Joy Division - Heart & Soul
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Free Music Notes for Heart & Soul
Free Music Review: Thse days...
Hit: 5 Stars
These days, there is nothing out there with music as personal and haunting as Joy Division's. My thirst has been quenched. .Free Music Review: box set...
Hit: 5 Stars
all i can say is i love this box set, it is perfect and i love joy division.....buy this set now!!!!11Free Music Review: Great, but not perfect
Hit: 4 Stars
What can you say about Joy Division? They aren't for everyone, that's for sure. A lot of folks cannot get past Ian Curtis' voice, and I understand that; sometimes even I throw up my hands and ask, "Why in the world didn't Martin Hannett tell Ian to do another take? Surely they could have gotten him to sing just a wee bit more in tune."
But on the other hand, sometimes the weird, flat voice is actually good for the track - sometimes, the ghostly, haunted lyrics benefit from Curtis' ghostly, haunted, slightly atonal vocal style. So overall, most of the studio recordings work very well. Live, however, there are a lot of moments that are almost excruciating to the ears. On top of that, the fact that the three musicians in the band were all amatuers themselves made for exciting but inconsistent performances.
WHY THIS BOX SET IS GOOD: Remastered versions of the two proper studio albums "Unknown Pleasures" and "Closer." Both these albums remain stunning landmarks of "post-punk" music. The musical style of this band was quite distinctive - bass often carried the melody and the guitar functioned more as the true rhythm instrument. Drum parts tended toward machine-like grooves, but played by a human being. All in all, a unique approach that could only have been developed by guys who truly didn't know better; unaffected by any sort of technical proficiency, Joy Division had to forge their songs with the most rudimentary tools. Miraculously, they managed to create an influential and sophisticated sound with few obvious antecedents.
In addition to the two albums, this also includes almost all their singles and outtakes. Plus, you get some stuff that was never officially released, including three tracks from their unreleased 1978 "Warsaw" album.
WHY IT'S NOT SO GOOD: For the most part, the alternate versions on Disc 3 are not that impressive. On some of them, the vocals are downright horrible. And as far as Disc 4 goes, this is the worst sounding offically released live material I've heard by this band. Even the Preston Warehouse CD sounds better! Even worse, the first 14 tracks suffer from a very common audio flaw in bootlegs: the original tape recorder must have been running at slow speed, and when they remastered it for this CD, the playback deck must have been playing at normal speed. The result: everything is speeded up and the pitch is more than a half-step sharp. WHY DIDN'T ANYONE OVERSEEING THIS PROJECT NOTICE THAT THE RECORDING WAS CLEARLY NOT AT PROPER SPEED???
Now I am going to have to tape this CD, and then play it back again using my variable speed tape deck. How ridiculous!
The only material on the live CD that was recorded at proper speed is the last 5 songs. Overall, this live CD is a big disappointment.
Also, the packaging of this box set is pretty shoddy. The cover is made of what feels like cheap manila paper. I'd had my copy for one day and I already noticed wear and tear on the binding.
WHAT THIS BOX SET IS MISSING:
1) 7 out of ten songs from the "Complete BBC Sessions" CD.
2) 8 of the 11 songs recorded for RCA in 1978 for the unreleased "Warsaw" album. (now available on a CD which includes the group's earliest recordings from 1977)
3) The original "Warsaw" demo - 5 songs recorded in July 1977; incredibly primitive, amatuerish punk. The songs aren't especially good, but it is startling to hear this stuff and realize this is how J.D. started.
4) The live material from "Still" - the full set from J.D.'s last show ever.
5) An excellent live version of a very early song called "At A Later Date" originally released on a Factory Records compilation called "Short Circuit - Live at the Electric Circus."
6) An alternate version of "Love Will Tear Us Apart" that was originally released on the b-side of the "Love Will Tear Us Apart" 12" single.
Given the omissions and the crappy-sounding live stuff, I can't give this 5 stars, as much as I adore this band.
Free Music Review: "No language, just sound, that's all we need know."
