Classic Album #21 - Joy Division - Closer/Steps - Gold

[o]

The actual album this month is Joy Division - Closer.

Joy Division – Closer
Side One
Atrocity Exhibition
Isolation
Passover
Colony
A means to an end

Side two
Heart and soul
Twenty four hours
The eternal
Decades



-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It's time for a new album to review, and as I'm admin I decided to go for something NOT on the list, because I can! And I chose Steps, because they got in the Haven Hall of Fame and so deserve to be reviewed as well.

Track listing
Tragedy (Gibb, Gibb, Gibb) – 4:30 from Steptacular
One for Sorrow (Topham/Twigg/Ellington) – 4:21 from Step One
Stomp (Topham/Twigg/Campbell) – 3:21 from Buzz
Better Best Forgotten (Radio Edit) (Frampton/Waterman) – 3:42 (UK track) from Step One
Love's Got a Hold on My Heart (Frampton/Waterman) – 3:19 from Steptacular
Deeper Shade of Blue (Radio Edit) (Topham/Twigg) – 3:44 from Steptacular
Last Thing on My Mind (Stock/Waterman/Dallin/Woodward) – 3:04 from Step One
Better the Devil You Know (Stock/Aitken/Waterman) – 3:48 (UK track) from Buzz
Summer Of Love (Topham/Twigg) – 3:51 from Buzz
5,6,7,8 (Upton/Crosby) – 3:21 from Step One
Chain Reaction (Gibb, Gibb, Gibb) – 3:56 from Previously unreleased
Baby Don't Dance (P. Cunnah/S. Ellis) – 3:50 from Previously unreleased
It's the Way You Make Me Feel (J. Elofssen) – 3:16 from Buzz
After the Love Has Gone (Topham/Twigg/Ellington) – 4:34 from Steptacular
Here And Now [Q-Street Mix] (A. Carlsson/A. Thomson) – 3:26 (UK track) from Buzz
Say You'll Be Mine (Frampton/Waterman) – 3:31 from Steptacular
Only In My Dreams (L. Evans/C. Richards/L. Scott-Lee/F. Tozer/I. Watkins/A. Frampton) – 4:16 from Previously unreleased
Words Are Not Enough (P. Nylen/A. Carlsson) – 3:23 from Previously unreleased
When I Said Goodbye (Topham/Twigg) – 3:32 (UK track) from Steptacular
Heartbeat (Jackie James) – 4:23 (UK track) from Step One

ENJOY! ::disco:

[rubcale]

I'm in shock!!

[Shireblogger]

Ha ha ha. Good one.

[vastar iner]

On a slightly less 1 April note, how can a "Greatest Hits" compilo have three unreleased tracks? #falseadvertising

[wonderwall]

Fantastic album don't see how this can be a April fools to be honest

[Deleted]

Great choice. The album with the most # 1 singles in my chart.

"Another You, Another Me" by H & Claire is my all-time # 1 favourite album (It's even not a first April joke).

Steps # 1s in my chart:
1) 5, 6, 7, 8 (4 weeks)
2) Last Thing On My Mind (5 weeks)
3) One For Sorrow (5 weeks)
4) Heartbeat (5 weeks)
5) Tragedy (1 week)
6) Better Best Forgotten (4 weeks)
7) Love's Got A Hold On My Heart (2 weeks)
8) After The Love Has Gone (1 week)
9) Say You'll Be Mine (7 weeks)
10) Better The Devil You Know (1 week)
11) Deeper Shade Of Blue (5 weeks)
12) When I Said Goodbye (2 weeks)
13) It's The Way You Make Me Feel (9 weeks)
14) Here And Now (1 week)
15) Words Are Not Enough (3 weeks)
16) I Know Him So Well (4 weeks)

[Earl Purple]

Heartbeat is "previously unreleased"? It was a big hit

[Deleted]

Apr 1, 2015 17:43:18 GMT 1 Earl Purple said:

Heartbeat is "previously unreleased"?

It was B-side of "Tragedy" and also album track on "Step One".

[rubcale]

Apr 1, 2015 18:22:31 GMT 1 @alexrange said:

Apr 1, 2015 17:43:18 GMT 1 Earl Purple said:

Heartbeat is "previously unreleased"?

It was B-side of "Tragedy" and also album track on "Step One".

I not sure what the official position is but Heartbeat was the track promoted when the single was first released.

Attention switched to Tragedy as the Christmas season approached.

[raliverpool]

I'm bitterly disappointed that "We Didn't Say That!" the only album to date by the seminal Daphne & Celeste has yet again been cruelly snubbed by reviewers.

Having said that here's a great interview with the two geniuses of the band ..... I'm talking about Lee & H obviously.....

[Earl Purple]

Heartbeat was their biggest hit in my chart. It was their most played track.

To make a fair review I would actually have to listen to all the songs, not just once but several times. In the meantime I will try to give some sort of review.

In the history of pop there have been many artists who wrote their own material, and these artists are usually given the most critical acclaim. However there have always been, in all eras, a separation between the singers, who are made into "stars", and the production team behind them. Often the songwriters are also performers as instrumentalists or producers, and sometimes those are separated too.

