Joy Division - Musical Style

Musical Style

Joy Division took time to develop their sound. As Warsaw, the band played "fairly undistinguished punk-inflected hard-rock". Critic Simon Reynolds asserted that "Joy Division's originality really became apparent as the songs got slower." The group's music took on a "sparse" quality; in Reynolds's description, "Peter Hook's bass carried the melody, Bernard Sumner's guitar left gaps rather than filling up the group's sound with dense riffage, and Steve Morris's drums seemed to circle the rim of a crater." Sumner described the band's characteristic sound in 1994: "It came out naturally: I'm more rhythm and chords, and Hooky was melody. He used to play high lead bass because I liked my guitar to sound distorted, and the amplifier I had would only work when it was at full volume. When Hooky played low, he couldn't hear himself. Steve has his own style which is different to other drummers. To me, a drummer in the band is the clock, but Steve wouldn't be the clock, because he's passive: he would follow the rhythm of the band, which gave us our own edge." Over time, Ian Curtis began to sing in a low, baritone voice, which often drew comparisons to Jim Morrison of The Doors (one of Curtis's favourite bands).

Sumner acted as the unofficial musical director of the band, a role that he carried over into New Order. While Sumner was the group's primary guitarist, Curtis played the instrument on a few recorded songs and during a few shows. Curtis hated playing guitar, but the band insisted he do so. Sumner said, "He played in quite a bizarre way and that to us was interesting, because no one else would play like Ian." During the recording sessions for Closer, Sumner began using self-built synthesisers and Hook used a six-string bass for more melody.

Producer Martin Hannett "dedicated himself to capturing and intensifying Joy Division's eerie spatiality". Hannett believed punk rock was sonically conservative because of its refusal to utilise studio technology to create sonic space. The producer instead aimed to create a more expansive sound on the group's records. Hannett said, " were a gift to a producer, because they didn't have a clue. They didn't argue." Hannett demanded clean and clear "sound separation" not only for individual instruments, but even for individual pieces of Morris's drumkit. Morris recalled, "Typically on tracks he considered to be potential singles, he'd get me to play each drum on its own to avoid any bleed-through of sound." Music journalist Richard Cook noted that Hannett's role was "crucial". There are "devices of distance" in his production and "the sound is an illusion of physicality".