronic musical instrument, primarily designed to serve as an alternative to an acoustic drum kit. Electronic drums consist of an electronic sound module which produces the Drum synthesiser, synthesized or Sampler ...
s (tracks 2, 4, 8, 9), percussion (all except track 2) Production *
Martin Hannett James Martin Hannett (31 May 1948 – 18 April 1991) was an English record producer, musician and an original partner/director at Tony Wilson's Factory Records. Hannett produced music by artists including Joy Division, the Durutti Column, A Cert ...
 – production,
engineering Engineering is the practice of using natural science, mathematics, and the engineering design process to Problem solving#Engineering, solve problems within technology, increase efficiency and productivity, and improve Systems engineering, s ...
* Michael Johnson – engineering assistance * Jon Caffery – engineering


Charts


Certifications


Notes


See also

*
List of works published posthumously The following is a list of works that were published posthumously. An asterisk indicates the author is listed in multiple subsections. (For example, Philip Sidney appears in four.) Literature Novels and short stories * Douglas Adams* &mdas ...


References


Sources

* *


Further reading

* *


External links


Complete lyrics
for ''Closer'' * {{Authority control Joy Division albums 1980 albums Albums produced by Martin Hannett Albums published posthumously Factory Records albums