Acts like The Light or New Order, performing Joy Division songs while huge screens flash pictures of Ian Curtis, come perilously close.īut going all the way seems an unusually honest and perfect solution for incomplete but still active bands looking to proceed. No band has used the expensive technique as an ongoing feature of a tour. Dre and Eminem in 2012, the idea of conjuring a three-dimensional facsimile of a long-dead performer has become a running joke. Ever since Coachella produced a posthumous holographic version of Tupac Shakur to join Snoop Dogg, Dr. Perhaps the most appropriate option for any partial band hoping to soldier on is also the most ghoulish. Just how many elements can you remove from a project before it becomes comically threadbare, not just a shabby version of the original entity but something else entirely? The medium-sized theaters The Light sell out suggest Hook has yet to reach the market’s terminal point. Sumner and Morris have criticized Hook for the move, but they still trot out the old Joy Division classics as concert encores, too. He’ll lead that unit through Joy Division’s two classic studio albums Unknown Pleasures and Closer at Cat’s Cradle this week. Guitarist Bernard Sumner and drummer Stephen Morris continue on as “New Order,” while bassist Peter Hook tours the same old material with The Light. The squabbles of the group’s founding members have produced two different touring units, each staking claim to the same legacy. Instead of dwelling in the past, they forged a new future.īut the last decade of New Order’s existence has resembled a continual victory lap in which the vehicle has started to fall apart. The subsequently brighter, bouncier synth-pop of hits like “Blue Monday” allowed New Order to build its own sound. But New Order’s Movement, the 1981 album by the band’s renamed survivors, continued proudly in Joy Division’s stylistic spotlight despite understandably dimmed results. Losing a frontman like Joy Division’s Ian Curtis would obliterate most acts, and Curtis’ suicide was a trauma the band couldn’t withstand. New Order was once another fine example of artists successfully moving on from tragedy. By being rare and exceptional, the night delivered what all post-death band revivals should desire: not the feeling of simulacrum, but of spectacle. The absence of a subsequent tour with that set-up let it serve as a loving, limited homage, not a continuing payday. ![]() The high star wattage prevented disappointment, and the special-event feeling precluded desperation. Vincent’s Annie Clarkto honor the leader without inviting direct comparison. Assuming no man could live up to Kurt Cobain’s myth, they recruited four formidable womenKim Gordon, Lorde, Joan Jett, St. 4 Pretty boy Jude Law was once rumored to be up for the role of Curtis in a rival Joy Division film project.For an institution as perennially lame as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, it’s shocking how well they interpreted such lessons for last year’s Nirvana induction. 3 Kate Moss hired Peter Saville, famed graphic designer behind Joy Division and New Order typography, to create her new fashion logo. 2 Unknown Pleasures album art inspires New Balance knockoff. Here we chart the group's influence, from alt-rock acts that cop its sound to the Hot Topic goths who mimic Curtis' gloomy outlook.ġ Nine Inch Nails was just one of countless bands to do a Joy Division cover-homage. ![]() But thanks to "Love Will Tear Us Apart" ( the make-out anthem for sad sacks worldwide), upcoming reissues, and the October release of director- photographer Anton Corbijn's biopic Control, Joy springs eternal. With that, Joy Division should've faded into oblivion. ![]() In 1980, after recording only two albums, Curtis hung himself, and the remaining members formed the electronic New Order. Joy Division never should have made it big: The band's mix of twitchy guitars, tinny synth, and chilly dance beats was jarringly murky, while singer Ian Curtis wallowed in existential dread (even its name, a nasty bit of Nazi sex-camp slang, was bleak).
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |