I Love 1980 - 16

Joy Division - Love Will Tear Us Apart

I seem to remember there being some kind of strike at the BBC involving TOTP and even, perhaps, daytime radio around this time in 1980, which meant basically that the charts went a bit haywire and records started appearing that wouldn't normally have done so as considered 'unsuitable' for TOTP even in these "new-wave" times.
Joy Division's seminal Love Will Tear Us Apart was a case in point. Fuelled by singer Ian Curtis' recent suicide (news which hardly made it beyond John Peel's 10 pm show) the single was riding high in the indie charts in May and June and manged to break into the regular TOTP-less Top 40 at the beginning of July and had made it's way up to no. 13 by the end of the month.

So much has already been said about the song / band / singer already so not much more to add, except to say that it opened the doors to the band's music to so many new admirers including myself. I didn't buy the single preferring the tape recording off the radio done on my new (and first) radio cassette recorder bought with my strawberry picking money (ironically the original was recorded in Strawberry Studios).
It would also seem to have been the band's attempt to write a 'proper' pop song with a catchy tunes, title in the chorus and everything. Fitting then that it did become their first chart hit, reaching the top 20 aagin on re-release in 1983 and 1995.

The song's beauty and power are universally undoubted with Curtis' dark and detached vocal creating a melancholy sing-along which would inspire angstful youths to gaze meaningfully at their shoes and to try and attempt similar music for years to come. LWTUSA has been covered by a wide range of artists, the first possibly being a brave but much derided version by white-soul boy Paul Young on his 1983 album No Parlez, a version which I've always quite liked. Arcade Fire, Simple Minds, Nouvelle Vague, New Order and Hawksley Workman (look it up) are among the many others to have attempted cover versions, although inevitably none of them compare to the turbulent and unsettling beauty (like that?) of the original by Ian Curtis, Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook and Stephen Morris.


Joy Division: they never wanted to go on Top of the Pops anyway
















Love Will Tear Us Apart : chart stats
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Joy Division - Love Will Tear Us Apart