I know this is a stupid poll but was quite interested to know which band gets listened to the most. Obviously much more NO stuff to listen to but if you had to choose between them who would you go for?
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Joy Division Vs New Order
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A difficult and pointless one but which band means the most to you?
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Joy Division 14 (19%)
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New Order 59 (81%)
73 votes · voting closed
meaningless question... they are both the same thing... different vocalists yes, but the style of songwriting and the main musical forces behind the two didn't change.
Perhaps a better question would be which style of JD/NO do you prefer, eg 'punk' JD (Warsaw, pre UP) postpunk JD/NO Unknown Pleasures to Movement, 'in transition' NO (PC&L), 'classic' NO (Low-Life to Technique) or late-period NO (i.e. Republic onwards). To me there are deeper divisions between those different groupings than between the two bands
What do you expect to receive doing this on a NO forum? 
But I vote for Joy Division for obvious reasons 
New Order. Purely on their larger back catalogue and the fact that I was first attracted by their music.
To me, Joy Division are the clunkier, punkier, more primitive incarnation of New Order. I think that New Order are MUSICALLY superior to Joy Division in every way....
The exceptions being Ian's lyrics, because he was a most powerful lyricist, and of course he was a brilliant vocalist. That being said, I find Barney's voice to be a lot more versatile and expressive than Ian's, believe it or not.
I notice that younger people who like mostly guitar music, punk, and indie rock prefer JD while more open minded music listeners tend to prefer NO.
I think of them as the same band.
Zachery Starkey wrote: To me, Joy Division are the clunkier, punkier, more primitive incarnation of New Order. I think that New Order are MUSICALLY superior to Joy Division in every way....
The exceptions being Ian's lyrics, because he was a most powerful lyricist, and of course he was a brilliant vocalist. That being said, I find Barney's voice to be a lot more versatile and expressive than Ian's, believe it or not.
I notice that younger people who like mostly guitar music, punk, and indie rock prefer JD while more open minded music listeners tend to prefer NO.
I think of them as the same band.
I never saw them as the same band, as they didn't want to be seen as the same band. It was like comparing Rolling Stones to The Beatles. As someone pointed out recently, New Order spent 18 years with their back turned to Joy Division, and now we have a compilation CD 'Total', combining both bands!
I also get the general idea, that when New Order do play next month, majority of fans are hoping they don't play any Joy Division songs?
condemnation wrote:
It was like comparing Rolling Stones to The Beatles.
Not really, especially considering NO's first single and it's B-side were JD songs. It's the same band, just with an untimely death separating eras and line-up. The change of style was a gradual evolution to my ears, I reckon Closer and Movement have more in common stylistically than Movement and Technique...maybe that's just me.
I've asked many times about the whole JD v NO thing, and what I say is this:
New Order sound like a compromise whereas Joy Division did not.
You can put this partly down to Martin Hannett and direction of J.D. The whole sound is very focused, tight and uncompromising.
With New Order, it sounds more like a battle. PC&L is the best New Order album in my view because it doesn't sound compromised. It was a new sound and they just got on with it. From Low LIfe onwards, it was though they weren't quite sure what direction ands sound was best, therefore resulting in some very uneven material.
Joy Division never had that problem and you had a great teacher (Hannett) telling them what to do - i.e shut up, play and leave it to me. The results were legendary. Once you lose that, you come up with a hundred different directions and that is what we had with New Order.
Pay your money and take your choice. Though you can have both!
Bere wrote:
blunt laser wrote: I know this is a stupid poll
Errrm... Yes!
Actually not quite as pointless as i first thought. Some people seem to be vaguely interested.
komakino wrote: I've asked many times about the whole JD v NO thing, and what I say is this:
New Order sound like a compromise whereas Joy Division did not.
You can put this partly down to Martin Hannett and direction of J.D. The whole sound is very focused, tight and uncompromising.
With New Order, it sounds more like a battle. PC&L is the best New Order album in my view because it doesn't sound compromised. It was a new sound and they just got on with it. From Low LIfe onwards, it was though they weren't quite sure what direction ands sound was best, therefore resulting in some very uneven material.
Joy Division never had that problem and you had a great teacher (Hannett) telling them what to do - i.e shut up, play and leave it to me. The results were legendary. Once you lose that, you come up with a hundred different directions and that is what we had with New Order.
Pay your money and take your choice. Though you can have both!
I prefer the variety of New Order's music and songwriting to Joy Division's. New Order are a band with songs of many moods and many emotions...Joy Division's music is less so. New Order are multi colored, JD is grey.
It is actually harder to write music in a variety of styles than it it is to write music one way, and any songwriter or musician will tell you this. Albums like Low Life, Brotherhood, and Technique are definitely not compromises.
I can understand what you're saying (Mr Starkey, post above) but Joy Division had plenty of variety, and plenty of colour. You can not listen to Unknown Pleasures and Closer and say they are even similar albums, they just changed so much within 2-3 years.
I was listening to some Joy Division the other day, and noticed how Bernard's guitar playing shimmers on those recordings. Listen with good headphones and you hear such amazing audio textures! It's the tasteful production and minimal beauty that does it, probably. But it adds a colour of its own, even if to your ears it just strikes you as "grey."
I never find myself listening to New Order and yearning to listen to Joy Division instead, or vice versa. They gave two bodies of musical work that are both classic and separable from each other, so they very rarely clash when I'm listening to music. As in, when I decide what album to listen to, I don't typically think which out of the two bands I wanna hear, I just look for something I feel like listening to at the time.
Joy Division.Nobody comes Closer, And yes im hoping Paris is joy Division less , though im sure, ceremony and love will tear us apart may get an outing.
Two ways too go
New Order were fun, Joy Division were raw, and at times down right miserable. With NO you could watch a band that played TOTP with Hasselhoff, with JD you had brilliance, but just a lingering feeling of misery.
Waz wrote: I can understand what you're saying (Mr Starkey, post above) but Joy Division had plenty of variety, and plenty of colour. You can not listen to Unknown Pleasures and Closer and say they are even similar albums, they just changed so much within 2-3 years.
I was listening to some Joy Division the other day, and noticed how Bernard's guitar playing shimmers on those recordings. Listen with good headphones and you hear such amazing audio textures! It's the tasteful production and minimal beauty that does it, probably. But it adds a colour of its own, even if to your ears it just strikes you as "grey."
I never find myself listening to New Order and yearning to listen to Joy Division instead, or vice versa. They gave two bodies of musical work that are both classic and separable from each other, so they very rarely clash when I'm listening to music. As in, when I decide what album to listen to, I don't typically think which out of the two bands I wanna hear, I just look for something I feel like listening to at the time.
Hey man, don't get me wrong....Joy Division are brilliant and I especially love Closer!
I agree with you on Bernard's guitar playing on bot JD albums...it's creative, unusual, and brilliant. Was hoping that on the BL songs where Jake sang lead Bernard would make some cool guitar again...
Zachery Starkey wrote:
Waz wrote: I can understand what you're saying (Mr Starkey, post above) but Joy Division had plenty of variety, and plenty of colour. You can not listen to Unknown Pleasures and Closer and say they are even similar albums, they just changed so much within 2-3 years.
I was listening to some Joy Division the other day, and noticed how Bernard's guitar playing shimmers on those recordings. Listen with good headphones and you hear such amazing audio textures! It's the tasteful production and minimal beauty that does it, probably. But it adds a colour of its own, even if to your ears it just strikes you as "grey."
I never find myself listening to New Order and yearning to listen to Joy Division instead, or vice versa. They gave two bodies of musical work that are both classic and separable from each other, so they very rarely clash when I'm listening to music. As in, when I decide what album to listen to, I don't typically think which out of the two bands I wanna hear, I just look for something I feel like listening to at the time.
Hey man, don't get me wrong....Joy Division are brilliant and I especially love Closer!
I agree with you on Bernard's guitar playing on bot JD albums...it's creative, unusual, and brilliant. Was hoping that on the BL songs where Jake sang lead Bernard would make some cool guitar again...
no worries I wasn't trying to suggest you were a JD philistine!
speaking of Bad Loo, I do like some of the guitar fills on Summer Days during the verses
Joy Division is like a comet, something very rare and special. Cant´t be compared with anything else. But New Order is awesome and they used to have a fantastic bassplayer in the group 
Ahem, this is 2011. If it were 1981 or 1982, maybe Joy Division would have a snowslide victory here.
I enjoy NO of course or I wouldn’t bother posting here, but I would take JD over NO any day of the week.
leather_girl wrote: I prefer New Order, but there are some songs I like by Joy Division.
Only some!? 
I don't know how people could not really like Joy Division, thou the production can seem rather joyless. Hannett's production is both great and a negative at times. I like both, and really have always regarded them as the same band.
Seems like some people like New Order originally because they perceive New Order as blander and less "edgy" than house, techno, hip hop, punk, Depeche Mode, The Cure... and that NO is more mainstream than other so called alternative acts.
in salford we grew up listening to joy division. my school/college books were written all over in their lyrics. i simply regard JD/NO as a continuum with tragic history. JD had less time and less output so quality wise they had 2 excellent albums. it is hard to maintain consistent quality over time re NO. will i buy the seven songs? yes. how many will be good? i don't know. Turn was one of my favourites from WFTSC.
it used to always be new order that i liked the most
but then when we started playing the songs and i listened in depth to joy division a lot more, i realised that joy division wins for me. considering that they were only in existence for such a short amount of time, the amount of absolutely amazing songs they wrote in that time frame is really quite staggering....
The Paradise Man wrote:
leather_girl wrote: I prefer New Order, but there are some songs I like by Joy Division.
Only some!?
She's only 18 :D
Both bands wrote timeless songs. Listening to Transmission and Blue Monday nowadays is amazing cause they still sounds fresh to my ears 
Er, I'm 24 by the way. Maybe I like more than some songs, because I have albums such as UP, Closer, and Substance, but I'm not a fan of the songs they made as Warsaw. Honestly, I listened to dance and electronica music as a child; some of the first rock bands I liked were NO, The Beatles, and Oasis. So it took me a while to listen to JD. Now that I've said that, some JD songs I like are LWTUA, The Eternal, Decades, Shadowplay, Transmission, Isolation, New Dawn Fades and so on.
In my eyes New Order are simply a continuation of Joy Division, but if I had to pick one I'd say New Order. Ian Curtis was a considerably better lyricist, but I prefer Bernard Sumner's voice to Ian's. Add to that, I'm a big fan of dance music and therefore got into New Order via listening to that sort of music... I've got into Joy Division more in recent years.
I think it's much harder to move from NO to JD if you first got into NO via the 'dance' route. If your primary view of NO is a pop/dance band then JD doesn't fit. It's somewhat easier to deal with the gradual transition of JD - 81/82 NO - later NO, although I still wanted to vomit when I first heard Blue Monday :-)
