The Life of Ian Curtis: Torn Apart

By Mick Middles and Lindsay Reade

The music of Joy Division continues to speak to tens of thousands of people worldwide. Powerful and tight, the band always seemed ahead of its time, and that sense of eerie prescience was echoed when their second album, Closer, was released shortly after the death by suicide of their enigmatic singer Ian Curtis. Raw and grief-stricken, the lyrics and mu…