Joy Division
Heart And Soul

THE REVIEW

In an era of horizontal knowledge of rock music, when thanks to the Internet, we have access to an incredible amount of information about bands that no longer exist and can "download" and enjoy albums recorded decades ago in an instant, the danger is not giving historical depth to what we listen to, thus trivializing and updating a sound that deserves a very different treatment. In this perspective, a work like "HEART AND SOUL" fully accomplishes its task, appropriately historicizing the music of Joy Division and offering the definitive official compendium of the four Mancunians.

The magnitude of the work (four compact discs, one of which is live) and the very useful accompanying booklet truly allow one to be adequately equipped for a "journey" unparalleled in the rock music of the last thirty years. It is now official: the records of Joy Division are as important as those of the Velvet Underground recorded 10 years earlier. Although the background and the final result of the two groups are completely different. The New Yorkers invented a style from nothing, a new music, and were supported by a significant entourage, Andy Warhol's Factory (?!?). Furthermore, the Velvet Underground were real musicians; Reed the rocker and Cale the avant-garde artist were soaked to the marrow with sick and unhealthy moods waiting to materialize into a sound that was direct yet ambiguous, real yet deviant.

The Joy Division, however, were four restless petit-bourgeois—mostly of the clerical class—attracted by the decadent images of late Nazi Germany, eager to do something new in an era where the final tail of glam-rock from Bowie, Roxy Music, and Mott The Hoople was yielding its last fruits. The arrival of the first punk bands' concerts in Manchester proved fatal, with the Sex Pistols and local Buzzcocks leading the way: legend has it that during one of these concerts, the four decided to form the band. The punkist concept of Do It Yourself was applied literally by Joy Division: their first 7" record "An Ideal For Living" was entirely produced by them, including the pro-Nazi cover. And let's stop with Nazism here: for them, it was just an aesthetic question, not an ideological one! What follows is a story that truly resembles the "American dream": the rise among the greats of a very normal group of people (certainly, Ian Curtis's suicide significantly contributed to amplify and glorify the entire affair).

And now to the music. One of the characteristics that I hope will be perceived by the new generations is the extreme humanity of their songs: this is the real and only formula for their popularity. A palpable humanity that makes their records unique in the genre. And here there would be room to discuss with those who compare them to bands like Interpol, excellent of course, but absolutely unrelated except for a vague "shell" of sound. The validity and importance of their music is absolute if we consider that even the digital tricks of the meticulous producer Martin Hannett failed to scratch and deteriorate the tension, the sense of coldness but also the joyful immediacy, lyrics aside (Something Must Break, Means To An End) of their songs.

In "HEART AND SOUL," we find practically the entire Joy Division saga. From the confused semi-punk debut in July 1977 with the session at Pennine Sound Studios (previously available only on the legendary CD by Warsaw with the newborn on the cover), to the first official recordings of "A Factory Sample" and "An Ideal For Living" plus the Peel Sessions. From subsequent sessions for albums never produced for RCA and Radar Records to all 7" and 12" records, including the one for Sordide Sentimental and the flexi-disc with "Komakino" and "Incubation." And naturally, all of "UNKNOWN PLEASURES" and "CLOSER" and almost all of "STILL."