'I'm not afraid anymore... I keep my eyes on the door. But I remember when we were young...'
Regrets. I have a few... Actually not. I've never really been one for regrets. It strikes me as a slightly pointless emotion. But I do wish I'd recorded what I felt about records like these when I bought and first listened to them. In this case I imagine at nineteen .I would have thought the way I felt when I first heard it its markedly different from what I feel now. I'll never know.
Listening through to the record now at sixty (for the second time in twenty four hours - err that's a good name for a song) , I don't feel sad or god forbid suicidal. That's nothing but the immediate historical context of the record. It's just phenomenally powerful. Streamlined. Inspired.
The members of Joy Division reportedly didn't like the way the record sounded when they heard it. It wasn't the sound that they had playing inside their heads. But the overall sound of the record conveys the sense it me of a group of musicians guided by something, driven by forces they didn't understand and could barely Control. Erm. Good name for a film.
The production and the packaging are quite remarkable. The name of the album inspired. The flirtation with powerful and elemental forces slightly unwise perhaps in retrospect but worthy of the deepest respect. , Guided. Guided by voices
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