Review: Joy Division, Heart and soul boxset

“With a few exceptions, everything Joy Division recorded and released is contained here. Joy Division: 1977 to 1980.” 

These are the final two lines of the summary written on the back of the Joy Division Heart and soul boxset. For those of you who do not know me personally, I am a massive Joy Division fan. I got into them after the movie Control came out on DVD back in March 2008.

Since first seeing Control, I’ve added individual copies of their albums - Unknown Pleasures, Closer and Still - to my CD collection while I have also managed to get hold of a couple of books about the band, such as Touching from a Distance, by Deborah Curtis, the widow of late lead singer Ian Curtis, and Joy Division: Piece By Piece by Paul Morley, a music journalist who wrote extensively about Joy Division, and continues to do so to this day.

I became engrossed in the story, the drama and the tragedy of it. Hooked, just like everyone else. After Control was released, it suddenly became ‘cool’ to like Joy Division. Commercialism, twenty-odd years on (apologies for the vagueness; I was too lazy to work out the exact time difference from Joy Division’s premature end to their sudden rise to popularity). Typical really (both the commercialism and the laziness).

So, back to more pressing matters: the boxset. Named Heart and soul after a Joy Division song (naturally) from the band’s second album, it contains four CDs which have 80 Joy Division tracks spread out over them. There are recorded tracks from their main albums, as well as random recordings from sessions with different producers, including Jonathan Peel and the now infamous producing genius Martin Hannett.

As well as this endless amount of music, also included is a book containing pieces on Joy Division by Jean-Pierre Turmel and Jon Savage, neither of whom I had heard of before now, and, of course, Morley of whom I'm a big fan. At the end of this book is a list of all the songs and live performances included on the CDs, as well as the band’s discography, biography, sessionography and live television and film performances.

Clearly, plenty of effort was put into this boxset, first released in 1997 (my copy is a recent re-release). The packaging is decent too. It opens up, with two CDs either side of the slot containing the book. The choice of picture for the cover is also simple, yet striking. It’s a close up image of one side of Ian Curtis' face, taken during one of the band's BBC performances. His expression on the cover epitomizes his life, the life of Joy Division and the music they made.

For those of you who read my post entitled ‘Between the click of the light and the start of a dream’, you’ll recall my fondness for a demo version of Arcade Fire’s No Cars Go. Joy Division have a wonderfully sad, atmospheric song which is, fittingly, called Atmosphere. Before buying the Heart and soul boxset, I had several versions of every other Joy Division song bar Atmosphere. I often wondered if there was a live version or an early version that I was missing out on.

Well, disc three, track 19 is that version. It’s called Chance (Atmosphere). It’s longer, not as clean cut but more gripping, in my mind, than the version I’m used to. The sound of the song is completely different, but the rhythm and atmosphere it creates remain just as powerful. There are extra lyrics which altered my original perception of the song. 

Curtis’ voice is rougher, as if he knows what he’s singing will come to pass some day (of course, everyone who listens to Joy Division has that feeling about Curtis' singing, so my thought here is just a conformist opinion). This version of Atmosphere was previously unreleased and was recorded in Eden Studios in London.

For this song alone, I’m happy I bought the boxset despite already owning CDs containing all of Joy Division's studio work. €26.99 might seem a little steep when put it into that context, but as any band super fan will tell you, it is worth digging into your pockets to find that one one unheard track. For me, there were actually two songs completely unknown to me before purchasing this boxset: As You Said and In A Lonely Place. Both of these songs, like Atmosphere, are sad and atmospheric.

I also love the version of Ceremony included in this collection. Before now, I only had a live version of this song which is completely different to the version contained on Heart and soul. The live version is faster and more urgent in comparison to the slower build up of the version from the boxset. 

The song is incredible and, allegedly, was the last song written by Curtis’ before his suicide in 1980. It was released as New Order’s first single in 1981 - New Order being Joy Division re-incarnated minus Curtis (they would release the single twice that year, with the second release featuring Gillian Gilbert, who wasn't in New Order when they released the single first time around).

Heart and soul contains all the original tracks from the band’s two albums, Unknown Pleasures and Closer, as well as the compilation album Still and the best of Substance. Several unreleased tracks are also included. For anyone interested in listening to Joy Division, this boxset gives you all the songs you could want, as well as the nifty book, which offers plenty of information about the band’s brief history. Recommendation and a half is all I’ll say.

Key Tracks:
Disc one: Digital, Disorder, She’s Lost Control, Transmission
Disc two: Atmosphere, Dead Souls, Komakino, Isolation, Heart and Soul, The Eternal, Love Will Tear Us Apart
Disc three: No Love Lost, Leaders of Men, Ice Age, Chance (Atmosphere), As You Said, Ceremony, In A Lonely Place
Disc four (live performances): Dead Souls, Candidate, Atrocity Exhibition, Colony

My choices are personal and may differ entirely from other people's choices. If you encounter conflicting opinion, my suggestion is simple: listen to all 80 tracks.

Oh, and happy New Year to one and all!