Closer

Two albums from 1979 and 1980 in the Top 1001? Really. One, maybe, for influence, but they both kinda suck. In one year they didn't improve one iota. Ian Curtis couldn't sing a lick if he tried, he was awful. This got popular only because the Brits were sick of Rod Stewart and the established 70's sound, it's just not good. 30M people listed to "Isolation"?! What a dark and dreary place it must've been back then, the song is atrocious, and people were obviously looking for something other than sunshine. Two stars as it was somehow influential. New Order is WAY better. Won't be listening to this one again.

An all-time favorite. I've listened to this so many times, and will continue to listen to this until my day is closed. 5 "absolutely perfect" stars.

Now this was a pleasant surprise. It's melodic, it's groovy, it's disturbed, it's depressed, it's got it all!

pretty dreary, i love new order so i've always wanted to explore joy division more, but this hasn't got me interested

I know Joy Division are meant to be super important culturally but god I found this dull and boring

Yet another example of otherwise perfectly decent music ruined by lame vocals.

They kinda sound like The Doors Not bad but not something I’d revisit

A few good songs but overall disappointing

Such a dull album. Nothing happens in any song. Really looked forward to this, and it let me down so badly. Feel like this one is hyped purely based on the suicide of the singer, and really, it doesn't deserve the praise.

Album 366. Closer (https://open.spotify.com/album/4kT3ewGWBRAOlocyVp03bm?si=SacPqdYEQ4yvjB4YkiU_kA) — Joy Division (1980) Fuck, I can't find the words for Joy Division. I never thought that I'd like this band, but here we are. I love it and I love post-punk more and more I like the vibes, maybe the dead-inside part of me finds something familiar in this music idk. Or maybe I'm a little goth deep inside? 4/5 Liked: — Atrocity Exhibition — Passover — Colony — A Means to an End — Heart and Soul — Twenty Four Hours — Decades

I'm not sure this adds much when there is Unknown Pleasures on the this. I still enjoyed it, but it also made me sad. 3.5

Det er jo ikke stygt, men samtidig fester det seg ikke for meg eller noe jeg ser opp for. Kan hende jeg ikke var helt i modus da jeg hørte på det. 2-3 kanskje, men lander på 2.

Not bad!

Great album

Good

9/10 Favorites: Isolation Colony A Means to an End Twenty Four Hours

Pretty boring. I expected better. No songs stood out, it was just more of the same.

This is a pretty good album, not joy divisions best in my opinion.

Good stuff, properly gothy and music to sway to

Great music, grating vocals.

Better than the Smiths

I found this very boring (＠_＠;) Last song wasn't bad though. None of this was bad, it just wasn't for me. I appreciate the cool gothic mood too

This is a difficult album to rate I feel knowing how the state of mind that Ian was in. Yes, it’s very sad but with the underlying musicality there is also joy and light. I guess maybe the Smiths adopted some of this style. Anyway, it is a great album but it is a hard listen and not something that maybe I would go back to regularly.

Obviously birthed a lot of sons. Not really my thing but there's some things here that grab me.

6/10… gothic rock / new wave / *1980

I liked the last song (Decades) the best.

I always thought I didn't like Joy Division, but I guess they've grown on me because I didn't mind this. Music has evolved, I guess, and so have I.

Not as listenable as I wanted it to be...

#MaccPride I feel like my enjoyment of this music is hampered by Ian Curtis' droning voice. The music is actually quite interesting sometimes (emphasis on sometimes, not always), but him going blah blah blah just means I'm not too interested alas. Liked the final song!

This is one of those classic early 80s records that have a super distinct sound. When you hear it, you know exactly when this was produced and recorded. But that doesn't mean it's great, because it is decidedly not. There are other records around this time which are much better. Still, it was a trip to hear this sound again, as it was right when I first started listening to music. The band is actually pretty good, but the lead holds them back, leaving this a touch underwhelming.

Like a lot of people here it seems, I've always preferred Unknown Pleasures but there's no doubt that this is a great work.

Pretty good listen for me having enjoyed some of their work before, but preferring New Order. I'll go 4 stars here

The vocals here are so bad they overshadow anything interesting the rest of the band might have been doing. This album gave me a headache on a Friday. Instant 1 star for that.

Was fine but missing something to add spice to it

Dark, atmospheric and innovative. Truly brilliant

3.5/5

AWESOME.

Some really cool sounds, i think i need some more time with this band to really appreciate them on their own terms rather than proto-other bands i like

I know this band has huge influence on many bands I like but they don't touch me with this album, quite boring, maybe I need to give it another try...

Enjoyed it, but I think I like the first album more.

