Joy Division: Classic Or Dud?

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i have never really investigated this "goth" phenomenon.

are you a very very old person?

kyle (akmonday), Friday, 17 September 2004 16:55 (nineteen years ago) link

I haven't heard Android Lust! Clearly I must.

Dan Perry '08 (Dan Perry), Friday, 17 September 2004 16:56 (nineteen years ago) link

http://www3.sympatico.ca/lafleurlambert/abe_simpson.gif

amateur!!st, Friday, 17 September 2004 16:57 (nineteen years ago) link

I don't personally know any goths who listen to Joy Division.

Allyzay Science Explosion (allyzay), Friday, 17 September 2004 17:26 (nineteen years ago) link

I haven't heard Android Lust! Clearly I must.

They're great! Or I should say she's great, one woman band.

Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 18 September 2004 05:17 (nineteen years ago) link

I think the goths I knew at school weren't particularly sensitive to factional demarcations - there was pretty much a goth/punk/industrial/trenchcoat conglomerate, united by a shared appreciation for depression, dressing up, chartreuse and random sex with ugly people.

Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Saturday, 18 September 2004 05:59 (nineteen years ago) link

keiji haino and diamanda are actual goths even if they don't say so.

Can someone do a friendster search on JD? then we can see what else their fans like.

I think amt's pinefox impression wz worse than when raggett did it on some other thread. Can't blame you tho' - its hard to do.

Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Saturday, 18 September 2004 09:09 (nineteen years ago) link

stephen morris is wearing very nice trousers in that photo.

youn, Saturday, 18 September 2004 15:05 (nineteen years ago) link

well aside from doing a pinefox impression i was being honest, so it's bound to be a little compromised

amateur!!!st (amateurist), Saturday, 18 September 2004 16:42 (nineteen years ago) link

JAMC is so goth, though!

I completely disagree, Joy Division = Urban Decay, VU = Heroin/S&M, JAMC = Motorcycles/Oral Sex. None of them = vampires/lace/eyeliner. I mean they all wear black, but so do The Raiders (who are actually more goth than those bands).

-- Spencer Chow (spencercho...), September 17th, 2004.

those bands might not be goth but c'mon, the 'goth' aesthetic (in rock music) as we know it wouldn't exist the way it does without those bands.

latebloomer (latebloomer), Saturday, 18 September 2004 16:47 (nineteen years ago) link

http://www.enkiri.com/joy/joy_division1.jpg

JOY DIVISION WERE FRANZ FERDINAND!

latebloomer (latebloomer), Saturday, 18 September 2004 16:49 (nineteen years ago) link

The one Urban Decay album I have sounds like bad Bauhaus not bad Joy Division.

scott seward (scott seward), Saturday, 18 September 2004 16:50 (nineteen years ago) link

Ah, but that's interesting -- I know of a few goths who adore everything you might expect EXCEPT JD. In some cases there was active dislike.
-- Ned Raggett (ne...), September 17th, 2004.

i guess it prolly differs from goth to goth (heh). all the goths i've known personally were DEFINITELY into Joy Division.

latebloomer (latebloomer), Saturday, 18 September 2004 16:53 (nineteen years ago) link

http://svt.se/content/1/c6/18/23/93/franz_ferdinand_1.jpg

latebloomer (latebloomer), Saturday, 18 September 2004 16:54 (nineteen years ago) link

how do you know if someone's a goth? do they self-identify as a goth?

amateur!!!st (amateurist), Saturday, 18 September 2004 16:55 (nineteen years ago) link

"And if we cut that off you don't have to play guitar anymore."

"Good, good..."

Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 18 September 2004 16:55 (nineteen years ago) link

Visually speaking, Joy Divison plus retarded juice = Franz Ferdinand.

latebloomer (latebloomer), Saturday, 18 September 2004 16:56 (nineteen years ago) link

how do you know if someone's a goth? do they self-identify as a goth?
-- amateur!!!st (---...), September 18th, 2004.

blood test, dude.

latebloomer (latebloomer), Saturday, 18 September 2004 16:57 (nineteen years ago) link

type 666 negative

amateur!!!st (amateurist), Saturday, 18 September 2004 16:58 (nineteen years ago) link

he's not standing right. then the trousers aren't the same.

youn, Saturday, 18 September 2004 17:00 (nineteen years ago) link

nah, just type o.

x-post

latebloomer (latebloomer), Saturday, 18 September 2004 17:00 (nineteen years ago) link

in college i had a "dick tracy" comic posted on my fridge where dick tracy is investigating some kind of goth gun-running ring (this is immediately post-columbine). but clearly the guy who draws dick tracy has no idea what "goth" means so these guys have posters of, uh, visigoths on their wall, and are wearing big fur hats.

amateur!!!st (amateurist), Saturday, 18 September 2004 17:04 (nineteen years ago) link


The Futurist scene, such as it was, is very hard to pin down, even more so than goth. Essentially, though, it was a short-lived media-defined
musical scene centred around avant-garde electronic music. It's worth mentioning here as there was some degree of musical crossover with the
emerging goth scene.

