CLASSIC ALBUM: Joy Division – Closer

Joy Division’s second and final studio album Closer is frequently cited as one of the greatest albums of all time, and one of the most crucial records in the post-punk canon. One year earlier Joy Division released their debut Unknown Pleasures, on which the band, with the assistance of producer Martin Hannett, swept aside the brattiness of punk while retaining its energy and urgency and imbued the music with a unique, atmospheric aura. Unknown Pleasures’ may perhaps before the template for much of the ‘post-punk’ music we hear today and while it is a truly remarkable album that adorns thousands of t-shirts… 1980’s Closer is a step way, way above and beyond.

Closer takes what was achieved on Unknown Pleasures and just blows it out the water. It’s more intense (A Means To An End, The Eternal), more experimental (Atrocity Exhibition), more inventive (Isolation, Decades), more ethereal (Heart and Soul) and more rockin’ (Twenty Four Hours). I’d certainly argue that final track Decades is the best track Joy Division ever made, and while many will say how much of a shame it is that we never got to really see what lay ahead, “they could’ve done this, they could’ve done that, etc”… when a track such as Decades, and indeed Closer as a whole, is as perfect as it is, it really doesn’t matter.