I'm someone who likes music for the music, not as the backing for poetry.

Nearly a DNF. Could not groove with Curtis’ voice. Instrumentation was fine but a bit dark and moody. (Feature, not a bug, I get it.)

Not their best.

3,5

Classic joy division

Bit crazy

I enjoy the Joy Division. Creative and edgy back in the day.

This album was a difficult listen back in 1980 and the passage of time hasn’t made it much easier. Knowing how desperately ill lead singer Ian Curtis was during the recording and then hearing lines like “Gotta find some therapy … gotta find my destiny, before it gets too late” hits home in a way that very few songs do. Perhaps he could have been helped, but there are too many ‘what ifs’ to answer. The sound of this album defined the 80s for me, being the antithesis of plastic pop for yuppies. Without this album we wouldn’t have had so much of the music that exploded from the Manchester scene throughout that decade and beyond. As with Bowie’s Blackstar, this deserves to be listened to properly and not shuffled or playlisted.

great sounding album

Ticks all the boxes - Moody but you can bop to it - Vulnerable vocals - Jangly effects-laden guitars - Bass so forward in the mix it’s punches you in the ear - Production that lets everything breathe The actual songs aren’t half bad too.

Good, but not really my thing...

Liked it very much

A solid 4

Ich find's eher nervig, ist nicht meins

Ne das ist es nicht... Hat auch nicht besonders viel Joy in der Musik

The era when you didn't need to be able to sing to be a singer

Not enjoyable

Ugly beauty. There's so much great Punky post rock stuff here. Massively atmospheric. The bass playing is really fantastic throughout. The production choices mean that it's dark and scratchy and Punky and kind of live - it's definitely part of the whole thing that I love but it does make it quite a tough listen in parts. I found I really had to give it my att rather than being able to just appreciate it while doing the washing up.

Big fan of the dramatic sounds Fave track: The Eternal

I put the time in to try and understand Joy Division, and now I think I'm starting to get it. This is the reason the heart beats, this is the reason to do the list. 3.5/5

The more the better. First listen was unpleasant and it got better with the 2'd and the third. Still not my most preferred Joy Division Easily forgettable

Starts strong and finishes with the best 3 tracks. Some of the tracks in the middle bring it below Unknown Pleasures for me.

Just meh

I've always thought that this is one of those bands that only really got big because their lead singer died... It's definitely unique and interesting, just not very enjoyable to listen to.

Seminal, yes. Dated, maybe. Sad boi bangers, definitely.

I’m not quite sure I get why Joy Division gets as much love as they do. This record isn’t really bad or anything, but it isn’t revolutionizing music for me either. I do now understand Interpol better though. Overall, I like the record ok, but I stress “ok” cause there really are a few points in the record that are hard to qualify as anything but next level dogshit. 7/10

My favourite band of all time

ok

I think it’s somewhere around a 3.5 I think that the legacy Curtis left is palpable and this band eventually grew as a result. It’s great gothic music, but it’s not as great as UP in my opinion. It’s good and I have no complaints. Very moody, very dark and a window to Curtis’ mind

Sombre and monotonous. Reminds me of Interpol but not as good. Though I give them credit for coming much earlier (1980).

I’m always a little bit “do I like Joy Division? Or do I just like all the bands they influenced?”

This list has made it clear how rare it is to be innovative and still listen-able, trail blazing but still timeless. This just reinforced my love for these guys, even if it's not quite as classic as Unknown Pleasures.

my fav

Joy Division’s final album, before the remaining members started over as New Order. What works best for me on 𝘊𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘦𝘳 is Ian Curtis’ voice. His low, sometimes almost detached delivery fits the cold, uneasy atmosphere remarkably well. He can sound distant without sounding indifferent, and that makes the quieter moments particularly unsettling. I don’t connect with every song, but the combination of voice and music keeps me interested. The darkness feels convincing rather than put on, with Curtis sounding less like someone describing it than someone caught in the middle of it. Not an album that completely wins me over, but his presence makes a real difference.

Stark, depressing, excellent! 4

I like “alternative” rock as much as the next guy, but this was a touch too emo for me.

After the first song it’s either discordant or boring, as it does not sound like the band and the singer were in the same room recording. This is what music should not sound like.

So many bands I like, love this band, and yet I have never heard a song i really love.

i really like the eternal but the rest of the album just didn’t match that for me

I wanted to like this more. The instrumentals are creative and compelling, but I can't get over the off-pitch voice. I realize this is surely intentional, and while it is unsettling (again, intentionally), but I just don't enjoy it very much.

