One week at number one on 2nd July 1988
Its re-release was greeted with a certain amount of criticism, being regarded in some quarters as exploitative, using Ian Curtis’s death and some deeply morbid visual imagery as a way of increasing sales of Joy Division’s “Substance” compilation. New Order were interviewed on Snub TV on BBC2, where the subject was somewhat testily broached.
In the interview, you can see Bernard Sumner bristling slightly, while Peter Hook responds calmly, stating that “we felt that the Joy Division ‘Substance’ was more valid than the New Order ‘Substance’, which Rob and Tony thought was more valid than the Joy Division ‘Substance’, so we decided to do both... [and] we took a single off [both]. It was quite straightforward – one wasn’t exploited more than the other...”
Bernard Sumner, meanwhile, thought that “the [Anton Corbijn directed] video was a reflection of the press’s view of Joy Division…. This man has become a legend through his music.”
The video for the reissue remains a deeply strange offering. Corbijn takes the black and white Super 8 approach of his recent promos for Depeche Mode, but instead shoots still, slow footage of shuffling mourners in both black and white shrouds (with pluses and minuses on them) who are seen moving in unison, holding up giant posters of Ian Curtis, and even occasionally losing their footing; viewed one way, it’s a fascinating piece of art. Viewed another, it’s mawkish, almost mocking – treating Ian Curtis as the leader of some remote religious cult (and this is before we even get on to the similarity of the shrouds to KKK costumes). It sometimes feels as if it was developed to force the viewer to question their relationship with Joy Division’s music, and if that’s the case, it’s one of the most non-promotional “promo” videos ever – but how typical of Factory Records.
The record itself, of course, is one of the group’s finest, whatever window dressing or context its given; a slowly unfolding and strangely wide open, airy track which often feels as if its gliding above Curtis’s solemn vocals, contradicting them and encouraging grace under pressure. “People like you find it easy” Curtis almost snaps at one point, while the long, luxurious notes hold beneath him, almost in total contradiction. The drums patter and thunder ominously, but the rest of the group are off, soaring high above the lot with a drawn-out conclusion which feels like being given a hug by a higher force. Curtis is invisible for the final minute of the song while the band play on.
It’s easy to come up with predictable narratives and conclusions here, and trust me, I’m trying to resist this. The problem listeners my age and younger are always going to face when talking about Joy Division is that we can’t remember a time when Ian Curtis was actually alive. The first I knew of the group was when I caught “Love Will Tear Us Apart” on the evening airwaves as a boy, then heard the DJ announce he was dead; my enjoyment of the song (which I taped) was somewhat undermined by the immediate bad news. I’d had three minutes of appreciating them as a new and fascinating force, before they were quickly snatched and filed away as a piece of history, a victim of events (of course I didn’t literally think this as a six year old boy. I was probably just baffled by the whole thing – though it would happen on a much grander and more confusing scale with John Lennon at the end of the year).
Unlike “Love Will Tear Us Apart”, “Atmosphere” was released prior to Ian Curtis’s suicide, meaning that there are thousands of listeners out there who heard it shorn of that context, who probably knew very little about Curtis’s health and marital struggles. They will have heard this song in an entirely different way to me, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t untangle the record from the tragedy that closely followed it; every time I try to decouple things, my brain immediately cuts a corner and jumps back to the dominant mythology again. It’s a huge trench that’s cut across an older pathway, too deeply engrained to bypass.
I can’t locate the precise original quote, nor who is responsible for it, but it’s been said that suicide taints the past as well as the future – everything becomes rewritten, reinterpreted and second-guessed in its shadow. Previously happy memories or innocent exchanges get scrubbed and scoured for clues until their original shine is dulled. For the partners, family members and friends of the deceased, that’s a huge load to carry. What if they had responded differently, or had understood what the person really meant? Could it have been prevented?
For us as listeners, or appreciators of any art – the privileged ones in this arrangement - it causes us to reflexively turn our heads away from alternative readings of any work, and no matter how much we try to correct the course, we’re always driving a car with a crooked wheel which is continually veering towards a ditch. So it feels impossible now to disentangle “Atmosphere” from a deeply tragic event; when Curtis sings “Walk in silence/ Don’t walk away in silence” we can wonder what he exactly means – and question whether it’s a contradiction, or a request to stand by him despite the fact that nothing is being said – but we will always feel certain what the song, as a whole, is about. We know too much. Our imaginations have failed.
And of course, despite all the above, and despite the fact that any mystery has been destroyed, “Atmosphere” is a beautiful jewel of a record. It even glistens like one in places, giving the impression of sunlight flashing against it for a few moments, before the glide through the clouds begins again.
What its reissue signals, however, is a change in the air Ian Curtis had no say in. This is the first number one we’ve dealt with to which the word “legend” was attached unironically. The indie charts from 1981-87 saw a number of reissues, but most were just the work of tiny labels smelting old gold for DJs and newer fans alike – few had any bigger meaning attached, and most weren’t stylistically post-punk. “Atmosphere”, on the other hand, is presented as a statement, a nod to the history of New Order, Joy Division, Factory Records and even the city of Manchester itself. It feels as if it’s seeking to cement a myth. As we move through the years, these myths, those grand proclamations, will become bigger and increasingly common; the humble cultdom of post-punk will cease to be.
