Joy Division - Legacy

Legacy

Despite their short career and cult status, Joy Division have exerted a wide-reaching influence. John Bush of Allmusic argues that Joy Division "became the first band in the post-punk movement by ... emphasizing not anger and energy but mood and expression, pointing ahead to the rise of melancholy alternative music in the '80s."

The band's dark and gloomy sound, which Martin Hannett described in 1979 as "dancing music with Gothic overtones", presaged the gothic rock genre. While the term "gothic" originally described a "doomy atmosphere" in music of the late 1970s, the term was soon applied to specific bands like Bauhaus that followed in Joy Division's wake. Standard musical fixtures of early gothic rock bands included "high-pitched post-Joy Division basslines usurp the melodic role" and "vocals that were either near operatic and Teutonic or deep, droning alloys of Jim Morrison and Ian Curtis." Joy Division has influenced bands ranging from contemporaries U2 and The Cure to post-punk revival artists such as Interpol, Bloc Party and Editors. U2 frontman Bono stated that his group loved Joy Division. The singer said in the band's 2006 autobiography U2 by U2, "It would be harder to find a darker place in music than Joy Division. Their name, their lyrics and their singer were as big a black cloud as you could find in the sky. And yet I sensed the pursuit of God, or light, or reason ... a reason to be. With Joy Division, you felt from this singer, beauty was truth and truth was beauty, and theirs was a search for both." Artists including electronica performer Moby and former Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante have described their appreciation for Joy Division's music and the influence it has had on their own material. In 2005, Joy Division were inducted along with New Order into the UK Music Hall of Fame.

Two biopics have been released that dramatise Joy Division on film. 24 Hour Party People (2002) presented a somewhat fictionalised account of the rise and fall of Factory Records, in which the members of Joy Division served as supporting characters. Tony Wilson said of the film, "It's all true, it's all not true. It's not a fucking documentary", insisting that whenever possible during the production of the film, he favoured the "myth" over the truth. The 2007 film Control, directed by Anton Corbijn, is a biography of Ian Curtis (portrayed by Sam Riley) that uses Deborah Curtis's biography of her late husband, Touching from a Distance (1995), as its basis. Control had its international premiere on the opening night of Director's Fortnight at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, where it was critically well received. That year Grant Gee directed the band documentary Joy Division.