‘The Scream’: the album Robert Smith called the “forerunner” of the Joy Division sound
The origins of goth music, particularly its foundational form, goth rock, remain contested. While no definitive date or moment marks its emergence—having developed through an amalgamation of influences—there were key moments when its diverse strands began to converge, creating a distinct sound, aesthetic, and subculture. Two groups pivotal in shaping this movement were Siouxsie and the Banshees and Joy Division.
Goth music emerged from the punk scene, with contributions from both first-wave punk and the more artistically inclined post-punk movement. One pivotal moment often cited is the release of Bauhaus’ 1979 debut single, ‘Bela Lugosi’s Dead’. This track encapsulated many defining elements of the goth ethos: melodramatic vocals, a haunting atmosphere, macabre lyrics, and, in Bauhaus’s signature style, an eerie dub-inspired groove.
Before Bauhaus helped define goth with its signature elements, both Joy Division and Siouxsie and the Banshees had already contributed significantly to the genre’s formation through more fully realised works. Many consider Joy Division, the Manchester-based post-punk pioneers, to be the first band to encapsulate the gothic sound, particularly with their seminal 1979 debut album, Unknown Pleasures, which has since become widely influential.
The record packaged a spiritually punk desire to do away with established musical traditions, a minimalist post-punk approach to composition, and a glacial sound drawing upon their bleak post-industrial surroundings into one singular mass, with frontman Ian Curtis’s unsettling baritone typical of what became the expected goth delivery over the coming years. Not only this, but the sputtering guitars, hypnotic, tom-heavy rhythms and melodic basslines are also deemed formative for both goth and post-punk.
However, Siouxsie and the Banshees, a pivotal band from punk’s first wave that had performed at the 1976 100 Club Punk Special, arguably preceded Joy Division in laying the groundwork for goth. Their Steve Lillywhite-produced debut, The Scream, showcased more gothic elements than Unknown Pleasures. Siouxsie Sioux’s haunting, ethereal vocals, Kenny Morris’ trance-like tom patterns, and John McKay’s sharp yet captivating guitar lines all contributed to a groundbreaking sound. Its innovative nature earned admiration from influential artists across generations, including The Cure, Steve Albini, and Faith No More.
When speaking to Melody Maker in 1983, the subsequent supreme leader of all things goth for the mainstream, The Cure frontman Robert Smith, said that The Scream was the trendsetter of the Joy Division sound that had transformed his generation. He told the publication: “When The Scream came out, I remember it was much slower than everybody thought. It was like the forerunner of the Joy Division sound. It was just big-sounding.”
These claims aren’t unfounded. In an interview with Q in 2013, former Joy Division bassist Peter Hook, who saw the London band live in 1977, described them as “one of our big influences” and called The Scream one of his “favourite ever records” and “a landmark performance”.
Elsewhere, in 2019’s Record Play Pause: Confessions of a Post-Punk Percussionist: The Joy Division Years Volume I, his counterpart in the quartet’s rhythm section, drummer Stephen Morris, explained the undying influence of his namesake on the record. Noting the bass-led rhythm of Morris, who mainly played toms to achieve his foreboding sound, he explained: “It would be Siouxsie and the Banshees to whom I most felt some kind of affinity.”
The next time someone is gushing with praise for Unknown Pleasures, point them to The Scream. It’s a record that was so ahead of its time but, strangely, does not get the fanfare it deserves outside of those in the know. It’s as close to anything that we have as a definitive moment that goth emerged.
