Music Ranking
This one felt really long. I don’t love slow and murky music and this was definitely that. In a word, this album was melancholy. The whole album felt so sorrowful and sad. The songs dragged on for so long and I felt like I was stuck in very sad quicksand. I also really love lush orchestration and found none of that here.
5/10
Album Art Ranking
Thanks to Vsauce Michael for telling me what this was.
9.3/10
Music Ranking
I am not sure how it happened but I don’t think I have ever listened to the Joy Division before. The post-punk sound and desolate feel does not make this an album you listen to in order to get pumped up. It is much more an album for introspection and quiet contemplation.
I noticed the call and response structure of most of their songs which reminds me very much of blues music. The short lyric → instrumental reply → short lyric → instrumental reply pattern of the Joy Division songs is classic blues call-and-response just stripped down and mechanized. Lyrics are bleak and declarative but the subject matter is existential rather than situational as in blues.
I would say Joy Division uses a blues-derived call-and-response skeleton, but replaces groove with dread and release with stasis.
5.0/10
Album Art Ranking
If you know what the image is you can only give this
10.0/10