‘Transmission’: The song that saw Joy Division find their sound
You can’t browse a list of the greatest albums of all time without encountering Unknown Pleasures. It’s also impossible to discuss Manchester’s music history without acknowledging the impact of Ian Curtis and Peter Hook. Likewise, listening to post-punk without recognising the influence of Joy Division is nearly unthinkable.
Almost half a century after the band first spawned out of Salford, their legacy in this realm is still unmatched. Joy Division’s minimalistic, melancholic sound remains just as distinctive and definitive now as it was back in the late 1970s, and it continues to guide budding guitar bands and post-punk enthusiasts to this day. But Curtis and his bandmates weren’t always self-assured in their sound.
Like most budding groups of musicians, Joy Division spent their early years figuring out who they were as a band, considering what direction they should take with their sound and style. For bassist Hook, it all came together when they penned a song called ‘Transmission’, a song that immediately took audiences by storm and allowed the band to hone in on their strengths and unknown influences.
“The first time I noticed anything different was when we’d written a song that weekend,” Hook explained during a conversation with Radio X, “And we had a gig on the Thursday, so we thought we’d play that song at the gig.” Expectedly, the crowd were immediately taken aback by ‘Transmission’, with its moody atmosphere and melodic guitar twangs. “Everyone in the whole place stopped,” Hook remembered.
Hook found the moment “bizarre”, remembering the hairs on his arms standing up and shivers running down his spine. But it was a positively strange feeling. Something about ‘Transmission’ had clicked with audiences, and Joy Division suddenly knew the elements of their sound that they had to hone in on to continue on this trajectory.
According to Hook, many people told them that they sounded similar to The Doors after they heard ‘Transmission’, but the bassist had never heard of them. “I remember saying to Ian Curtis one day, ‘Who are The Doors?’” he explained. “I didn’t even know who they were talking about at all.” Curtis lent him a record by the Californian rockers, which blew Hook’s mind just as ‘Transmission’ had with their audiences.
“I nearly fell over because we DID sound like The Doors,” he recalled. It was a huge compliment in and of itself, but the band would soon become immune to comparison completely. By the time they released their first and only album, Unknown Pleasures, in 1979, they had taken everything that made ‘Transmission’ great and bolstered it, creating a sound that was distinctively Joy Division.
The band intended to feature ‘Transmission’ on their debut record, but the song never made it into the final cut of Unknown Pleasures in 1979, which produced other signature tracks such as ‘Disorder’. However, the record did feature a slew of new songs that built upon the atmosphere and resulting success of the track. Joy Division had found their sound: a dark, gloomy form of guitar music known as post-punk.
Now, decades after they penned ‘Transmission’ and released Unknown Pleasures, that sound remains inimitable. Though many post-punk revival bands have tried to replicate their dark guitar soundscapes and Curtis’ distinctive voice, none have been able to match the atmosphere and impact that the Mancunian band had. ‘Transmission’ still stops listeners in their tracks to this day.
