Robert Smith’s favourite Joy Division song
Joy Division was one of the most influential groups to rise out of the squalor of 1970s Britain. Fusing an industrial sound appropriate for the mechanised history of their native Manchester with glacial textures evoking the wind-swept vistas of the bordering Pennines, their time was fleeting. However, Joy Division’s deeply artistic post-punk formula proved widely significant. Many acts quickly rose in their wake, with one of the most lauded being Robert Smith and The Cure.
Although The Cure is ostensibly a goth-rock band, most people forget that the genre rose out of the post-punk scene of the late 1970s. The two names are even interchangeable, with some of the other big hitters of the genre also perfectly described as post-punk, be it Siouxsie and the Banshees, Bauhaus or even The Sisters of Mercy. Accordingly, many believe Joy Division to be one of the first goth acts.
Although Joy Division’s debut album, 1979’s Unknown Pleasures, failed to chart when it was released, the record received widespread critical acclaim from those in the know, with creatives saved by the punk explosion three years prior awarded yet another galvanising force. Robert Smith, who formed The Cure in 1978 – two years after Joy Division materialised – was one of the most prominent figures who took a lot from Unknown Pleasures, and he’s openly discussed his love for them many times since.
Speaking to Radio Urbana in 2013, Smith outlined his love for the late Ian Curtis’ band and recalled the exciting time they opened for his group. He said: “In 1980, we did a thing in London at the Marquee Club…we picked the four bands we wanted to play with us, and Joy Division were one of those bands…I heard Unknown Pleasures on the radio on John Peel, and they were just fantastic.”
Smith also described Joy Division as “the best thing I’d seen”, although “not ever” because he had seen “Bowie and the Stones”.
Continuing, Smith added: “They were of that generation of bands, which is my generation of bands. They were so powerful… that was our best show that year, I think, we went on after them and we had to really we had to try hard to match what they did… it’s a shame about Ian Curtis… it’s like Jimi Hendrix or Kurt Cobain…people that good come around far too infrequently.”
Robert Smith has even named his favourite song by Joy Division. When appearing on Sirius XM in 2014, he listed his favourite 30 songs of the 1980s, which have been kept for safekeeping by The Cure TC, and it featured the Joy Division classic in question.
Unsurprisingly, it is one of the most important tracks from the Manchester band’s second and final album, 1980’s Closer. It is the hauntingly beautiful ‘The Eternal’, a song where you can hear many of the cues that Smith took for 1981’s Faith, which he cited as a primary influence around the time of its release.
Listen to Joy Division’s ‘The Eternal’ below.
