The Great First Tracks, vol. I: "Disorder" by Joy Division

I've decided to add a few entries on a very silly subject: Opening songs on great albums that really floor you. Some of them will be quite famous, I'd imagine, others might be from albums for which I'm one of seven fans.

To celebrate the impending Fourth of July, how about we start with a band from Manchester, UK?

In 1979, Joy Division released their legendary Unknown Pleasures. No "Love Will Tear Us Apart" was not on this album. Actually, that song was never on any proper studio album, it was a single that wasn't released until after Ian Curtis did himself in.

"Disorder" is in my estimation just about the most perfect post-punk song ever recorded. Actually, let me further parse just to say: I actually don't like the last 30 seconds of the song. I'm a young guy who didn't get into punk or post-punk until it was already archaic. Y'know, when Ian Curtis died I was only a month & 1/2 old (but don't worry, I already owned all their albums). So I wasn't around when shit like this was actually new. Even so, it just takes the first moments of the truly trascendent bass line, followed quickly by that "angular" (editor's note: ugggh) guitar to know this wasn't punk rock, but it probably couldn't exist if there hadn't been such a thing. At that moment in 1979, a thousand British wankers with mohawks traded in their safety pins for art school applications. They didn't get in though, becaues their LSAT scores weren't high enough.

I hate to do something so cliche as describe the guitar as "angular," but I suppose I have to surrender to the dumb vocabulary of music critics. And maybe that is the best word for it. Although perhaps if I call them "purple monkey dishwasher guitars" for long enough that bullshit will make some sort of sense to people too. I've still never used "shimmering" or "shoegazery" in any seriousness, so at least some ramparts have yet to fall.

Forget about 2008 for a moment, even though I don't think this song has lost any of its relevance or appeal. Interpol's career is climbing out of the grave, just wishing it had written this song. But imagine it's 1979, you bring Unknown Pleasures home from the chip shop where you bought it as a side order for your fish & a pint of Tetley's, you go home, jump into a bathtub filled with Old Speckled Hen and Drambuie, watch the Benny Hill news hour on BBC14, and the needle hits this record. Side 1, Track 1: "Disorder." Hey, it forced me to pay attention when I heard it when I was 19 in anno domini 1999. I can only imagine what it did when the radio (note: BBC1115) was playing "A Little More Love" by Olivia Newton-John all the fucking time.

Track 32 on yonder player.