"Motown" was perhaps the biggest producers of "manufactured" artists in the 1960s and Chinn-Chapman were in the 1970s (they usually wrote songs and produced the bands but their bands typically did play their instruments). In the late 1980s it was Stock Aitken Waterman whilst in the 1990s it was Simon Fuller and Louis Walsh. However Steps were produced / managed by Pete Waterman.

They first appeared in 1997 with a line-dance track called "5-6-7-8". This was 3 years after "Cotton Eye Joe" had been a big hit and came with its own special dance, something that often caused DJs to buy it to play in the clubs / discos so everyone on the floor could do the dance. Although the song missed the top 10 it spent a lot of weeks inside the chart and sold well.

The rather poor "Last Thing On My Mind" was released in 1997. It was a cover of Bananarama, a female group of the 1980s who had originally written a lot of their own material but were later one of Stock Aitken Waterman's artists. It did take them into the top ten. Then followed "One For Sorrow". Actually a very nice pop tune, and they were the first to record it albeit its chorus had the same melody and chords of the instrumental part of "The Winner Takes It All" by Abba. The song reached #2 (kept out by the Manic Street Preachers). The next single was Heartbeat and Tragedy, a double A-side, the first track original (although written by others), the latter a cover of the classic Bee Gees song. Covering the Bee Gees seemed to be big in 1996-98.  Faith No More covered "I Started A Joke" around the same time. The song appeared to have peaked at #2 behind the long running #1 "Believe" but post-Christmas seemed to get a new burst of energy when there were no new songs released and climbed back up to be #1 for a single week. Its chart longevity meant it actually sold a million copies.

So there we are now. Entering 1999 and a successful group. The Spice Girls, during that period, recorded their "Goodbye" song. And since their success there was also All Saints and there were boy-bands but Steps were both - a boy and girl band. In 1999 S Club 7 would join the picture and we were inundated with such groups. At the same time it seemed to be a bad time for "britpop". There was still a trace but very few new bands were appearing and it was clear that the time was "up" as far as promoters /  those win power were concerned.

This makes the day for the people "in the industry" as they can have continued success.

Now of course the songs are written by professional songwriters and some of them are good pop songs. The singers chosen usually have decent voices. And so it is understandable that the music can be popular.

The downside is that you often sense very little feeling in the songs. The lyrical content is usually quite sugary and is perhaps there more to dance to than listen to in detail.

Also, too many of their songs were cover versions. And as I mentioned, S Club 7 came along (Simon Fuller's production) and did it a whole lot better - far better songs.

So unfortunately I probably am thinking Steps will get a 3 out of 10 for me. It's difficult to know how to set the scale.

[Deleted]

Steps were the best pop group of their era and much better, than Spice Girls.
I give 9/10 for this album, only because I'm very greed for 10/10.
70s had ABBA, 80s had Bucks Fizz, 90s had Steps. Unfortunatelly, pure pop fans didn't have any good big group in 21st century.  

[o]

I cant believe an April Fool has got more posts/comments than our normal threads

Please do feel free to review Steps, but the actual album for this month which will send most of you running for the hills is Joy Division - Closer. I'll edit it into the first post, but keep Steps for the Pop fans.

Joy Division – Closer
Side One
Atrocity Exhibition
Isolation
Passover
Colony
A means to an end

Side two
Heart and soul
Twenty four hours
The eternal
Decades

I had a good long look at the list, and thought about doing Elton John's sole album on the list, then thought that the Rolling Stones have still not featured, and I also thought about doing another Beatles album, but in the end plumped for an album that reflects my current mood. I think I borrowed it from a mate, but wasn't that impressed, I have since grown to like a few more of their songs, which aren't on this album.

[vastar iner]

The thread title now reminds me of this compelling mashup.

[Earl Purple]

Steps was an April Fool joke

I did something mildly similar on my "Get Real Music Back Into The Charts" page/group in 2010 when my promoted song on 1st April was "This Ain't A Love Song" by Scouting For Girls

Technically as Roy Stride wrote that song it qualifies as "real music" but still isn't really what my promotion campaign was meant to be about. In any case it did enter the UK chart at #1 that week.

[Shireblogger]

An intriguing choice. I don't know "Closer", so will be fun to give it a go.

[Earl Purple]

I should listen to this and review it because as someone who was a teenager during this era I have always found Joy Division have been belatedly hyped up as more significant than I ever felt they were at the time.

[TheThorne]

Apr 8, 2015 11:26:52 GMT 1 Earl Purple said:

I should listen to this and review it because as someone who was a teenager during this era I have always found Joy Division have been belatedly hyped up as more significant than I ever felt they were at the time.

This is probably true for most chart fans they are one hit wonders practically but for music lovers and indie fans they basically invented Indie as we know it especially in the 00s.

As for Steps loved playing them when i DJed Student Nights personal favourite was probably 'One For Sorrow' but they had so many great singles, I probably never charted them though cant remember as my 90s lists are gone.

