Joy Division

As the seminal band of the post-punk movement, Joy Division's importance in the realm of popular music cannot be overstated. The band first came together when high school friends Bernard Sumner and Peter Hook separately attended a Sex Pistols concert and both came away emboldened and inspired. They joined with Terry Mason, each picking up their instruments for the first time, and began learning how to become musicians. It didn't take long for the group to find singer Ian Curtis through an ad at a local record store, and soon the group was creating a sound unlike anything happening at the time.

Soon, Steve Morris replaced Mason on drums, as Mason became the group's manager. They booked a debut performance at Electric Circus in 1977 and self-released an EP, An Ideal for Living the following year. This attracted the attention of TV personality Tony Wilson, who signed the band to his record label Factory Records in 1978. They made their TV debut that same year, performing "Shadowplay" on the series "So It Goes" (ITV Granada, 1976-77). They would release their first full length album, Unknown Pleasures in 1979, followed by the iconic single "Love Will Tear Us Apart."

The group had finished recording their upcoming sophomore release Closer and were preparing for an American tour when Curtis' struggles with epilepsy began coming to a head. He had suffered a number of grand mal seizures during the group's European tour, and the impact of his condition exacerbated his existing issues with depression, caused in part by the crumbling of his marriage and his affair with a Belgian journalist. He committed suicide in May 1980, with Closer released after his death.

Unwilling to continue playing music under the same name, the remaining three members of Joy Division, plus Morris' girlfriend Gillian Gilbert on keyboards, began a new group in the wake of Curtis' death called New Order.