I've been watching this great documentary on Joy Division (simply called "Joy Division") on the PVR.
My intro to Joy Division was of course New Order, the band that the remaining members formed after Ian Curtis committed suicide in 1980. I have most of their music and always thought they were perhaps the most interesting post-punk sound to come out of the UK in the late '70s. What I'm most fascinated by now is how their kind of post-industrial sound and striking minimalistic design and writing style have held up.
To the centre of the city where all roads
meet looking for you
To the depths of the ocean
where all hopes sank searching for you
Moving through the silence without motion
waiting for you
In a room with no window in the corner,
I found truth
The band helped form the melancholy of The Cure, The Smiths, The Sisters of Mercy and went on to create a niche for the "intelligent electronica" bands like Depeche Mode.
And their design ethic still inspires. Check out the cover to "Unknown Pleasures" released in 1979:
And the later precursur to the seminal New Order's "Substance":
You can see this ethos reflected in the writing style and cover art of bands like Coldplay even today, 30 years later.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joy_division
