In Memoriam: Ian Curtis
I’m a day late with this: yesterday was the 25th anniversary of Ian Curtis’ suicide. When musicians and film stars die tragically young, there is a tendency to create a distasteful hagiography about them, as if their death was some great romantic gesture which seals their place in the annals of genius. I don’t want any part of that. But I do want to signal the fact that I still listen to those two Joy Division albums today, Unknown Pleasures and Closer, often over and over again, and they still sound just as fresh and magnificent as they did when I first heard them when I was still at school. They are masterpieces, and there can be little doubt that Ian Curits’ haunting voice and the sheer poetry and beauty of his lyrics are a major factor in that. Cold, austere, tragic.
The BBC have a short piece about him: Remembering Joy Division singer Curtis.
