Early Joy Division I posted the following message to the I Love Music discussion forum today: "It was a sunny public holiday (Pentecost) today in Frankfurt and as so often on bright days I felt like relistening to one of my fave (not so sunny) bands: Joy Division. I started with the first four tracks on the third disc of "Heart and Soul" which are identical to the "An Ideal for Living" EP recorded in December 1977. The tracks are: "Warsaw", "No Love Lost", "Leaders of Men" and "Failures" (the weakest of the four songs). And suddenly two things I hadn't noticed too much before struck me:

1. Ian Curtis does not sing in his grave mannered graveyard voice, he sings more "naturally" (one could say human) and
2. Joy Division sound much rougher, punkier and more energetic than on the later studio albums produced by Martin Hannett. There is hardly any trace of this gothic, claustrophobic and oppressing sound for which they became known later on and which turned me off initially when I discovered them about ten years ago.

The following three songs on disc 3 of "Heart and Soul" ("The Drawback", "Interzone" and "Shadowplay") which stem from the RCA LP later released under the name Warsaw produced by JD and others neither have the classic JD sound. The same is true for the first BBC session for the John Peel show from January 1979. Though Curtis has already changed his voice to lower spookier registers on the last song "Transmission". On the live recordings, especially "Les Bains Douches" from December 1979 JD are punkier and more dynamic but Curtis sings low as well. My question: Does anyone know how much Hannett is responsible for these two major changes in JD's music, namely the lower singing of Curtis and the less edgy, more controlled and more lugubrious sound for which they became famous? How much did Hannett influence the (tragic) direction JD took later on? Looking at the artwork of the two studio albums designed by Peter Saville I ask myself how much it expressed how Hannett wanted the band to be and how much it reflected JD themselves. Especially the cover of "Closer" seems to be very artificial and premeditating. I quote Momus "Thought for the Day" here: "Already posthumous when released, Peter Saville's sleeve for Joy Division's 'Closer' shows a necrophile scene of sorrowful keening cast in marble. Death becomes part of the album's power, a part of its marketing." I'd also like to know if there are live bootlegs flying around from before the recording of "Unknown Pleasures" in April 1979. By the way I think I prefer their early, unpolished, thrashier intonation and sound which was probably more intense though maybe a little less unique than their later one." Answers can be found here.