Joy Division - "Atmosphere" Classic or Dud?

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Classic.

― Chris V. (Chris V), Friday, 7 February 2003 14:33 (twenty-three years ago)

Classic Classic Classic

― Lynskey (Lynskey), Friday, 7 February 2003 14:37 (twenty-three years ago)

just hearing it again for the first time in nearly ten years in "24 hour party people" was wonderful.

― Chris V. (Chris V), Friday, 7 February 2003 14:39 (twenty-three years ago)

Classic, classic, classic, classic, classic, classic, classic.

I want "Atmosphere" played at my funeral (immediately followed by "Gobbing On Life" by Alberto Y Los Trios Paranoias).

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Friday, 7 February 2003 15:03 (twenty-three years ago)

The only possible reason for saying "Dud" is shock value. Come on now.

― Chris Ott (Chris Ott), Friday, 7 February 2003 15:15 (twenty-three years ago)

It is the question which is dud.

― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Friday, 7 February 2003 15:29 (twenty-three years ago)

Closer had just become my favourite album when I first heard this song. It had been hyped so much as a classic JD song. I was expecting to love it. I didn't. I thought his voice (which I completely loved on Closer) sounded ridiculous, croaking out things like "i-en si-i-lons" oblivious to the key of anything else in the track. The music was pretty but a little on the fruity side. It took a while before I started to really like the song. I actually started to really appreciate the dynamics and timbres in his voice. I think I fully realized it when I heard the Codeine cover, with the tidied-up vocal, and missed the original delivery.

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Friday, 7 February 2003 15:31 (twenty-three years ago)

there can be no doubt, it is classic. gorgeous, gorgeous song.

― janni (janni), Friday, 7 February 2003 15:45 (twenty-three years ago)

I like it and that but I don't think it's great by their standards. The 'i-hin soy-lerrrnce' voice just makes me think of Barney the Dinosaur which robs it of much of its emotional impact.

― Ferg (Ferg), Friday, 7 February 2003 16:25 (twenty-three years ago)

Ferg hates fun. Oh wait.

The only thing more classic than this was the fact that the flipside was "Dead Souls." Goddamn, what a single. Those sparkling keyboards from Barney S. and Stephen Morris's drum thwack and Hannett's production and...

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 7 February 2003 16:29 (twenty-three years ago)

I don't see the point of another thread on Joy division.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Friday, 7 February 2003 16:31 (twenty-three years ago)

We could start one on what Missy is saying.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 7 February 2003 16:34 (twenty-three years ago)

I just listened to this song. He sounds hammered out of his skull. The music is kinda twee.

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Friday, 7 February 2003 16:36 (twenty-three years ago)

Classic - that synth line just sounds so fragile.

― Anna (Anna), Friday, 7 February 2003 16:37 (twenty-three years ago)

Classic. Timeless. Majesty.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 7 February 2003 16:37 (twenty-three years ago)

If Substance had been my first exposure to JD, I don't think I'd have loved them so much.

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Friday, 7 February 2003 16:41 (twenty-three years ago)

Actually the first song I ever heard from them was "Warsaw" because the first album I ever bought from them was Substance, having just gotten fully into New Order earlier in the year and then learning of the connection. I remember being a bit bemused.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 7 February 2003 16:48 (twenty-three years ago)

C. it made me cry and sheer beauty doesn't often do that

nb the radio session version is even starker, has more lyrics and the vocal is slightly less ridiculous - i think it's on the boxset somewhere ?

― kieron, Friday, 7 February 2003 21:26 (twenty-three years ago)

totally classic. "people like you find it easy..."; it's really the synths that get me, but that line does, too (esp. cos it's so obviously *wrong*). i seem to remember the radio session version being (even) better, but i don't think i've heard it in years.

actually i maybe wouldn't be where i am today were it not for my song; i remember my phd supervisor telling me when i was 17 (ie before he was my supervisor) that this had been his favourite song when he was my age, and i guess that made a big impression on me.

(nb: just listened to the radio session version (disc 3, track 19), and it isn't actually as good - i think that's some kind of rockist myth. the vocal needs to be more "ridiculous".)

― toby (tsg20), Friday, 7 February 2003 21:39 (twenty-three years ago)

classic for some, dud for others. how's that?!

― jevjeb, Friday, 7 February 2003 21:50 (twenty-three years ago)

CLASSIC. Rus Abbott's cover version wasn't much cop though....

― Lord Marmite (Lord Marmite), Friday, 7 February 2003 21:55 (twenty-three years ago)

it's 1 o ther best romps

― naked as sin (naked as sin), Saturday, 8 February 2003 01:48 (twenty-three years ago)

i love this song. i remember watching the video on mtv way back when i was a kid, and thinking "wow". it's one of those sad but beautiful songs, in which both the music and words are equally powerful and touching.

― cecilia, Saturday, 8 February 2003 01:52 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm gonna slaughter a very big sacred cow when I say that I don't really like Joy Division all that much. Ian Curtis was a HORRIBLE singer, and "Atmosphere"'s all the proof you need. Dud all the way, but damn what a great drum sound.

― Evan (Evan), Saturday, 8 February 2003 02:53 (twenty-three years ago)

Wow....Evan steppin' up to the plate, swatting at Missy Elliott's "Work It" on one thread (pissin' off the popists) and Ian Curtis here (defying the rockists!) Ballsy.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 8 February 2003 02:56 (twenty-three years ago)

It's all about da yearning 4 crotch-bouncing.