These days, if you catch a train to Manchester Piccadilly from a southwards direction and look closely out of the left-hand side as the train slows and draws close, you can see a huge mural of Ian Curtis. Tony Wilson might never have lived to see it himself, but I’d be surprised if he didn’t know it would eventually happen somewhere in Manchester city centre. This reissue was, you could argue, the start of some changes which had implications far beyond the indie chart.
(* As a couple of other readers have pointed out, the NME did print indie charts prior to 1981, but rather than being compiled across multiple stores, these were instead taken as a sample of a different shop each week - sometimes it was Rough Trade in London, other times Volume in Newcastle, etc. As such, these can't really be regarded to be "proper" charts in the same way as the ones we're currently studying. As for whether I'll do anything with the pre-1981 charts in the future - we'll see).
New Entries Elsewhere In The Charts
13. Christian Death - Church of No Return (Jungle)
Peak position: 11
And from the sublime to the completely ridiculous.
Christian Death began life in 1979 under the guiding hand of Rozz Williams, who eventually left the group in 1985 to pursue more experimental paths. The lead guitarist Valor Kand took control, and as a result there are fans of the group who argue that all post-85 material is null and void, in the way that some Pink Floyd fans believe that post-Waters material (or even post-Barrett material) is not "proper Floyd".
Whatever. I'm not here to debate the line-up difficulties of the act, of which they had many. What I'm here to do is consider this track, which, if you strip away the lyrics and the band's presentation, is basically very camp seventies glam rock with gothic undertones. A darker version of The Sweet, to be precise, with an air raid siren in place of the police siren at the start of "Blockbuster". Kand's vocals are also very Rocky Horror, which layers campness on top of pre-existing campness to create a sensory overload.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with any of this - I love The Sweet, in fact, and will happily have arguments with anyone who tells me I'm wrong for doing so - but in common with the failings of a lot of the worst Goth Rock acts, you're left with the impression that Christian Death think they produced something mind-blowingly significant with this one, that the theatricality of it and its references to original sin and the church's quaint views on fornication add up to a Big Statement... but it's far, far too pleased with itself to make an impression.
Perhaps I'm just far too British, and was brought up in far too atheistic a family, to give a shit about this single. If I were a teenager just beginning to have my first doubts about my faith, and the hypocrisy of organised religion, I can imagine that Christian Death would potentially feel like a lighting bolt, but to me at the time in 1988 - and indeed now - they just seemed quaint, signposting obvious things loudly like a drunk old man in the local pub (though to be fair, the drunk old man in the local pub wasn't big on tight leather outfits).
Another lesson to learn from this one is that, just as horror films lose their impact if there's a grisly death every 15 seconds, controversy from rock bands is at its best when it happens suddenly and fleetingly in the space of one song. When groups layer loaded gesture on top of loaded gesture, it begins to seem comic, as each idea fights for its own space. Subtlety can be a wonderful, wonderful thing, and Christian Death are all about grand gestures introduced with flashing neon signs - really, this couldn't be less my kind of thing if it tried.
15. Tigertailz - Livin' Without You (Music for Nations)
Peak position: 15
But God knows this week’s indie chart, from top to bottom, is not about subtlety. Enter Welsh glam metallers Tigertailz with an anthem of a different shade.
To be completely fair to them, “Livin’ Without You” is a rock song which could hold its own among the best pop metal of the late eighties, and its hard not to conclude that it would have been a hit if the group had hailed from California rather than Cardiff. Certainly that chorus is prouder and mightier than anything the Manics came up with during their “Generation Terrorists” era, “Motorcycle Emptiness” aside (*ducks and runs for cover*)
The group never rose much beyond a cult, but are still a going concern, and put forward a submission for the Eurovision Song Contest in 2016 which was rejected. We ended up with Joe and Jake instead, who finished 24th on the scoreboard. That’ll teach us.
20. Wire – Silk Skin Paws (Mute)
Peak position: 3
"Silk Skin Paws" emerged from Wire’s LP "A Bell Is A Cup Until It Is Struck" and despite being a brilliant track in its own right didn't seem as obvious a single. A gloomy, atmospheric pean about bankers throwing themselves out of windows, it's rich with atmosphere, chiming guitars and icy synths, but didn’t have the same allure as “Kidney Bingos”.
"A Bell Is A Cup..." created a short-lived wave of renewed critical focus for Wire, and there was a feeling that while they never truly achieved everything they could in the seventies (in terms of sales) perhaps now was their time. Mute apparently hoped that they would at least match their levels of success on EMI, and maybe even usurp them. They were not without their famous supporters, either - David Bowie was even spotted buying a copy of the album in HMV on Oxford Street.
For all that promise, though, Wire were always going to be Wire, marrying baffling lyrics to rich and beautiful arrangements, never quite doing anything as straightforward as creating an obvious alternative pop record (though they would come close). “Silk Skin Paws” sounds enormous and slightly frightening, but provides no qualities which would tempt daytime radio play – you always got the sense that while they had the skills to leap out of their ghetto, they were happy to remain a marginal cult band.
Still, tracks like "Silk Skin Paws" and "Kidney Bingos" prove that even during their less fashionable, non punk phase, they were more than just an arty, angular act; they were great songwriters too. It's a shame that's talked about so infrequently.
Number One In The National Charts
Bros: "I Owe You Nothing" (CBS)
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