The process of warming up to Joy Division 'Closer'

[LemonMirrorSky]

After long having known and enjoyed a lot of New Order's material, I recently decided to get into Joy Division's work after reading somewhere about Ian Curtis' suicide.

Got Unknown Pleasures first. Didn't take too long for me to start enjoying it. Early standouts were Disorder, Day of the Lords, Insight, She's Lost Control, Shadowplay and the non-album single Transmission which I downloaded as as add-on. Candidate and I Remember Nothing took some warming up time. But as early as the second or third run through, I started loving the album in its entirety.

Wasn't the same experience with Closer. Absolutely hated the album after first listen. lol. I don't know how I found the motivation to go back and listen a second time, honestly. I guess the fact that I really loved Unknown Pleasures by this point egged me on. Now after several listens, there are some clear standout tracks in my head: Isolation, A Means To An End, Twenty Four Hours and The Eternal.

I've warmed up to the other tracks as well. I can see clearly hear clearly and appreciate the repetitive rhythms of Atrocity Exhibition. I have started enjoying the distinct sound of Colony. The atmosphere and stuff going on in the background during Heart and Soul is more memorable now... a track that sounded like a humongous bore initially.

But this process has been long! This is probably the longest I have taken to warm up to any album. I'm amazed at how some music really takes its time to grow on you. I don't know if you need to be in a certain state of mind also to enjoy certain music. Or in a specific geographic place and time. Maybe not but I'm just thinking aloud here. One thing I know from my experience with Closer is that anyone who simply gives up after one listen and finding nothing catchy in it is never going to come back to it. Keeping this is mind, I'm glad I listened to Unknown Pleasures first and NOT Closer. I may have never bothered with JD had I heard Closer first.

Anybody else here with similar thoughts?

 

[iron yuppie]

This is one of the issues with modern music availability, I think, which is you can listen to so much stuff that if there isn't an immediate grab, you might disregard an album that has considerable growing power. I can't think of an album specifically that took a long time to click with me, but there are artists that fit that description, like Bob Dylan. Black Sabbath is another. I never cared too much for them until I went beyond the singles, strangely enough.

 

[LemonMelon]

I still haven't fully warmed up to Closer. It's a fine album, but strangely backloaded. There's not much that interests me in the first half outside of Isolation, which is a strong hint at the direction New Order would take without actually being better than most New Order singles.

The second half is astounding, a string of songs somehow more harrowing than anything Unknown Pleasures has to offer.

 

[LemonMirrorSky]

This is one of the issues with modern music availability, I think, which is you can listen to so much stuff that if there isn't an immediate grab, you might disregard an album that has considerable growing power. I can't think of an album specifically that took a long time to click with me, but there are artists that fit that description, like Bob Dylan. Black Sabbath is another. I never cared too much for them until I went beyond the singles, strangely enough.

Well, I'm not coming from a music availability viewpoint. I don't listen to that much new music anymore. It is really more of discovering classics that I haven't heard yet. But after listening to both UP and Closer now, I feel that Closer is a terrible starting point for a beginner. JD itself is not a particularly easy band to get into but UP makes it easier I think.

 

[Mack_Again]

This is one of the issues with modern music availability, I think, which is you can listen to so much stuff that if there isn't an immediate grab, you might disregard an album that has considerable growing power. I can't think of an album specifically that took a long time to click with me, but there are artists that fit that description, like Bob Dylan. Black Sabbath is another. I never cared too much for them until I went beyond the singles, strangely enough.

Well Sabbath went thru quite a bit of stylistic/member changes so it makes sense that this much availability in music could really confuse you in a way (like listening to both Ozzy-era Sabbath and Ronnie-era Sabbath could really confuse you, certainly)

 

[KhanadaRhodes]

i'm quite the opposite actually; i loved closer as soon as i heard it but it took me longer to get into unknown pleasures. i love atrocity exhibition, a means to an end, decades, and twenty four hours.

i like up now too, just as i said i liked closer as soon as i heard it. so i understand what you mean, i just had the opposite experience.