If Ian hadn't bought it would Joy Division have ended up sounding like...

they would have ended up sounding like new order: because they'd have kicked ian out, as his inability to sing was already holding them back creatively and his ill-health made it hard from them to tour

hook's playing is a constant, and exactly not like simple minds basslines rhythically or melodically: i think they would have been more SM-ish if *Hook* had bought it

''as his inability to sing was already holding them back creatively and his ill-health made it hard from them to tour''

Fair enough on the ill-health point but he could sing. Well, to me he was kinda like David thomas (pere Ubu). They didn't have a sophisticated technique but i think they made an advantage out of that.

Mark- did any members of new order say it was holding them back.

(sigh) Let's not get into the artist's intentions again! ;-)

Had Jim Kerr taken his life sometime around Empires and Dance, I reckon very few would have conjectured that Simple Minds would've ended up sounding like Simple Minds.

AIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

New Order R not discovering Disco music until they R going to US by their own Admission. When Ian Curtis R commiting suicide they R being about to leave for america. Also, Can bernard Sumner sing on Movement? I R not thinking so. Can Peter Hook sing on Movement? I r thinking blloody well not!

U R Putting on Movement now (no curtis involvement). R u telling me that "Dreams Never End" R not sounding like Joy Division?

pfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffft

Oddly enough, I was listening to "Dreams Never End" last night -- I always thought of that song as the final gasp of Joy Division as such.

no julio it is my pet theory based on superb intuition and top-notch wanky perversity

incidentally, what is the early transition-phase NO stuff like? from what i've heard ppl say it's 'Joy Division without Ian'. how does it stand up to JD and what they were doing before Ian ended it?

and what would Movement have been like if he was still alive?

er, and in the band.

For all intents and purposes, Movement is Joy Division without Ian and with a different name..and without the same spark that livened up Joy Division here and there. It's a very sombre affair throughout, which wasn't lightened up until the singles "Everything's Gone Green" and "Temptation. New Order didn't start to find its new footing until Power Corruption and Lies, but the turning point for making them into a dance band was "Blue Monday", I think. Personally, I find it hard to imagine them going down this entire path with Curtis still in the group, though many have already disagreed.

On the other hand, part of the transition (to these ears anyhow) was the sound of Barney's guitar...er, opening up. His guitar work in JD was very jagged and perfectly suited to the atmosphere: tight, claustrophobic. With the switch to New Order there was more of a broad (for want of a better term) jangle, more of the broad stroke. I think that went a long way towards lightening the mood, but it's hard to say if that would have still happened with Ian around.

(I have a feeling that none of that made any sense. I have to resist the urge to post when I've only been awake for a few minutes.)

''no julio it is my pet theory based on superb intuition and top- notch wanky perversity''

When a theory is this shit it is not worth having.

(Mark= the first record I evah bought was a joy division collection- substance).

Yeah, that's what I always wondered: Do the people who criticize Curtis for not being able to sing actually claim that Bernard Sumner was a better singer?

Sundar is right yet again. Barney's singing esp. on the first couple of albums makes Curtis sound like Caruso. In support of the claim that Joy Division post-Closer would have basically been New Order only with good lyrics: "Love Will Tear Us Apart," which is moving toward New Order territory already.

love will tear apart = the worst song orchestral manoeuvres in the dark evah did

The last two posts were OTM. But probably this is the watershed between people preferring one of the bands to the other. IMHO Barney's singing on Movement was so bad as he tried to sound like Ian. Later on he found his own voice. But still Ian was the better singer and lyricist. And I prefer Barney's guitar in JD (check Les Bains Douches for example) to anything he did with the instrument later on.

The last three posts then, Mark dropped in.

i just realised that my perky intuitionist shit theory (© j.desouza) is based on my subconsciously (but also korrektly) intepreting LWTUA as being curtis singing abt him vs the othahs as the polyamory fadeZoRs

I think you could apply that interpretation to many JD songs. The isloation (ahem) factor certainly abounds.

Yes, they would, and indeed did, sound like Simple Minds up to about Empires and Dance. Perhaps JD/NO would never have gone to the dark side quite as much, so much so that now some folks seem to be oblivious that Simple Minds were ever not-on-the-dark-side. Simple Minds are probably incorporating disco first - I Travel predates Blue Monday - but New Order would never have done 'Don't You Forget about me'.

I suspect the divergent paths between SM and JD after Curtis are due to all sorts of factors. Not just the absence of Curtis, but the *loss* of Curtis coupled with the innate orneryness of the band and the Factory Records environment. As already pointed out, early New Order were not vocally that impressive - live they were musically inept to quite a shocking degree, I saw the second or third ever live show at Valentinos in Edinburgh, they were mind-numbingly incompetent, much worse that Joy Division, that the early NO records are still great is beside the point. NO weren't able to become Simple Minds - they seemed to follow the path that matched their abilities. btw JD weren't able either - Curtis could never have entertained a daylight stadium crowd.

The three Big Rock bands of post punk: Bunnymen, U2 and Simple Minds (and new big rock bands a major legacy of post punk), all saw that a new style Stadium rock was a possible development from post punk, U2 and Simple Minds went for it while the Bunneymen wavered and (probably) didn't try to follow.

Why the Bunnymen didn't follow Simple Minds to FM Rock hell is as interesting as the speculation of JD's path. I did read once that Jim Kerr would phone McCulloch and tease him with 'come and join us' meaning the Stadium rock path. I suspect Kerr would have had even less luck with Curtis.

I believe that Ian's dark personality might have kept a bit more of an edge on the music ('Would you stop fucking around with that synth and play the guitar!!!'). Further, I believe that his vocals were perfectly suited to what Joy Division was doing. His voice wasn't pretty, but it served to further accentuate the mood in very much the same way the Leonard Cohen's voice does. After 'Power Corruption & Lies' New Order was a techno-bore of the first rank, and I doubt that would have happened to the extent it did if Curtis hadn't been so impared in the neural electrochemical department. 'Blue Monday' is one of those songs i NEVER want to hear again, period. 'Everything's Gone Green' on the other hand... Wow!

This thread should really be renamed if Werner Herzog hadn't made "Stroszek" what would Joy Division have ended up sounding like...

...and what was that whole thing about "is the Chicken still Dancing"?

and remember, folks, if that loony hadn't gone & offed himself, we wouldn't have had to live in a world were "Republic" exists(3 good tracks notwithstanding)....

but if we hadn't endured the euro-dance fiasco of 'Republic', we wouldn't have witnessed the triumphant return of 'Get Ready' 10 years later..