41 Love Will Tear Us Apart

JOY DIVISION 1980

The pinnacle of Joy Division’s gloom-ridden Mancunian post-punk vision still hits like an ice pick aimed at your soul. Depressed over his collapsing marriage, singer Ian Curtis actually came up with the title as a sardonic response to Captain and Tennille’s 1975 pop hit “Love Will Keep Us Together,” and, in a fittingly creepy gesture, even cut it in the same studio where that song had been recorded. “Ian’s influence seemed to be madness and insanity,” said guitarist Bernard Sumner. The song would be Joy Division’s last single, released weeks after Curtis’ death by suicide.