The limited-edition Joy Division box set comprised of 10 newly remastered 7-inch singles that was released late last year is being reissued next month — this time on compact disc, collecting “CD replicas of 10 singles presented in a beautiful clamshell box.”
Like the forthcoming New Order outtakes album, it appears the CD version of Joy Division’s +-: Singles 1978-80 hasn’t yet been formally announced, but online retailers — including Amazon.com — are starting to list the 10-disc set as being released Dec. 19 by the UK arm of Rhino Records, which issued the original 7-inch box last December.
Aside from the format, the new version of +- appears to be identical to last year’s, with 21 songs over 10 discs in a box designed by Factory Records co-founder Peter Saville. The music itself was newly remastered from the original tapes by drummer Stephen Morris and Frank Arkwright, who also worked with Johnny Marr to remaster the entire Smiths catalog for that band’s box set.
Journalist Jon Savage selected the tracks, and given the fact that Joy Division only released a handful of singles — including non-album favorites “Love Will Tear Us Apart” and “Atmosphere” — during its short career, some of the singles assembled for +- “have been created specifically for this release” using previously released songs (see full tracklist below).
Tracklist: Joy Division, +-: Singles 1978-80
Disc 1
1. “Warsaw”
2. “Leaders Of Men”
Disc 2
1. “No Love Lost”
2. “Failures”
Disc 3
1. “Digital”
2. “Glass”
Disc 4
1. “Autosuggestion”
2. “From Safety To Where”
Disc 5
1. “Transmission”
2. “Novelty”
Disc 6
1. “Atmosphere”
2. “Dead Souls”
Disc 7
1. “Komakino”
2. “Incubation”
3. “As You Said”
Disc 8
1. “Love Will Tear Us Apart”
2. “These Days”
Disc 9
1. “She’s Lost Control” (12-inch Version)
2. “Love Will Tear Us Apart 2″ (Pennine Version)
Disc 10
1. “Isolation”
2. “Heart and Soul”
PREVIOUSLY ON SLICING UP EYEBALLS
- New Order set to release ‘Lost Sirens’ — 8 outtakes from last album — in December
- New Order in South America: Reunited band announces 3 concerts in December
- Video: New Order reunites in Brussels with Gillian Gilbert, without Peter Hook (setlist)
- Peter Hook: ‘New Order without Peter Hook is like Queen without Freddie Mercury’
- Q&A: Peter Hook on bringing Joy Division’s ‘Closer’ to U.S.; may perform ‘Still’ next
- New Order to reunite — without Peter Hook — for October concerts in Paris, Brussels
- Q&A: Peter Hook talks ‘Unknown Pleasures’ tour, re-recording Joy Division
what a waste of plastic. seriously, one of my top 3 bands of all time and i think this is ridiculous. if it’s not the singles on vinyl than it’s NOT the singles on vinyl. i don’t understand why rhino thinks that because you make them into separate cd’s it somehow keeps the nostalgia. who’s not going to just rip them (annoyingly) and just shove the set onto a shelf. i must be missing something…
Yeah, I’d love to hear a properly remastered version of Substance 1977-1980, which is still my favorite Joy Division release. Which is what this is, with a few bonus tracks. But split like this on 10 x CDs? Forget about it. These days I only listen to CDs in my car… everything else is 100% digital FLACs. There’s no way I’m going to switch discs every six minutes.
So this fancy 10 CD set is pointless! How about releasing it as a a limited edition CD with a book/poster/badge or something? For sure – happy to pay a bit for a nice sounding re-release! And you could charge me more and it wouldn’t hurt at all ;)
See Beach Boys Smile Sessions release on how to release something nice for all levels of fans. In that case I got the 2xCD set, a nice book, poster and badge for $25AU. Which is great!!
Tell me when you release the 1xCD version. I’ll be waiting!
To be fair to Jon Savage and Rhino UK, I think the primary intent was to capture the proper singles, plus the songs not found on the reissues of UP, Closer, and Still. (As bobbyd mentioned, this is Substance with a few edits.) Plus, the songs on discs 1 through 4 should be treated as singles even though they were originally released on EPs and multi-artist compilation albums, instead of proper 7″ or 12″ singles.
Therefore, I have no problem with the tracklist. Though I’d remove the redundant Isolation / Heart and Soul and replace it with At a Later Date (which is otherwise unavailable).
The real crime, of course, is packaging these songs on 10 CDs, when they could easily fit on one CD. This compilation, on one CD, should have been issued in 2008 instead of the “Best of Joy Division” disc. That way, all of the JD official releases from 1977-80 could be collected in remastered form on this compilation, plus the three reissued albums. Sad to say, this plan would have been far too logical for any record company to contemplate. :-)
mfguevara – exactly! 1 CD is all that is required… it’s a shame that this is another Joy Division release I’ll have to skip. All I want is these tracks released on a single CD. And I’ll happily pay good money for it too! C’mon Rhino… make it happen!