[o]

I wsn't sure I could take a whole album of Joy Division, I expect you have to be in the right mood/frame of kind to "enjoy"/relate to it. They kind of passed me by, apart from (obviously) Love will tear us apart, which I absolutely adored as a teenager. Have got into them a little bit more as I've got older, tend to just prefer the odd track to a whole album though.

Joy Division – Closer
Side One
Atrocity Exhibition Good solid start, everything you expect from Joy Division. 6/10
Isolation One of the singles I think, lacking in lyrics, but makes up for it in music. 5/10
Passover Infectious and dreary. 5/10
Colony Bit more oomph to it, probably my fave on the album. 7/10
A means to an end Plodding end to side one 5/10

Side two
Heart and soul Another single I think, never really liked it, echoes of Isolation? 5/10
Twenty four hours Stepping up the pace, which I prefer. 7/10
The eternal Too much, too slow. 4/10
Decades Tries to get going and when it does, it's good. 5/10
=6/10

Onto Steps next, the antithesis to Joy Division!

[vastar iner]

A little bit Burundi, a little bit Throbbing Gristle. It’s a more intriguing start than I was expecting. Before Ian Curtis’ voice tries to knit them together. I normally thing Curtis’ voice does not suit much of JD’s output - “Atmosphere” excepted - but it certainly does here. “Atrocity Exhibition” is the perfect title for a collapsing song. The buzzsaw guitar punctuating the mesmer of drum and bass is like slashing a monochrome canvas. It works. Just works. Funny, when drum & bass came along and became the critics’ darling before people worked out “seriously, wtf?” about it, nobody achieved anything with it better than JD did here. In an album track. Decades before.

“Isolation”. This is more JD. Indeed it’s more Kraftwerk. Proper synth opening. It is close to Human League, in fact. It’s almost a pop song. Curtis’ voice destroys any chance of this being a hit. It is far too out there to be commercial. But it works here. Again. It is kept slightly in the background, slightly echoed, and, as the title would suggest, isolated. The sound of alienation. There is indeed something cold about this one. It is a song that does not want to envelop you. It takes pride in its extremity. And then what an ending. Zhoonk. There it is. And again. We can’t be bothered to make this a conventional pop song. But whereas with most you would think they had run out of ideas, this is the idea.

“Passover” is a bit of a step back though. A mix of the first two songs, but doesn’t reach the heights of either. Trouble is “Colony” is much the same thing. At least that hypnotic bass carries everything through. You can’t turn away. I’ve never come across anything which forces you to listen deeply against your will in much the same way before. It is the audio equivalent of a horror film. Soul disturbing.

Which makes “A Means To An End” well placed. It changes the pace a little bit, more vocal emphasis, less grinding guitar. I am constantly being amazed at how well Curtis’ voice works on this. Perhaps it’s the studio rather than live which means the mix can be tweaked in just the right way. “I put my trust in you” carries some emotion - which is lent more emphasis from the habitual deadzone in which it normally resides. This is where a little means everything. Mariah Carey should listen and learn.

And it grinds to a halt to give way to a disco bass, of all things, and offbeat drum. Curtis though turns into something resembling a singer more. This time it doesn’t work. Ironically. As “Twenty-Four Hours”, the most galloping track here, proves. The baritone tremolo fits the autobahn pace well here. A disturbing mix of calm and frenetic.

Although it doesn’t work again on “The Eternal”. Too slow. It’s taken me nearly the entire LP to work out the enigma of Curtis’ voice. It is such an indivisible part of the JD sound. New Order had to do something different because Barney’s voice is too conventional to work on the dark miasma of the JD sound.

And then finally “Decades”. Reminds me a lot of OMD’s Organisation. It’s carried by the staccato synth rather than the bass. And the vocals are occasional rather than a centrepiece. Finishing with the orchestral sweep of sustained chords.

I haven’t mentioned the lyrics at all. I was so absorbed in the music for them to be little more than accompaniment to the general impression. It’s on listening back you hear how claustrophobic and devastating they are. And how literate. Just to pick one selection at random…

An abyss that lasted creation
A circus complete with all fools
Foundations that lasted the ages
Then ripped apart at their roots
Beyond all this good the terror
The grip of a mercenary hand
When savagery returns
for good reason
There's no turning back the last stand

…it’s a bit different to la la la, la la la-la la, la la la, la la la-la la, can’t get you out of my head, boy your loving is all I think about, repeat ad f***ing infinitum, isn’t it? O tempora, o mores.

So, overall? I reckon this is a proper album, in that it is greater than the sum of its parts. A couple of lowlights but those work to a greater extent in the context of the album qua album. The whole thing suffocates, it is awkward, disturbing. Malevolent, malignant. It is a palpable step above many other New Age albums, way beyond what Bauhaus et al could muster. It is also a tribute to Sumner, Hook and Morris that they could regroup post-Curtis and revamp in a way that still caught the attention.

And I’m not marking it on its cover, but that is the greatest in pop music history.

Solid 8 out of 10. I do have to say though that, of this era, I definitely prefer OMD’s output. Which also benefitted from Saville’s design, incidentally.