Joy Division: all of their songs, ranked!

47. Failures (1978)

Failures has a very Joy Division title, but the sound is sub-Raw Power-era Stooges. Meanwhile, the fact that Ian Curtis sounds about 13 years old underlines the slightly amateur air. With the best will in the world, you would have needed powers of clairvoyance to work out that its authors would turn out to be epochal.

46. Warsaw (1978)

Unavailable for a decade after Ian Curtis’s suicide, Joy Division’s debut EP An Ideal for Living developed a mythic aura that its contents don’t warrant. Warsaw sounds like the band they were – a primitive Mancunian response to punk – rather than the band they would become.

45. At a Later Date (1978)

Better remembered for Bernard Sumner’s ill-advised opening shout of “You all forgot Rudolph Hess” than the song itself, Joy Division’s contribution to the Short Circuit: Live at the Electric Circus compilation has a certain power – the band had taken the stage shortly after a fight with members of the Drones – but it’s not a great song: note Curtis’s raw, unformed vocals.

44. No Love Lost (1978)

Also from An Ideal for Living, No Love Lost took inspiration from a novella about brothels in Nazi concentration camps that also give Joy Division their name: it’s got a certain dark, schlocky power, but little spark.

43. Leaders Of Men (1978)

The solitary track on An Ideal for Living that points towards the future, Leaders of Men is not a great song – you can hear a faint echo of Bowie’s Queen Bitch in its bridge – but the echoing drums and jagged guitar presage the sound