Still was released on this date in 1981. The album is getting a 40th anniversary vinyl release early in 2022. More info here at post-punk.com.
If memory serves me well, I believe the very first Joy Division track I ever heard was when I put on Still at my friend’s house. It was probably the rough recording of “Sister Ray” or “Ceremony,” but maybe not. I gave it about 20 seconds. Brutally raw, it didn’t grab me. I put on a different record.
It was only a matter of time before Still was added to my record collection, along with Unknown Pleasures and Closer.
I can distinctly remember when I heard Joy Division next. It was in a record shop in Dearborn. I was visiting my college friends, and we were doing what we did back then—and sometimes now—we were record shopping.
When we walked into the shop, the extended version of “She’s Lost Control” was playing. I was immediately hooked by that bass line.
It is hard to explain why a group of musicians can become so important to a person. I think generally it is because that band speaks for an individual in a way that the person cannot speak to others, and because the band becomes proof that the individual is not alone in feeling and thought. The person has a need to be understood, but doesn’t have an audience. Ian Curtis spoke to me. He captured what I was feeling and thinking at that particular time: the early 80s. The music channeled these feelings and thoughts which helped keep me going in a tumultuous period of my young adult life.
And so Joy Division became special for me…and Still is.
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