What was Joy Division's potential?

Spotnick wrote: and how George Michael was bigger than Andrew Ridgley (sp?) and it made me think of something.

That was a shuttlecock, stuffed down there for effect. He's admitted it.

As big as U2 or REM? The Cure? Best not to think about it.

i wouldnt be so dismisive of steves input, he always was as far as i can see one of the main reasons they used so much machinery, i dont think we would have blue monday without him. as for JD, i think they would have continued to develop along with the technology around them, not sure the chicago and acid house influence would have kicked in, can you imagine ian out of his head on acid with all those strobes, he would have had too many fits for that to be plausable.

It is very wrong to dismiss Steve's input, part of Joy Division's strength was the exceptional rhythms generated by the human drum machine. It took the basic punk elements so beloved of the neanderthal bass player and added a wide range of pre-punk ideas from sources such as Can and Jazz. Also Steve's contribution to New Order has been more than bashing skins.

They have always written better as a team and have rarely hit the mark solo (although the solo stuff is good it doesn't quite hit the heights of New Order).

Joy Division's potential was enormous, they had all developed as musicians over the short period from Warsaw, and the use of electronics in the later JD stuff showed they were still searching for other avenues of sound. The fact that the US was interested shows they were getting there globally.

U2 are shit, they sold their arses (asses for you guys over the pond)for the yankee dollar doing all that Americana Joshua Tree shit.

Spotnick wrote: We all agree on this site, New Order is a combination of Bernard Sumner and Peter Hook's talent...

I don't. The tension between electronics and rock came from Bernard and Hooky for sure, and Bernard may have arranged everything, but everyone came up with their own parts (even Gillian after at least PC&L).

No offense to Steve of course.

No Steve > no Blue Monday, TPK, BLT or Vanishing Point. His programming contributed significantly to all those and more.

Makes you really wonder how long the Joy Division path would have lasted before seeing solo careers....

Think they might've managed a third album but Ian would have had enough after that one and gone to open his bookshop somewhere.

The use of electronics would've increased even further, EGG isn't that far removed from JD after all. I think JD would've kept on straddling the fence between the commercial and the experimental, pretty much like NO did for the first few years of their existence.

They could have gone on to achieve greater success. Even more than A Flock Of Seagulls!

Steve's drum parts are like hooks themselves in the song. The beats to 'Digital', 'Transmission', '24 Hours', 'LWTUA', 'Age of Consent', and to so many other songs are parts integral to the composition.

Also, it's not as if Bernard forgot how to write rock music after Joy Division. He might've been pushing the electronics most, but his guitar playing could still be fierce when he wanted it to be.

I certainly agree that Steve seemed to be a major part of the sound of Joy Division and 80s New Order, and maybe the first thing that attracted me to the band was the style and personality of the percussion/programming, it is unique and assume that was Steve since it is not really present on the Electronic or Revenge debut albums... but then Republic and the later albums are mostly missing this element.

Closer and Power, Corruption, and Lies are timeless because of the personality of the beats

It is really hard to tell how Ian would have developed as a media/pop star. Radiohead may be a good comparison.

actually, I think Electronic's debut isn't too far from the drum programming of New Order. It wasn't only Steve programming rhythms.

well, i personally couldn't see JD ever getting mainstream attention due to their darkness. I believe that they were heading in NO music direction, but Ian's doom and gloom would not bode well for U2 like sucess.

Spotnick wrote:

JZee wrote: well, i personally couldn't see JD ever getting mainstream attention due to their darkness. I believe that they were heading in NO music direction, but Ian's doom and gloom would not bode well for U2 like sucess.

Well, "darkness" is always relative, look at what happened to The Cure.

I know some people don't like to compare because they hate The Cure, but never the less, after 3 very dark albums they became a bit more pop, just like JD->NO (count Unknown Pleasure, Closer and Movement as the first 3 if you want)

Well perhaps, if IC lived longer and his mental illness was dealt with properly. Maybe some light would of show up in JD's music. But whatever, Ian wasn't meant to have a long time. Who knows if JD would of continued anyhow? If he didn't kill himself, i doubt JD would have a long recording future. It was just too explosive of a situation.

JZee wrote: well, i personally couldn't see JD ever getting mainstream attention due to their darkness. I believe that they were heading in NO music direction, but Ian's doom and gloom would not bode well for U2 like sucess.

who gives a fuck about U2...there's no telling really how far jd would have gone.i started thinking the other day about how physicists/ scientists are saying that time machines are possible and that time travel is possible, just not fully capable yet. and i'm into quantum mechanics/physics, and just reading about time forwards/backwards with the photon. i just had butterflies thinking you know if he could have been kept from ending his life...cos really all we are is atoms, electrons,neutrons,etc...

and one could say well if you could go back and keep him here..we wouldn't have new order. well how the fuck would anyone know. ian could have been in there and gillian added on and the fucking name changed to new order.no one knows...i think joy division would have been big and love will tear us apart would have been a classic like it is now. fuck U2...cheers...

pumped full of drugs wrote: As big as U2 or REM? The Cure? Best not to think about it.

maybe U2 with Bono and The Edge ....REM, i don`t think so....

But Thinking of it....Depeche Mode with Gahan and Gore.

