Closer is the second and final studio album by English rock band Joy Division, released on July 18, 1980 by Factory Records. Produced by Martin Hannett, it was released two months after the suicide of the band’s lead singer and lyricist Ian Curtis. The album reached No. 6 on the UK Albums Chart and peaked at No. 3 in New Zealand in September 1981. Today, Closer is widely recognised as a seminal release of the post-punk era. Following the release of the non-album single Love Will Tear Us Apart in June 1980, the remaining members re-formed as New Order. The album was remastered and re-released in 2007.
The album cover was designed by Martyn Atkins and Peter Saville, with a photograph of the Appiani family tomb in Genoa’s Monumental Cemetery of Staglieno adorning much of the sleeve. The photograph was taken by Bernard Pierre Wolff in 1978. In a 2007 documentary on the band, designer Saville commented that he, upon learning of singer Ian Curtis‘s suicide, expressed immediate concern over the album’s design as it depicted a funeral theme, remarking “we’ve got a tomb on the cover of the album!”
The album, along with Unknown Pleasures and Still, was remastered and re-released in 2007. As with Unknown Pleasures and Still, the remaster was packaged with a bonus live disc, recorded at the University of London Union.
Tracklist:
- Atrocity Exhibition
- Isolation
- Passover
- Colony
- A Means to an End
- Heart and Soul
- Twenty Four Hours
- The Eternal
- Decades
Joy Division
Ian Curtis: lead vocals, guitar (track 6), melodica (track 9)
Bernard Sumner: guitar (all except tracks 1 and 6), bass guitar (track 1), synthesizers (tracks 2, 6, 8, and 9)
Peter Hook: bass guitar (all except track 1), guitar (track 1), six-string bass guitar (tracks 3, 6, and 8)
Stephen Morris: drums (all except tracks 2 and 8), electronic drums (tracks 2, 4, 8, 9), percussion (all except track 2)
Production
Martin Hannett: production, engineering
Michael Johnson: engineering assistance
Jon Caffery: engineering
Ian Curtis ( July 15, 1956 – May 18, 1980)
