Permanent

by

Joy Division

Edit

There seems to be some kind of fanboy debate in here as to which is preferable for JD newbies: Substance or Permanent.

The correct answer is: neither.

Such maudlin, needlessly tendentious posturing is not cool, oh my brothers. I think we can all come together and say, "Hey y'all- just go's on an pick up the damn box set and be's done with it." Hey- you're gonna buy it anyway once you pick up one of these and become enthralled. So... Save yourself the time and effort and money of getting this or that retro-comp only to have to give it to a younger sibling or ex-girlfriend or something, once you get Heart and Soul..."

At any rate, Here's my two cents on the CD at hand.

OK- This here... it's one buck more than Substance, and one track shorter (actually, two tracks shorter once you discount the worthless retread of LWTUA): that's strike one. The remastering isn't quite so bad (pick up some old blues CDs by Son House or Skip james or Charlie Patton and then bitch to me about sound quality here), but it's not as good as the releases proper or Substance, and seeing as how their producer, Martin-ZERO Hannett's sound is certainly tainted to say the least- strike two.

Finally: the track selection... While I have problems with certain omissions on BOTH CDs (Substance ain't got day of the lords, shadow play, and disorder, Exercise one, this doesn't have the last two either, not mention to mention Digital- maybe THE quintessential JD song)... I have more of a problem with track selection on this one. Most glaring is, again, the remix version of LWTUA: ugh. To compound that rather serious blight on the project are some tunes of dubious importance. The fact that Novelty (the only decent recording of which is a punked out raw as hell version on the Warsaw demos) somehow made its way onto BOTH releases never ceases to disturb me. Failures really bothers me too. As does The Only Mistake. And Passover. Not bad tunes, but to put them on and leave off so many other so much more interesting/visceral stuff- strikes four through ten.

No Colony. No New dawn fades. No Ceremony (that's kinda ok as it only exists for JD as a rough demo and live track, more a New Order tune). No Wilderness. No Insight. No Komakino. No Decades. No Candidate. No Atrocity Exhibition. No Ice Age. No Interzone. Nothing good here from the Warsaw days, whereas Substance has two nice tracks- No Love Lost and Warsaw.

All in all- if you must save your cash... your better off with Substance.

But really- just fork it over for the box set. I'll hold your hand and promise you it will be ok. And so will Ian. He will drag you along, kicking and screaming- and in the end- you will thank him...

I didn't, bought the CD, and suffered the consequences. I love Joy Division, but as mentioned, the mastering is atrocious, part of a bad trend in how reissues are mastered these days. Like some sick disease, many labels are compressing the hell out of their reissues, losing the dynamics, musical information, and often creating digital artifacts just so the music can be loud, as if nobody had a volume control on their stereo. LISTENING TO THIS CD IS LIKE READING A BOOK IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS. AFTER AWHILE, YOU JUST CAN'T TAKE IT.

The CD is also a pretty poor compilation. For example, there's an inferior remix of "Love Will Tear Us Apart." They do include the original mix, except in addition to the extra compression, they edit out a few seconds in the intro and some more time towards the end, so it's not even the full version. The track selection is also haphazard, painting in an incomplete picture of this band. I think a good single CD best-of is possible, but this isn't it. You're far better off starting with their best album, Closer, and getting the singles collection, Substance. If you love them and want more, pick up the rest; it's not like they have that many CD's (just two or three more) so it won't ruin you financially.