So my final pick is from my favourite album of 1980 and the one I personally consider to be the best. If 1980 was a year of uncertainty, recession, cold war dread and the clash between the optimism of new technological possibilities and the unease of what was happening in the here and now, then Joy Division’s Closer was the album that gave voice to this and channelled that uncertainty. The excess has gone, to be replaced by an austere, anxious, alienated sound; the warm joy and comfort of 1970s rock excess replaced by an icy unease. But, if that was all it was it would surely have been too alienating, too austere. The genius of Closer was that it acknowledged that things were very far from alright but at the same time defied you not to move your arse to its many strangely danceable songs. Ian Curtis’s lyrics derived much from JG Ballard as evidenced by the opening track Atrocity Exhibition, but it’s not just Curtis’s combination of disturbing lyrics and plaintive delivery. The music developed by the band in what were essentially jam sessions and Martin Hannett’s meticulous production are all integral to the sound and when combined together create something very modern, almost minimalist and very distinctly European in comparison to much of rocks American roots. Curtis didn’t live to see the album released and the closing track Decades remains to this day a heartrending way for him to have signed off. Though not my favourite track from the album Isolation encapsulates the strange mixture of dislocation and danceability.
#10 Joy Division – Isolation.
