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Apr 30, 2022 · "In the 41 years since the photo, no one has made any claim to a later photo of Ian and so with a 99.999% probability this is the last photo of Ian." Ian Curtis' tragic death on May 18, 1980 saw ...
- Dirty Old Town
- Day In, Day Out
- The Myth and The Man
- Look Beyond The Day at Hand
- Don’T Walk Away in Silence
- The Idiot
- One of The Last True Stories in Pop
- The Dream Goes on
To understand why Joy Division sounded the way they did, it is important to look at the time and context that they grew up and lived in. The British Empire and class structures were crumbling and unemployment and inflation were sky-high. Britain was in an economic decline with huge public spending cuts, political polarization, and an infinite numbe...
But for Joy Division’s lead singer, there were also interior landscapes to contend with. Ian Curtis might have been bipolar. He certainly had a split personality and was affected by severe mood-swings, and when he sang ‘feel it closing in, day in, day out’ on Digital and ‘a dual of personalities, that stretch all true realities’ on Dead Soulsit ran...
A lot of the myth and mystique surrounding Joy Division in general, and Ian Curtis in particular, tends to portray a rather more one-dimensional sense of torment and gloom. Perhaps because the band did few interviews, because the cover-art contains little information about the band, or because the pictures and footage that were published and releas...
But however much Ian kept a straight face and could be fun to be with, in retrospect there were many signs that he was not well. He had already tried to commit suicide once. His epilepsy, which he had been diagnosed with in December 1978, was getting worse as fits were becoming stronger and more frequent, both on-stage and off. And the medicine he ...
But did Curtis wish to die a romantic death, along the lines of one of his favorite artists David Bowie’s Rock’Roll Suicide? Was it the medication that made him end his own life, as his wife and several friends believed? Or was it all the soul searching, the illness, and having to make a life-choice between his wife and girlfriend? Curtis himself p...
Whatever the reason, Ian Curtis hanged himself in the early hours of 18 May 1980, only 23 years of age, after having received divorce papers from his wife the previous day. It was the day that Joy Division was to embark on their first tour of America. Ian had been drinking coffee and spirits. Iggy Pop’s album The Idiot was on the record player, whe...
Joy Division ended up selling hundreds of thousands of records without advertising, pluggers or marketing budgets, due to the freedom given by their anarchic and idealistic (some would say flippant and financially unsound) record company, Factory Records. Indeed, both the band’s albums received 10 out of 10 reviews from the NME when they were relea...
Dead heroes do not age, do not fade away, do not make bad albums in later years. They allow us to project our fears, hopes and dreams onto them like a musical version of Dorian Grayand let them stare into the abyss for us and describe what they see. Ian Curtis once said that ‘you either stay outside the system or go in totally, and try and change i...
Sep 24, 2020 · New Order (Substance; 1987) - Ceremony. Watch on. In January 1981, New Order released its first single, “Ceremony.”. It was written when Ian Curtis was still alive, and one of the last Joy Division songs to be composed. The lyrics, written by Curtis. There are versions of “Ceremony” as recorded by Joy Division.
Feb 18, 2021 · I LOVE YOU. Kurt Cobain’s death was officially ruled a suicide by a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Kurt Cobain, a name synonymous with the grunge music movement, was born on February 20, 1967, in Aberdeen, Washington. An iconic figure, Cobain was the lead vocalist and guitarist of the rock band Nirvana.
Sunday January 01 2023, 12.00am, The Sunday Times. A few weeks before Ian Curtis killed himself he phoned his Joy Division bandmate, the drummer Stephen Morris, and told him that he wanted to ...
- Executive Editor, Interviews, Culture & Books
May 18, 2022 · A timeline of the final days of Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis. “Reality is only a term, based on values and well worn principles, whereas the dream goes on forever.”. – Ian Curtis (1958-1980). When Joy Division released Unknown Pleasures in 1979 Ian Curtis was only 22. The record defined post-punk. Curtis was shooting to stardom.
Apr 30, 2019 · This summer marks 39 years since the death of Ian Curtis. At times it can feel as though his suicide casts a shadow so vast as to obscure entirely the deeper and more viscerally engaging story of ...
