MLANH- "My Life Ain't No Holiday" wrote:
I would say they sure did. Listen to Transmission, Digital, and Isolation in particular, and realize that nobody ever sounded like this before them. Joy Division created Goth music, New Wave, and shaped alternative rock to be as we know it today, with meloncholy. Ian also was one of the first rock singers to purposefully kill himself. No accidental drug overdose or any of that, he killed himself like that was what was meant for him. Maybe the most influential band of all time.
J
'New wave as we know it today'? I'm guessing that you're American and there might be some differences in what's understood by the term 'new wave' over there and here in the UK. Genre terms are pretty meaningless, but if I had to define it, I'd say 'New wave' (UK definition) was a catch-all term from early 1978 to describe anything vaguely related to, but not as threatening as, punk. Elvis Costello, Ian Dury etc were described as new wave, as were American skinny tie merchants like The Knack, The Cars, Jonathan Richman, who had hits over here. JD obviously don't fit in here, but as I say, most genre descriptions are pretty meaningless and pointless.
'Post-punk' is a better description than new wave for the exploratory, experimental music that came after punk, although no-one really used the term post-punk for a good ten or more years post,'erm....punk. JD clearly fit into this area rather more than the UK 'new wave' pigeonhole.
Did they invent post-punk? No. They invented themselves. Were they the first band to express melancholy, as you put it? Hardly. Ever heard The Doors, The Rolling Stones, The Stooges, MC5, The Who, Patti Smith....and so on? Practically every rock and roll band who ever plucked a guitar had 'melancholy' of some kind as one of their major driving forces. Rock as a form of expression of the outsider, the loner, was around waay before JD. You could say they were just following in the tradition...but HOW they did it was what made them special.
I don't quite like what you're getting at about IC's death...as if there is anything romantic about the rock and roll suicide. It wasn't anything to do with music...he died a confused, ill and isolated man. A tragedy. To say that 'he killed himself like it was meant for him' is crass.