309. Joy Divison, "Closer"
What could be more perfect for a gray (here in SF, anyway) Monday morning than Joy Division's Closer , an album so depressing it was released after the singer's suicide with a cover featuring three figures mourning a fourth? By now, you know the story: Ian Curtis, the lead singer of the band, with the odd, solemn voice, hung himself on May 18, 1980, on the eve of the band's first North American tour. This, of course, transformed the band from what they likely would have been - a good post-punk band - into a legend. Not that this album doesn't deserve every accolade it gets! It's a haunting, moving, genuinely unnerving piece of work. The instrumentation is sparse, driven by drums, with Curtis' voice floating above it and commanding the scene. My history of listening to Joy Division started with "this voice is just too weird" and evolved to "I cannot imagine these songs sung by someone else." By this point in his life, Curtis was strug