Steve is Ringo :p

OI! dont get me started on ringo, he was a fuckin TOP drummer, SOLID!. not aying he rips bonzo to peices or anything, but it gets on my nerves people laying into him all the time ,and so what if steve is ringo, new order would have sounded WEAK with say manu katche or the like, AND AS FOR U2 , that LARRY MULLET is as stiff as you can get, ste blows the guy out of the water, Ive played drum lines by both these guys in my time, and for ease i would much rather play ANYTHING by U2 rather than AGE OF CONSENT, I'm still knackerd after playing it at hard rock.:dead:

I've often thought Steve is a drummer who perhaps doesn't get the recognition he deserves.

I can't think of many guys who embraced the technology side of things when it was in it's infancy like he did.

And some of his drum lines are really tough as well. When I started with Re:Order although a fan I never really paid much attention to the drum lines. And then we had to play AOC, Ceremony, Transmission before then I had never really done that kind of fast hihat stuff and I found it really tough going.

As for Sunrise anyone that can play the kick drum pattern from that at that kind of tempo for 5/6 minutes or however long it is gets my respect. Crazy stuff.

Don't quite think Ian would have ever become the housewives favourite . The Cure's Robert Smith on the otherhand was more appealing to the masses because his act was just a show .

What I wonder is would Barney have started to write lyrics if Ian was still around?

Probably a couple of U.S. tours before Ian had to retire or "downshift" even with his epilepsy, worsening mental and marriage and money woes.

We all know New Order would not have made the shift to a higher gear market of shows and selling their music WITHOUT Mr. Curtis's one night of stupidity.

I know even in 1979-80, J.D.'s stuff over here in the "States" was mostly word of mouth or the stuff of college newspaper record reviews.

If I did not pickup up a copy on a city bus seat of a free Minnesota college newspaper with a review of "Unknown Pleasures in late 1979, would hve never heard of them in the central parts of America. The late lamented North Lights Records had it in stock for the princely sum of $5.99...

....slapped it on the turntable and never looked back....

Joy Division reached their potential with 'Closer'. 'Isolation' and 'Ceremony' pointed the way toward a less grave sound---musically, at least, but who knows what direction Ian considered the band should take, or if he even thought of such in his last few months alive.

I don't think there is much point in wondering what would have come after 'Closer'; it's so otherworldly and so definitive too.

ringo... the only talented beatle...

Steve is brilliant, can't be discounted! No one else could have suited them as well!

I have to go with the idea that JD wouldn't have lasted long unless Ian's treatment and some sort of long term vision had been sorted out. After the American tour, would the band have picked up on the early beat boxing and dance scenes then and made the migration to a full on electronic sound sooner than NO? Would Ian embrace it like Bowie embraced it? Would we have cheesy JD?

I hope not.

I've always figured through my limited scope that JD would have morphed into NO and Ian would have left the band on his own pursuits - solo effort? Always experimenting, always purging himself of his ideas. No would have become NO and gone a similar path as they had though perhaps without so much of the agony that plagued the earliest of days, being continually compared to JD and 'the greatness that was'. Imagine Curtis/Hannett carving out tracks together while NO and the rest of the Factory crew went their way up the slope? How different the sounds would be and how both would influence and shape the music world around them.

Spotnick wrote: As for Steve... sure he's good at what he does, but to compose full stuff, The Other Two did a lot weaker albums than Monaco and Electronic, everybody knows that.

Steve is Ringo :p

:\pissedoff: Uh... no.

The Other Two: most underrated group in the 90's.

And Stephen is a top-notch genius as far as drums go. That and drum machines. And word's buzzed that he wrote one of my all-time favorite Order songs, 'Procession'!

Ringo, meanwhile, sure he's alright [come on, a Beatle...]. But, he's NO

Therefore, Stephen is NOT Ringo, end of!

[And anyway, Stephen's a hundred-thousand times cuter than Ringo. ]

Spotnick wrote: I just watched the movie Music and Lyrics and since it seems to be inspire of WHAM! and how George Michael was bigger than Andrew Ridgley (sp?) and it made me think of something.

We all agree on this site, New Order is a combination of Bernard Sumner and Peter Hook's talent, which they have a lot, when you add Ian Curtis to this lot, 3 very talented songwriters together, I don't think you can identify many bands in history that had *3* very creative members.

Obviously the Beatles, but after that, 2 is rare, 3 is a force of nature.

No offense to Steve of course.

Makes you really wonder how long the Joy Division path would have lasted before seeing solo careers....

Steve was, by far, the most experienced and best musician in the banda, simply compare what it takes to play transmission in bass, in guitar and then see the drumming.

All of them were great.

u talk some bollocks .....there must be a zillion bands wiv 3 members...new order hav 4...speak some sense spotti

while steve certainly is no john bonham/keith moon, he still kick ass...

joy divisions potential was filled.

2 albums that regularly sit in the top 100 all time lists and a single that is an all time classic.

neworder allowed the individual talents to grow to the extent that they felt confident enough to pursue solo projects.

and what type of bookshop would mr. curtis have openend??

happy books r us?

i can feel life getter higher

Steve is as near as you will ever get to a human drum machine. You can count on the fingers of one foot the number of missed beats over the years, and without his contribution there would have been no electronic stuff, from the drum sounds in She's Lost Control, Insight and others through to the likes of Blue Monday. How you can argue that the band's talent lies purely with Bernard and Hooky is beyond me, Steve's the only natural musician amongst them! Bernard's an artist, a creator, and Hooky has worked incredibly hard to become a bass master.