― naked as sin (naked as sin), Saturday, 8 February 2003 02:57 (twenty-three years ago)

...not manboob bouncing? ;)

― janni (janni), Saturday, 8 February 2003 04:09 (twenty-three years ago)

''If Substance had been my first exposure to JD, I don't think I'd have loved them so much.''

Yeah it was my first exposure to them. I got it off the rec library when I was 15 and pretty much the first record I ever got it home to listen to.

It's really great but 'Atmosphere' is not the best track in it. There are so many good ones.

''We could start one on what Missy is saying.''

Or we could have another thread on Rallizes hehe.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Saturday, 8 February 2003 10:31 (twenty-three years ago)

All Joy Division is classic. I recently picked up the live Les Bains Douches and it has to be one of the best live records I ever heard. If anyone thinks JD was a studio creation of Martin Hannett must have a listen to this one. If anything these songs are even better live. And yes, "Atmospheres" sounds terrific here too.

― Jeff K (jeff k), Saturday, 8 February 2003 16:26 (twenty-three years ago)

les bains douches is the best live record ever. you are right jeff. jd were a live band. their sound was so fucking intense live. in comparison the studio albums are tuned down and diluted. another great live is the preston concert which was quite a mess. btw my introduction to jd was substance as well. and it was a very bad introduction. it took me another five years to buy another jd album, first still and then closer. by then i had understood the genius of the band.

― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Saturday, 8 February 2003 17:07 (twenty-three years ago)

one month passes...

Absolute classic. Period.

― John Bullabaugh (John Bullabaugh), Sunday, 9 March 2003 02:14 (twenty-three years ago)

seven years pass...

http://i975.photobucket.com/albums/ae232/daggerlee/IMG_0011.jpg

so rong but I still kinda want to buy it and wear it

― subtle like the g in 'goole' (dayo), Sunday, 19 September 2010 03:27 (fifteen years ago)

it's the kind of shirt that if I saw someone wearing it I would automatically assume they had never heard the song

― aerosmith: live at gunpoint (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Sunday, 19 September 2010 03:32 (fifteen years ago)

feel like you just talked me off the cliff there

― subtle like the g in 'goole' (dayo), Sunday, 19 September 2010 03:36 (fifteen years ago)

oh, that has they type of collar i like. do they do mailorder?

― brotherlovesdub, Sunday, 19 September 2010 04:17 (fifteen years ago)

I'll probably be crucified for this but:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nUzW7SgXVM

― Fartbritz Sootzveti (Steve Shasta), Sunday, 19 September 2010 05:27 (fifteen years ago)

Actually been a long time since I heard that, thanks for the reminder!

― Ned Raggett, Sunday, 19 September 2010 06:28 (fifteen years ago)

good song

― billstevejim, Sunday, 19 September 2010 07:24 (fifteen years ago)

Bernard Sumner's on 6Music talking about JD/ New Order. All familiar stuff, but he's a good interviewee.

― Neil S, Sunday, 19 September 2010 11:40 (fifteen years ago)

Wow, Evan was right wasn't he? The second he slaughtered that cow, Joy Division just kind of slipped off the radar.

They're one of my favourite bands and even I'm sick of hearing them out of context (I was in a cafe this morning having breakfast and LWTUA came on as the theme music in an advert for a new reality TV show or rom com or something. And I'm tired of seeing Unknown Pleasures remix T-shirts. As a man with no fashion sense whatsoever, I constantly had an UP T-shirt on the go from 1985 as it seemed to be a no brainer thing to wear. It really upset me that I had to stop wearing them in about 2005. But not as much as the number of wide boy, graphic designer crackheads in flatcaps I've seen in East London this Summer wearing the BFG in bed with an erection but his duvet is the Unknown Pleasures radiowave pattern tee.

Fucking cunts.

― Duran (Doran), Sunday, 19 September 2010 12:51 (fifteen years ago)

Great percussion on this record.

― rhythm fixated member (chap), Sunday, 19 September 2010 14:49 (fifteen years ago)

Love the Codeine cover, thanks for sharing!

― ilxor has truly been got at and become an ILXor (ilxor), Sunday, 19 September 2010 15:24 (fifteen years ago)

I can't believe this question was even asked

― Now, Sunday, 19 September 2010 22:08 (fifteen years ago)

http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/10_01/victormeldrew0410_468x493.jpg

― Mo Tucker Mo Problems (Noodle Vague), Sunday, 19 September 2010 22:09 (fifteen years ago)

one year passes...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJlualhdUpc

― flagp∞st (dayo), Monday, 12 March 2012 00:28 (fourteen years ago)

w.t.f.

― StanM, Monday, 12 March 2012 03:26 (fourteen years ago)

what the hell

― Vaseline MEN AMAZING JOURNEY (DJP), Monday, 12 March 2012 15:51 (fourteen years ago)

There was a Monty Python skit like this about mice, I think.

― Ned Raggett, Monday, 12 March 2012 15:52 (fourteen years ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9nGyPz9uT0

― my father will guide me up the stairs to bed (anagram), Monday, 12 March 2012 15:55 (fourteen years ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qiJPZ0Rruc

― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 12 March 2012 15:59 (fourteen years ago)

If all Joy Division songs sounded like this one, maybe they wouldn't have sucked so much.

― Poliopolice, Monday, 12 March 2012 16:32 (fourteen years ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBGrz73IkHk

― phuturephase, Monday, 12 March 2012 18:36 (fourteen years ago)

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