1984: George Michael and Morrissey discuss JOY DIVISION! | Eight Days A Week | Music | BBC Archive

now the history of Joy Division and new order a band who changed their name when Ian Curtis committed suicide four years ago this month despite the hits like Blue Monday and thieves like us the band of retained a cult image and a sense of distance from the rest of the music scene this week though the subject of a new book an ideal for living which to the uninitiated may seem as impenetrable as their record covers it's written by Mark Johnson and three others and follows the band's careers from the beginnings in Manchester with almost day by day compilation of press clippings Morrissey before we look at the book uh perhaps you could try and explain the extraordinary appeal of Joy Division and now New Order speaking as a fellow mancunian oh I don't know whether I could explain it well they treated quite unlike any other band yeah I think um I think most people I think most people's vision of Joy Division it is entirely colored by the death of Ian Curtis and it's always really the really only factor that people seem to discuss um Joe division were one group that that I really didn't take to that much if you used to go and see him in Manchester I saw them a few times by accident and but I I can now completely appreciate their appeal but I look upon Ian Curtis and certainly new order as neither singers or lyricists but as symbolists I think they were quite accurate and they um they had the spirit of the times and but I think it was totally false it was like people saying well yes this is how life is totally without emotion which of course they weren't and we are totally hard people which of course they weren't it was like this complete affectation of people wanting to be something that they weren't I find it quite sad but in a musical sense I hear nothing whatsoever but um what about the book then and does that there's a lot of people you saw in stage in Manchester um the book confused me when it was straightforward written in almost a a diary fashion I found it quite interesting what about those quotes yeah sort of strange stuff or ostentatious it was very very boring but um ultimately i i would support at the end of the day I would support New Order and Joy Division but um with some confusion I'll admit Tony uh not a band I suspect you'd approve of no well well I mean as long as people get pleasure out of them that's fine but it's certainly not me no and the book um I should probably think for the fans of Joy Division uh it would probably appeal to them but what did you make of it though well I found it incredibly boring um there were certain bits of it that I found a bit disturbing as well I mean they were always trying to get over this fascist image and things like that and uh I mean one or two bits and pieces they always denied they were fascists but they did seem to get such as names the bit where it let let down I mean the Ian Kurt has committed suicide and the book didn't actually go into that now anybody who is interested in that I suppose that would be the thing that would be interesting there's some extraordinary quote there that it's a bit of speculation is not only futile but an invasion of his privacy which as a journalist I mean that seemed to be the key essence of the book is why the guy died and you you skirt around it like that I also think the book assumes that you know everything there is to know about Joy Division now somebody obviously it's not really fair for me to judge it because I'm not the slightest bit interested in it's not mine together I've heard it yes what do you think of it well it's not for me no but I I'm very you know I'm more into soul soul side of it but um the thing is that they assume that you know everything about the group I would personally have liked them to go into detail about the individual members of the group and they didn't do that they went from one gig to another and quite honestly I'm not interested the fact they appeared in the cat's whiskers Club in wherever it was and they left the gear on the stage for a roadie to clear up I mean it's not interesting that's what every group does and there was one particular section where they said that because of Joy Division or whatever they call themselves in those days they prove that anybody could get together even without being able to sing being able to actually play an instrument like playing smash it this week they still can't play as New Order which I thought was slightly curious George George um I wouldn't imagine you as a Joy Division fan Maybe I'm Wrong you might be wrong I might be wrong this this the book just became incredibly suspect for me the minute I saw uh you do like them I mean that's I do like them yeah it became very suspect when I saw that it was partially uh well a lot of the contributions were were from a gentleman called Paul Morley you'd need a book a lot thicker than that just to list that man's um that man's ideas or hang ups whatever you like to call it but it became very very pretentious in so many areas that I I just I actually didn't finish it I didn't get anywhere near finishing it um and I actually really liked Joy Division or particularly their second album but closer I thought closer the second side or closer is uh one of my favorite albums it's just beautiful I mean like music 24 hours sounds like um I can't remember there was the Eternal and uh yeah 24 hours there's there's just four tracks which I don't even know the listing of but they're just beautiful musically I didn't actually see it I thought their image all the all the way through liking them I thought their image was pretentious and contrived and it did have very fascist elements to it but um I thought music was great I thought it was quite good the way they didn't they didn't harp on about um the death because that was like I thought that was almost like them it could almost have been engineered it was like awful it was the way the way that they were elevated after his death was really sick but it was um to make it a commercial book that's what people I mean no to be honest with you I think that is a book for for people who I enjoy the idea of factory the pictures thank you stop you there and an ideal for living a history of Joy Division is published by proteus [Music]