The final album from Joy Division is riveting in its darkness and a snapshot of Ian Curtis in his final movements to death. However - and this may change soon - it’s not Unknown Pleasures. Maybe one day this will stand out to me on a further level, but for now, I have the much stronger tie to the first album. Closer is an album that deserves to be discussed and discovered none the less (8/10, 4/5 on this scale)

I appreciate the craft but its quite a tough listen.

Dark, brooding, deeply influential and ultimately great

I'm on a run of 5/5s, and this is an easy one for me. I'm pretty shocked by the amount of negative reviews. I prefer Unknown Pleasures, but Closer probably has more depth to it. The production is superb, with little hints of what was to come with New Order.

Don't know if you can contextualize this album without Unknown Pleasures on one side and New Order on the other. Well, maybe you can, but I can't. This feels like an unfinished product: bolder, bigger, better than Unknown Pleasures but also less complete, less focused, more scattered. The old world (and ian curtis) is dying, the new order struggles to be born. We have the same driving beats, the same dark, semi-gothic drive, but some of it is going to that new order dance, some of it is stuck in punkier roots, and some of it is going to where Joy Division would've ended up if, y'know. So do I like it? Yeah. Do I like it as much as Unknown Pleasures? I dunno. At times yes, at times no. I guess this is the more critical darling, but Joy Division's best work, in my opinion, is Love Will Tear Us Apart. So the trajectory is there, I guess. But difficult.

Joy Division is just a really good band who made two really good albums. They have atmosphere like no other. It really puts you in a certain fucking upbeat depressive mood that I really enjoy. Godspeed to Joy Division.

The vocals give me confidence. I should song in public more often. If this guy can do it unembarrassed and without irony, I can too. Is there a solid rhythm section out there willing to play awesome music behind my mediocre-at-best singing? I can ruin your shit a little less than this. Let's get it going! For me, the instrumentation is really good on this album; the droning and hypnotic feel of it is most of what I like, but the wannabe Jim Morrison who's Ben Steining into the microphone just kills it for me. "I put my trust in you, Bueller. Bueller? My wife says about clothes that you can wear a risque top or a risque bottom, but not both at the same time. Along those lines, I think you get one kind of droning in music: vocals or instruments. As a compliment, this music would fit perfectly into a Robert Rodriguez film. This wasn't unlistenable, but it was unenjoyable. ⭐⭐

I didn't think there could be an album this bad.

Listened to this years ago and it didn’t hit, but today….god damn this is a masterpiece. The influence Closer had on bands like Radiohead, the cure, NIN etc is undeniable. It’s the upside down of conventional music, a minimalist post punk electronic record where the bass plays the lead and the synths (a newish concept for the time if I am not mistaken) tuned to sound like an ancient organ built but the Druid/aliens who did stone hedge and percussion that lays the foundation for everything Radiohead produced post OKC. I assumed this would be a 3 based on past experience but we’re gonna give this a 5.

In one word, Closer could be described as swamp-like. The restrained and mostly relaxed mood borders with bleakness. The vocals only add up to this effect. For instance, Heart and Soul starts as a promising track but ends up featuring lack of development. In the first half of the album, the distorted sounds are overused which at times ruins the effect of their style, which is undoubtedly present throughout Closer. A Means to an End, Twenty Four Hours and Decades are the leading tracks. They tend to feature some kind of distinct melody, while other compositions feel like sticking to just unsuccessfully trying to come up with one. Perhaps their outher albums are more compelling. P.S. Great track titles on this one.

I’ve never been a fan of the droning, depressing songs of this era and genre. And yet I recognize this band’s influence and appreciate what they did when they reformed as New Order without Ian (?) Curtis. I think he was probably the part I didn’t like. So do they get 4 stars for potential and influence or 3 because I don’t really want to listen to this again. 3.5 is my real rating, as if it matters.

*Closer* is an outstanding album, eerie and off-kilter at times, persistent and relentless at others.

If I was Ian Curtis I would have killed myself, too. Shite music that you can’t possibly criticise because otherwise you demonstrate that you just don’t understand it, it’s not just a phase, mum! I hate you!

Bad vocals over disjointed noise

Doesn't sound too different to my ears. Not my cup of tea.

I know that this one is widely accepted and other stuff, by I can't say that there is something amazing in this album, maybe except

Not a great singer; seemed like he wasn’t able to hit notes well or consistently. Music itself was ok if a little on the boring side. 2.5/5

I have always anticipated Joy Division as avarage punk, but this was something else. Very delicate, very post.

A little moody at the end, it’s not Unknown Pleasures, it doesn’t feature Love Will Tear Us Apart. So, not five stars.

I modsætning til Unknown Pleasures blev den her bedre frem for dårligere gennem albummet. Og det var ikke fordi, den startede dårligt.