Joy Division were an English 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.
members: Ian Curtis, Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook, Steve Brotherdale, Stephen Morris
formed in: Salford
labels: Factory Records
genres: post-punk
influenced by: Can, Sex Pistols
awards: MOJO Awards
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On 4 June 1976, childhood friends Bernard Sumner and Peter Hook separately attended a Sex Pistols show at the Manchester Lesser Free Trade Hall. Afterwards, both felt inspired by the Pistols' performance. Sumner said that he felt the Pistols had "destroyed the myth of being a pop star, of a musician being some kind of god that you had to worship". The following day Hook borrowed £35 from his mother to buy a bass guitar. They formed a band with Terry Mason, who had also attended the gig; Sumner bought a guitar, and Mason a drum kit. After their schoolfriend Martin Gresty declined an invitation to join as vocalist after getting a job at a factory, the band placed an advertisement for a vocalist in the Manchester Virgin Records shop. Ian...
Joy Division were approached by RCA Records to record a cover of Nolan "N.F." Porter's "Keep on Keepin' On" at a Manchester recording studio. The band spent late March and April 1978 writing and rehearsing material. During the Stiff/Chiswick Challenge concert at Manchester's Rafters club on 14 April, they caught the attention of TV music presenter Tony Wilson and manager Rob Gretton. Curtis berated Wilson for not putting the group on his Granada Television show So It Goes; Wilson responded that Joy Division would be the next band he would showcase on TV. Gretton, the venue's resident DJ, was so impressed by the band's performance that he convinced them to take him on as their manager. Gretton, whose "dogged determination" was later...
Sumner wrote that Curtis was inspired by artists such as the Doors, Iggy Pop, David Bowie, Kraftwerk, the Velvet Underground and Neu!. Hook has also related that Curtis was particularly influenced by Iggy Pop's chaotic stage persona. The group were inspired by Kraftwerk's "marriage between humans and machines", and the inventiveness of their electronic music. Joy Division played Trans-Europe Express through the PA before they went on stage, "to get a momentum". Bowie's "Berlin Trilogy" elaborated with Brian Eno, influenced them; the "cold austerity" of the synthesisers on the B-sides of "Heroes" and Low albums, was a "music looking at the future". Morris cited the "unique style" of Velvet Underground's Maureen Tucker and the motorik drum...
Despite their short career, Joy Division have exerted a wide-reaching influence and achieved widespread critical acclaim. John Bush of AllMusic argues that Joy Division "became the first band in the post-punk movement by ... emphasizing not anger and energy but mood and expression, pointing ahead to the rise of melancholy alternative music in the '80s." Distinguished as "Joy Division/New Order", the group has been nominated three times for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (2023, 2025, and 2026), and was inducted in 2026.
Are you them, or do you know them? The mail slot is open.
"Love Will Tear Us Apart" is a song by the English rock band Joy Division, released in 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 released one month after Curtis' suicide.
"Love Will Tear Us Apart" was written about Ian Curtis' troubled relationship with his wife, Deborah Woodruff, whom he married in August 1975. Additionally, it deals with his own struggles with epilepsy, which he was diagnosed with in 1979, and the overwhelming stress of holding down a day job and his growing career as a singer.
Joy Division first recorded "Love Will Tear Us Apart" at Pennine Studios, Oldham, on 8 January 1980, along with the B-side, "These Days". This version was similar to the version the band played live. However, singer Ian Curtis and producer Martin Hannett disliked the results and the band reconvened in March at Strawberry Studios, Stockport (where the Neil Sedaka song "Love Will Keep Us Together" had been recorded in 1973), to re-record it. Each instrument was recorded separately. As Morris recalled:
It was first recorded for a John Peel session in November 1979, then re-recorded in January and March 1980. It is the latter version that appears on the 1988 Substance album. The January 1980 version, which has become known as the "Pennine version", originally appeared as one of the single's B-sides.
According to Curtis's wife Deborah, to create the single cover photo, which was made by Trevor Key, the song title was etched upon a sheet of metal; this was aged with acid and exposed to the weather to create the appearance of a stone slab. For the 12-inch version of the single, a photograph of a grieving angel on the Ribaudo family tomb in Genoa's Monumental Cemetery of Staglieno (sculpted by Onorato Toso c. 1910) was used. The photograph was taken by Bernard Pierre Wolff in 1978.
"Shadowplay" is a song by the English rock band Joy Division. The song appeared on their debut studio album, Unknown Pleasures, released on 15 June 1979.
Previously, Joy Division played "Shadowplay" live on their first television appearance on Granada TV in September 1978. It was later featured on the compilation album Silhouettes and Statues.
Early recordings of the lyrics on the Warsaw album show the first line of the song as saying "To the centre of the city where all roads meet looking for you". In later recordings the word looking is replaced with waiting.
"Transmission" is a song by the English post-punk band Joy Division. Originally recorded in 1978 for the band's aborted self-titled album, it was later re-recorded the following year at a faster tempo and released by record label Factory as the band's debut single.
"Transmission" was released on 7" vinyl on 7 October 1979 by record label Factory. It was re-released as a 12" single with a different sleeve on 20 February 1981. The single charted twice in New Zealand, debuting at number 2 in September 1981 and re-appearing again at number 24 in July 1984.
Greil Marcus has a chapter on this song in his book The History of Rock 'n' Roll in Ten Songs. According to Marcus, "'Transmission' is not an argument. It's a dramatization of the realization that the act of listening to the radio is a suicidal gesture. It will kill your mind. It will rob your soul." Marcus also quotes the band's bassist Peter Hook about the importance of this song: "We were doing a soundcheck at the Mayflower, in May, and we played 'Transmission': people had been moving around, and they all stopped to listen. I realized that was our first great song."
In May 2007, NME magazine placed "Transmission" at number 20 in its list of the 50 "Greatest Indie Anthems Ever", one place below "Love Will Tear Us Apart". In 2016, Pitchfork placed "Transmission" at number 10 in its list of "The 200 Best Songs of the 1970s".
"Transmission" has been covered by: Low (on its EP Transmission); Bauhaus (as well as by frontman Peter Murphy on his solo tours); Innerpartysystem; The Weather Station; Girl in a Coma; and Hot Chip on the 2009 War Child charity album Heroes. It was played by The Smashing Pumpkins on their Adore Tour in 1998, with performances of the song usually lasting from 15 to 25 minutes. It was also covered by the cast of Control, a biographical film about the life of Ian Curtis. In 2009, the song was covered by Russian post-punk group Последние танки в Париже as "Радиоволна", in 2012 by Italian black metal band Forgotten Tomb, by Nomeansno, and by BadBadNotGood with the song "Mass Appeal" on their debut album, BBNG.