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65 of 67 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Must Own., July 2, 2004
This review is from: Substance (Audio CD)
Joy Division are one of those bands that will always stay with me. Even though I was rather young when they were actually playing together, I discovered them quite early on in my New Order obsession. That helped me to define both bands, their musical catalogs, as well as their place in my cd collection. I am reviewing (and recommending) this record because if someone out there wants and introduction to Joy Division, they would be hard-pressed to get a better deal than the well-priced Substance LP. Sure, if you've got the dough go ahead and pony up for the beautifully realized box set (designed by Factory Records mainstay, Peter Saville). Substance has all the singles that any American has probably heard on any good jukebox. Atmosphere, Love Will Tear Us Apart and She's Lost Control are all here and sound great for a 1988 release. You'll get a better recording on the box set versions, but that's your 60 bucks compared to your 11 bucks. The main draw of substance is, like the box set, the nice mix of tunes from the band's brief and brilliant time together. A task not as easliy done as one might think. Some of the best bits, are earlier, yet rougher tracks like, Warsaw. The band were finding their sound and making new incredible music all at the same time. Later songs, like Love Will Tear Us Apart, are far more polished, and a bit more accessible to the masses, but none-the-less, great. All in all, this is a great addition to any post-punk, brit-punk, alternative, indie music fans' collection. I give it my highest praise, and I think you might too.
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27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A useful, deliberately assembled disc, but maybe not the place to begin., April 13, 2006
This review is from: Substance (Audio CD)
I won't say a single word about the emotional weight of Joy Division's music or the impossible burden of Ian Curtis' words; other reviewers do that sort of thing far more justice than I could ever hope. Instead, I want to make some important points for those considering the purchase of Substance:
1.) Substance was not assembled at random. Its logic is actually quite praiseworthy: theoretically this disc is supposed to collect ALL the non-album tracks - songs given to compilations, A-sides, B-sides, and EP tracks - into one place, to function as a companion to Unknown Pleasures and Closer. To that end, NONE of the songs present on this compilation are available on their two regular albums, though two songs are duplicated from the posthumous outtakes album Still ("Glass" and "Dead Souls" - the former is only ho-hum for Joy Division, the latter is a key track, but their inclusion is more justifiable here than it is on that set since both were officially released within the band's working life). People who see "She's Lost Control" on the tracklisting here need to realize that this is a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT version than the one on Unknown Pleasures (the boxed set calls it the `12" version'), and it's arguably far superior.
2.) Frustratingly, Substance nevertheless fails at its stated purpose. Now I'm not a pedant - I don't really begrudge the absence of minor tracks like the instrumental "As You Said" or the flexidisc toss-off "Sound Of Music" - but one omission in particular is agonizing: the spectacular, glowing alternate version of "Love Will Tear Us Apart" that shared the B-side of the more famous single version of that song with "These Days." It's a gorgeous, poignantly haunting recording (I waver on whether it's superior to the well-known version presented here), and it was even inexcusably excluded from the boxed set (which at the very least ought to have collected all of their officially released work before including outtakes). The only place to find it on CD is the otherwise worthless compilation Permanent.
3.) The sound quality on this CD is really beginning to show its age. My introduction to Joy Division was with the sparkling remastered sound of the Heart And Soul boxed set, and when I happened to hear a friend's version of this disc I was stunned to find out how desiccated and distant the individual CDs sound. I want to make it clear that I'm not a person with impossibly fussy ears, and that I have thousands of CD's worth of experience with remastering before-and-after comparisons, when I say that the difference between the cleaned up version of the Joy Division catalogue available on the boxed set and the versions available on these individual CDs is one of the more pronounced ones still on the market.
4.) As for the contents of album itself, is this where you should begin with Joy Division? I'm not sure. It's ONE possible place, but heaven help you if you begin here and fail to continue onward to Unknown Pleasures and Closer, none of whose songs are found here. I sometimes like to argue that Joy Division's best moments came on their singles and compilation tracks, and that Substance really represents their peak. Given the evidence of formidable tracks like "Digital" and "From Safety To Where...?," the incredible singles "Transmission," "Atmosphere," and "Love Will Tear Us Apart," and their equally impressive B-sides ("Novelty," "Dead Souls," "These Days"), that still seems like a good assessment. But this is only 1/3 of the story, and the real problem is that if you're at all intrigued by this group, you're going to eventually want to buy the "complete studio works" boxed set Heart And Soul. I was lucky enough to have begun there - I took a leap of faith that paid off - but if you buy this CD and are transfixed by it, I would recommend that you do NOT go buy Unknown Pleasures and Closer next (both of which sound equally flakey in their current unremastered CD form) but rather invest in the boxed set and save yourself money that you'd otherwise end up spending anyway.
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27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Singles Collection As Essential As The Band's Other Albums, November 8, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Substance (Audio CD)
Pop Kulcher Review: What is amazing about this collection of singles and b-sides is not that it is great, but that it is as good as the band's two official albums (Unknown Pleasures and Closer). Sure, "Love Will Tear Us Apart" has come to be recognized as one of the finest singles of the 1980's, and "Atmosphere" has finally received its due as well. But most of the critical praise lavished on this band is focused on their albums, the breathtakingly intense Unknown Pleasures and the looser, more sprawling follow-up Closer. So it's remarkable that the band's non-album work comes together to form such a solid, cohesive album. You can hear the band move from its ragged, nihilistic punk roots (an early 4-song EP is included here in its entirety, highlighted by the driving "Warsaw" and the catchy but disturbing "No Love Lost") to the almost-ready-for-radio brooding pop exemplified by the afore-mentioned "Love" and "Atmosphere." Along the way we get all sorts of choice nuggets, essential for any fan of the band. So while you should still begin your Joy Division experience with the monumental Unknown Pleasures, Substance is an integral part of the Joy Division body of work. (Only after picking up those two albums and Closer will you want to move on towards the live/studio collection Still, a harsher listen. The "greatest hits" collection Permanent is really unnecessary; Joy Division's dark, moody sound turns off some listeners, so if you like them enough to want to own their work, you won't be satisfied with Permanent's cursory view of the band).
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