Hit: 4 Stars
This box set seemed like all a Joy Division fan would need. The sticker on the cellophane celebrated this release as having everything Joy Division ever recorded. I figured I could sell my Peel Sessions CD and Closer LP and not have to buy anything else ever. Well, the description on the back of the box backs off from the statement on the sticker with the qualification, "With a few exceptions, everything Joy Division recorded and released is contained here." I am not an expert on JD to rattle off all that is not included here, but "At A Later Date" from "Short Circuit: Live At The Electric Circus" LP (the first entry in the discography section of Deborah Curtis's book) is missing, as are 2 of the 4 tracks on the Peel Sessions CD I have (so, I guess I can't let it go after all). The back of the thick booklet explains the decisions to exclude some tracks. I can understand skipping tracks that have been released elsewhere in favor of those that were not released. I would have liked to hear the first Warsaw demos, though. I am not a big fan of live material so I have no problem with those choosing tracks for this set picking "the best material available" and leaving out the Birmingham concert already released in full on Still.
Of the previously unreleased tracks on disc 3, "The Drawback" and "Interzone" are short, fast-paced, upbeat, punk songs that sound a bit out of place but are cool. Some of the previously unreleased versions of songs I do not like. The only version of "Walked In Line" has flat vocals. It lacks the power of the released version. The vocals on this CD's versions of "Candidate" and "Chance (Atmosphere)" are also flat and far inferior to the released versions. "These Days" is one of my favorites on this disc with its driving bass riff; it is better than the single version. "Ceremony" and "In A Lonely Place" are rehearsals from a tape provided by Peter Hook, the latter being quite good.
The booklet is a biography of Joy Division and, in particular, Ian Curtis. There are a lot of quotes by the band, especially Bernard Sumner who describes his childhood and how it influenced JD's music. Of course, there is much on Curtis's unpredictable, explosive behavior and the events up to his suicide and the impact his fatal decision had on the band. The photos are mostly blurry, I guess, for artistic reasons, but I prefer the clear black & white photos of the band in the middle of the book. As another reviewer mentioned, the cover photo is not attractive at all. A lot of typos were found in the text, which was a bit surprising. The book includes lyrics and a detailed discography.
Despite what is missing, the set offers the "Ideal For Living" EP, the Factory Sample tracks "Digital" and "Glass", the "Transmission" single with "Novelty," the Earcom2 12" EP tracks "Auto-Suggestion" and "From Safety To Where...," the Sordide Sentimentale French release "Atmosphere" and "Dead Souls", the iconic single "Love Will Tear Us Apart" with "These Days," the entire LPs Unknown Pleasures and Closer, the uncredited Flexidisc track "As She Said" as well as 12" versions, live and previously unreleased tracks. For most fans of JD, this set will be all you need. Completists will need to own a few more things.
Free Music Review: Joy Division Could Have Been Recorded Next Year
Hit: 4 Stars
It strikes me how ahead of their time this band was. A mostly guitar band who's production sensibilities forshadowed some of what "electronica" has done over the past twenty years..or a least in the progressive margins. Not so surprising when you know that the surviving members of this band made many great dance classics and were big supporters of dance music life. Whether any of us would have seen Ian Curtis boping around at a rave party in ' 91 if he had lived that long is another perplexing Joy Division question. Certainly none of this sounds like the Junior Vasquez mix of New Order's "Regret" that came out ten years ago now. But you do get Joy Division, and more perspective on history, human organizations and their flaws and human frailty in general than I am sure going to get from my state college education. I just watched a Dead Kennedys live tape that was buried in my collection made the same time as Joy Division was doing their work. Ian Curits in his take on the horrors of humanity and what we seem capable of doing to each other as well as the vast sorrows that this creates...does lack the sarcasm and more straight forward "**** you!" that Jello Biafra had while they both were intellects. Additonally, punk purists may not have had patience for their evolution into studio processing, synthsizers and very early drum machines. Some may find a band's or an artists' evolution very exciting and downright inspiring. This is music for people that make music. Again, that shows how close to the "punk" spirit they really were. They make YOU want to form a band. But..one warning..my box set was not made very well..and the cardboard fell apart. I just have the CD's in a disc folder ...a disappointment considering how packaging and quality were always New Order, Factory and Joy Division mainstays.