It's been a less than merry time in the Jaybee household. We've received a few blows recently, including the death of our dog, the one-year anniversary of my mother-in-law's death, and the news of the death within our circle of friends/family.
And whatever anyone tells you, not everybody's ability to cope has been, shall we say, "heroic". That whole notion is bullshit anyway. You're lucky if the grief doesn't take you all down with it.
What to do when the mood of the season is laughably out of sync with your own? With cheerfulness being thrust upon you, you fight back, of course, defending your negativity from any encroachments of goodwill toward men.
And what better to arm yourself with than the most utterly depressing music I can think of? "River" by Joni Mitchell, you say? Please. Joni got over that pretty quickly. Ian Curtis didn't.
Joy Division: Unknown Pleasures (1979)
Joy Division's second - and last - album, Closer, was one of my first ever CDs. Lucky for me I got it with about a dozen other CDs, which gave me time to dip my toe into that black hole of sound.
This record - their first - is not quite that far gone but it's pretty grim, and its grimness is baked into the overall sound itself.
Ian Curtis and Co. are an acquired taste unless you're a 1970s/post-punk depressive. I was tempted to say you had to be feeling pretty strong to listen to this without wanting to off yourself. But that's not true. If you were feeling strong you wouldn't listen to this at all. This is for wallowing in the depths.
As I get ever older I should be less patient with that approach. After all, here it's coming from a bunch of twenty-year-olds. I mean, what do they know? But lead singer Ian Curtis meant it, man, and proved it by committing suicide not long after their second record.
The music itself is as intense but slower than your typical punk rock. It features more of the loud yet echoey guitar that would re-emerge when the Ian-less band morphed into New Order. It's the sound of someone on his way to rock bottom. Closer, with its more dirge-like songs, trading guitar for keyboards, is the sound of the bottom itself.
Do you know how they say sometimes you have to hit rock bottom before you change? What they don't mention is that there's no guarantee you will.
I can't really say I enjoy this music, exactly, but it does move me.
I guess Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works, Vol 2 is comparable, but since it's all instrumental its desolation is in what is absent and is thus less in your face.
But with its up-front vocals, JD counts as the most desolate music I've ever heard.
Merry Fucking Christmas
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