The "Futurist" tag appeared in September 1980, as follows:

From George Gimarc's Post-Punk Diary for Monday September 15 1980:

STEVO the DJ at Billy's club and general provider of the soundtrack to the new scene brewing in the electronic underground, has his top 20 current records
list published in Sounds under the heading "Futurist Playlist". Top tracks are Joy Division "Isolation", Gary Numan and "I Die You Die", Bowie's "Ashes to
Ashes", Bauhaus with "Terror Couple Kill Colonel" and Gina X and "Do It Yourself". At #6 is Fad Gadget and "Fireside Favourite", B-Movie with "Soldier
Stood Still", Gary Numan's "Aircrash Bureau" and "Telekon", and a demo from Blancmange of "I've Seen The Word". Other groups present are Modern
English, Pere Ubu, Throbbing Gristle, Human League, YMO, Iggy Pop and Last Dance. Several months from now Stevo will confess to the NME that "...the
tag Futurist is a bunch of crap. I took a chart of the most popular electronic music I was playing as a DJ into Sounds and said to them 'put it in but don't call it
'Eurorock' or anything like that'. I grab hold of the paper a week later and it says 'Futurist'. I hate all this stopid tagging."

Despite Stevo's disclaimer, "Futurist" was seen by some as a useful tag for an emerging movement, and there were actually "Futurist" nights
at some nightclubs. The movement was seen by some as an avant-garde version of/reaction to the "pop" New Romantic scene, with the most
important bands being John Foxx-era Ultravox and Gary Numan. However, the movement seems to have suffered from the lack of a coherent
identity and never became a subculture as such.

The tag, however, became popular for a while- in an interview in Sounds in January 1981, Blancmange denied being Futurist ("I'm not a
Futurist. I hate that word. What we do is more like experimental new music") whilst Depeche Mode laid claim to the term in an attempt to evade a
worse one ("OK, we're Futurists. We've always been Futurists. For me, Futurusts were an extension of punk rock. We never had anything to do with New
Romantics. They all looked the same. Bunch of flaming sissies! But call us what you like. Ultra pop. Fiturist, Disco. Anything so long as it's not New
Romantic").

scott seward (scott seward), Saturday, 18 September 2004 17:13 (nineteen years ago) link

I stole that from here: http://www.scathe.demon.co.uk/future.htm

scott seward (scott seward), Saturday, 18 September 2004 17:15 (nineteen years ago) link

I still have a tape from 1981 of a college new wave and punk radio show that i recorded entitled: "NU-Rock"

scott seward (scott seward), Saturday, 18 September 2004 17:18 (nineteen years ago) link

Since when has "despairing" been a big component of the Radiohead sound? I don't get this comparison at all.

ha ha ha ha! I assume this was meant in jest, and if so, good one.

Latebloomer, while I sympathise with your point of view in other respects, I believe goth would have existed without JAMC - in fact, it did.

Thanks to Scott Seward for pointing out that when JD were going there WAS no goth scene to speak of. If there was, JD might have dressed differently. MIGHT have. Instead they dressed pretty normally and forced you to concentrate on their music. Another reason why they're ace. I pulled out U.P. last night, spurred by the person here who kept saying he thought the bass line from Disorder was out of tune (on another thread somewhere). He (she?) regretted and retracted it later, but wow. Hooky out of tune is like...he can't be out of tune because more often than not he calls the tune everyone else seems to play around. If he were out of tune the whole thing would fall apart.

I warn you guys, though I tend to get hysterical at goth-related jokes, so try to keep it at a minimum. I'm rather horrified at the way Franz Ferdinand singer has copied Stephen Morris' striped shirt above.

Bimble (bimble), Saturday, 18 September 2004 18:20 (nineteen years ago) link

Radiohead is at varying times haunting, sarcastic, soaring, angry, exciting, reserved, incandescent, hopeful, introverted, accusatory, dizzying, obtuse, impressionistic, and bouncy. I don't think of them as despairing at all, particularly not after their first album (which as far as I'm concerned doesn't exist anyway).

Dan Perry '08 (Dan Perry), Saturday, 18 September 2004 18:26 (nineteen years ago) link

what dan said. the comparison seems odd to me.

amateur!!!st (amateurist), Saturday, 18 September 2004 18:31 (nineteen years ago) link

I dunno, "How To Disappear Completely" is kind of dispairing.

Sansai, Saturday, 18 September 2004 18:55 (nineteen years ago) link

xpost

But Radiohead can often be brooding no? They certainly have made some pretty depressing music. When I think of happy music, RH is not the first to come to mind.

