Division

With the exception of Joy Division's last single, Love Will Tear Us Apart, which faded out gradually into the anguished silence of singer Ian Curtis' suicide, none of the band's songs ever really ended; they either fell apart or collapsed, as if to bring about a proper end to something beyond their grasp. Joy Division couldn't stand still…

Total: From Joy Division to New Order is a compilation album of material from Joy Division and New Order. It was released in the United Kingdom on 6 June 2011 by Rhino Entertainment and is the first album to feature songs from both bands in one album. It features five Joy Division tracks, including "Love Will Tear Us Apart", and thirteen New Order tracks, including a previously unreleased track, "Hellbent".

Joy Division is one of the definitive bands from the rock culture. With their dark poetic inception and a sound marked by a new way of thinking about how music should be created, the Manchester band served as a model for countless artists. Today, just as it marks 35 years of the death of Ian Curtis (the legendary singer and lyricist of the group) The Many Faces Of Joy Division shows the hidden world behind the group, their rare recordings, side projects, their influences and the Manchester scene where the band bloomed. With a wonderful cover art, remastered sound and extensive liner notes, The Many Faces of Joy Division is an album not only for fans but for anyone who wants to understand the influence (and enjoy the music) of a truly transcendent bad, which made beauty out of sadness.

Not many rock bands have touched Joy Division's ability to drag listeners to the very edge of the psyche's dark precipice, leaving them dangling there, uncertain of finding a safe ledge. Commanding lead vocalist Ian Curtis kept pushing his personal journey through the heart of darkness until no return was possible – his May 1980 suicide left behind one of the most moving epitaphs of all time in "Love Will Tear Us Apart." Perhaps of greater interest to newcomers than to veterans, Permanent: Joy Division 1995 bestows a more expansive, less claustrophobic remix on 16 key tracks. If your music library is Joy Division-free, Permanent is an essential addition. "This is the room, the start of it all…"

If Unknown Pleasures was Joy Division at their most obsessively, carefully focused, ten songs yet of a piece, Closer was the sprawl, the chaotic explosion that went every direction at once. Who knows what the next path would have been had Ian Curtis not chosen his end? But steer away from the rereading of his every lyric after that date; treat Closer as what everyone else thought it was at first – simply the next album – and Joy Division's power just seems to have grown. Martin Hannett was still producing, but seems to have taken as many chances as the band itself throughout – differing mixes, differing atmospheres, new twists and turns define the entirety of Closer, songs suddenly returned in chopped-up, crumpled form, ending on hiss and random notes.