Joy Division / YMMV

Angst Aversion: If you don’t want to listen to unsettling lyrics mumbled by a suicidally depressed man set to haunting and claustrophobic music, do not listen to Joy Division.
Awesome Music: "Love Will Tear Us Apart", "Disorder", "Isolation", "She's Lost Control", "Day of the Lords" and "Transmission".
Broken Base:
- The production of Martin Hannett. Most people, including Ian Curtis, are fond of his sterile production style, while many fans who heard the band's live material are surprised by the raw energy and prefer Joy Division as a live band. In interviews Bernard Sumner and Peter Hook themselves that they only initially wanted Unknown Pleasures to sound how they sounded live and were initially unhappy with Hannett's style. Some fans love both styles of the band, the studio style and the live concert style.
- Which is better, Unknown Pleasures or Closer? The latter is commonly considered the band's masterpiece. However, some prefer the less experimental, more rock-oriented style of the former and dislike the experimental, synth-heavy direction on the latter with its comparatively dry production. Again, there are fans who love both albums.
Fandom Rivalry: Oh god, Joy Division fans vs. New Order fans. Joy Division fans argue that the band is nothing without Ian Curtis's dark, poetic lyrics, while New Order fans argue that New Order has the energy, song-writing prowess and experimentation that made Joy Division great or was lacking in Joy Division. Of course, many more fans enjoy both bands.
Fan Nickname: Japanese fans nickname Bernard as "Bernie" (バーニー) & Peter as "Hooky" (フッキー). The latter is fairly popular in the anglosphere as well, though there Bernard is often nicknamed "Barney."
Gateway Series: Given that they're the genre's Trope Codifiers, a lot of people discover Post-Punk with this band.
Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
- Joy Division has a strong cult following in Oceania. In New Zealand, when Ian Curtis died, a fan had painted a tribute to him on a wall◊ in Wellington, which still remains today, although it has been relocated and re-painted a few times. Chart wise, Unknown Pleasures reached number 1 there (in comparison, it peaked at 5 in the UK) and the group also had two number 1 singles. The band is also popular in Australia, topping the Triple J Hottest 100 list in 1989 and 1990, when it was an all-time poll instead of focusing on music released that year.
- While the band's stateside commercial success was limited, Joy Division had a cult following almost immediately in America coming off the notoriety of Ian Curtis' suicide, becoming a posthumous critical favorite and receiving coverage in prestigious publications like The New York Times and Rolling Stone. Closer and "Love Will Tear Us Apart" made The Village Voice 1980 Pazz & Jop Critic's poll as imports before their official U.S. releases the following year, as did "Atmosphere", which did have a U.S. release. "Love Will Tear Us Apart" also charted on Billboard's disco chart, of all places. (New wave was mostly heard stateside in dance clubs at the time.) The band would prove a major influence on Alternative Rock on the other side of The Pond throughout the decade and beyond, with "Love Will Tear Us Apart" an airplay staple on College Radio and early commercial alternative stations through the '80s.
  - More recently, the band has gained a following among African-Americans, especially rappers. Why? Well, it could be because of New Order's popularity on the urban music charts leading to fans checking out the previous incarnation. But it might be because, to quote Vince Staples, "Ian Curtis and B.B. King were singing about the exact same things!"
Harsher in Hindsight:
- Most of Ian's lyrics are ominous but "In a Lonely Place" stands out. It never actually came out in Ian's lifetime, but New Order re-recorded it as a B-Side. The verse that stands out "Hangman looks round as he waits / Cord stretches tight and it breaks / One day we will die in your dreams / How I wish you were here with me now" Yikes.
- Though not a Joy Division song, Throbbing Gristle's song "Weeping" become more chilling than usual when taken into account that it's not only about suicide, but one of Ian's favorite songs, to the point of singing parts of it during phone calls with TG members.
  - Or, more specifically, one he made to Genesis P-Orridge (who had themself written the song as a kind of suicide note) mere days before killing himself. Just singing "Weeping" into the phone before hanging up. There really are no words...
- In 2017, Chris Cornell, former lead singer for Soundgarden and Audioslave, also hung himself on May 18... the same date as Ian's suicide. Some fans do not think his choice of method and date was at all a coincidence. Then came Chris’s birthday, July 20th...
- The first two sentences of Melody Maker's review of Unknown Pleasures: "'To talk of life today is like talking of rope in the house of a hanged man.' Where will it end?"
- Peter Saville, the artist responsible for the artwork for the "Love Will Tear Us Apart" single release (as well as the band's chief art director as a whole, carrying on into New Order's career) said he only realized in retrospect that Curtis had intended the artwork to resemble a headstone. Likewise with Saville's cover art for Closer, which he expressed disdain about after Curtis' death out of a belief that the tombstone imagery had fallen into bad taste.
- The surviving band members have straight up admitted they never thought too hard about the lyrical content of Ian's song writing, and they have all expressed regret at never reaching out to him.
Hype Backlash: A lot of people are annoyed at seeing the Unknown Pleasures cover everywhere.
Mainstream Obscurity: More people have seen the cover of Unknown Pleasures than have actually heard the band.
Memetic Mutation:
- The artwork for Unknown Pleasures, a data plot of signals from the first pulsar discovered, has become a popular meme even among people who have no idea where it came from.
- "ian curtis rides a roller coaster", consisting of a roller coaster drop with the clip of "I Remember Nothing" playing when said drop happens. "WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE—"
- Various gifs of Ian's "seizure dance".
Narm Charm: Okay, maybe "narm" is too a harsh word to describe a band of this caliber, but let's be honest: Ian couldn't sing well. At all. He was by no means a trained vocalist, having been admitted into Joy Division without even auditioning, and it shows with how limited his range is and how frequently he goes off-key in the band's songs. However, fans will gladly attest that despite Ian's general lack of singing skills, his voice still adds quite heavily to the haunting, cavernous style of Joy Division's music, and none of the band's work would sound anywhere near the same without him. Tellingly, this was a major factor in New Order's decision to shift to Alternative Dance, feeling that without Ian at the helm, their attempt at another Post-Punk album with Movement was just a pale imitation of Joy Division.
Periphery Demographic: Joy Division maintains a surprisingly strong following among the black hip-hop community, especially the alternative hip-hop scene, due to a combination of their successors' equally-large presence among the urban dance scene and the fact that a large number of rappers like Danny Brown and Tyler the Creator consider Ian Curtis' highly personal lyrics emblematic of a kind of emotional honesty that strikes a deeply personal chord with black listeners. To quote Vince Staples, "B.B. King and Ian Curtis sing about the same things."
Posthumous Popularity Potential: There are way more New Order albums, but there is a morbid reason why the band was such a critical favorite on both sides of the Atlantic in the wake of Ian Curtis' suicide.
Refrain from Assuming: No, the song is not called "Remember When We Were Young". It's called "Insight".
Signature Song: "Love Will Tear Us Apart."
Tear Jerker: Has its own page.

YMMV / Joy Division

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