Just came across the lyrics for George Harrison's "Only a Northern Song" and realized they were strangely appropriate for this thread:

If you're listening to this song
You may think the chords are going wrong
But they're not
He just wrote it like that

When you're listening late at night
You may feel the bands are not quite right
But they are
They just play it like that

It doesn't really matter what chords I play
What words I say
Or time of day it is
As it's only a Northern Song

It doesn't really matter what clothes I wear
Or how I fare
Or if my hair is brown
When it's only a Northern Song

If you think the harmony
Is a little dark and out of key
You're correct
There's nobody there

And I told you there's no one there

Bimble (bimble), Saturday, 18 September 2004 18:57 (nineteen years ago) link

It's probably a completely inappropriate reaction, but when I hear "How To Disappear Completely" the closest emotion I can think of to describe the feeling evoked by the song is "rapture".

Dan Perry '08 (Dan Perry), Saturday, 18 September 2004 22:54 (nineteen years ago) link

Understandable, especially when those gorgeous strings sweep in, but the vocals? That's dispair, baby.

Sansai, Saturday, 18 September 2004 22:58 (nineteen years ago) link

The vocals float into the music for me. I barely pay attention to anything Thom Yorke says. (I do take the point that "I'm Not here/It isn't happening" could be a message of despair but it doesn't sound that way TO ME, which is really the only point I'm trying to make; "Well the world don't move/To the beat of just one drum" etc etc.)

Dan Perry '08 (Dan Perry), Sunday, 19 September 2004 00:49 (nineteen years ago) link

radiohead did that song?

amateur!!!st (amateurist), Sunday, 19 September 2004 02:16 (nineteen years ago) link

"Love Will Tear Us Apart" is the one Joy Division song I don't "get" all the hype about because it's a good melody but there's NO HARMONY WHATSOEVER IN THE HOOK WTF WHY ARE THE BASSLINE, SYNTH, AND IAN CURTIS' VOICE ALL FOLLOWING THE SAME MELODY LINE

Curt1s St3ph3ns, Sunday, 19 September 2004 02:21 (nineteen years ago) link

Oh, we're talking about Radiohead now. F that.

Curt1s St3ph3ns, Sunday, 19 September 2004 02:22 (nineteen years ago) link

curtisss: there are more notes in the bass part than in the vocal during the hook

amateur!!!st (amateurist), Sunday, 19 September 2004 02:23 (nineteen years ago) link

Hooky!

Bimble (bimble), Sunday, 19 September 2004 02:40 (nineteen years ago) link

The confluence of voice, synth and bass on the chorus is EXACTLY what ameks that song genius!

Dan Perry '08 (Dan Perry), Sunday, 19 September 2004 02:41 (nineteen years ago) link

i agree. they are following the same general movement, but at paces different enough to keep things interesting. note how the bass drags behind the vocal. i believe the synth line drags even farther behind.

amateur!!!st (amateurist), Sunday, 19 September 2004 02:47 (nineteen years ago) link

i'm actually trying to imagine in my head what the chorus would sound like if all the parts were *really* the same.

amateur!!!st (amateurist), Sunday, 19 September 2004 02:48 (nineteen years ago) link

"love will tear us apart (sesame street hootenanny mix)"

amateur!!!st (amateurist), Sunday, 19 September 2004 02:49 (nineteen years ago) link

i should note again that they are playing different numbers of notes. the bass is i think playing more notes b/t intervals yes? and while the synth line is similar to the vocal line, it drags behind *and* has fewer rests--each chord follows the other w/little pause. the result is rhythmically and otherwise involving. i hope i am using the right terminology and am making sense.

amateur!!!st (amateurist), Sunday, 19 September 2004 02:50 (nineteen years ago) link

i mean i guess the melody of this song is pretty uninteresting as a melody--it's not very mobile. but it doesn't have to me, because the textures of the song are so involving! i think of this as a defining quality of joy division.

amateur!!!st (amateurist), Sunday, 19 September 2004 02:56 (nineteen years ago) link

i mean the vocal melody.

amateur!!!st (amateurist), Sunday, 19 September 2004 02:56 (nineteen years ago) link

am-ek (v.): To spontaneously turn into a solid gold burrito that gives blowjobs.

Dan Perry '08 (Dan Perry), Sunday, 19 September 2004 02:57 (nineteen years ago) link

radiohead did that song?
-- amateur!!!st (---...), September 19th, 2004.

yeah they also did the theme song for 'one day at a time' but the network thought it was too 'peppy'.

latebloomer (latebloomer), Sunday, 19 September 2004 03:01 (nineteen years ago) link

dan did my description make any sense?

amateur!!!st (amateurist), Sunday, 19 September 2004 03:03 (nineteen years ago) link

Also, the bridge in the middle (which is repeated at the end) adds some rhythmic variability. There's only one chord being played during those sections, too, so it's sonically quite separate from the verses and chorus as well.

MindInRewind (Barry Bruner), Sunday, 19 September 2004 03:17 (nineteen years ago) link

also IIRC that synth plays the chorus' vocal melody during the verses. so when the vocal melody "comes home" to the synth line as it were, it's very cathartic and satisfying.

amateur!!!st (amateurist), Sunday, 19 September 2004 04:10 (nineteen years ago) link


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