Ceremony

Thirty-nine years ago today, New Order released Substance 1987, a collection of twelve-inch singles that brought their catalog to the world in a single package. It went platinum. It gave millions of listeners their first encounter with a band built from grief. New Order rose from the ashes of Joy Division. When Ian Curtis took his own life on May 18, 1980, the three surviving members faced a choice. They kept making music. They changed the name. They carried the songs forward. The remaining members retired the Joy Division name out of respect. Substance 1987 is where most people found them. “Ceremony” is where they began.

“Ceremony” is the song that belongs to both bands. Joy Division wrote it. Ian Curtis wrote the lyrics. The song was recorded in the last studio session Joy Division ever held on May 14, 1980. Four days before Curtis died. After his death, Bernard Sumner played back the rehearsal tape through a graphic equalizer just to transcribe what Curtis had sung. New Order released it as their debut single in March 1981 on Factory Records. Sumner sang it. The music was Joy Division. The future was New Order. The song is a threshold. Curtis stands on one side of it. The rest of the band stands on the other.

Joy Division lasted three years and two studio albums. They left behind a vocabulary for despair that post-punk has never stopped borrowing. Substance 1987 is where the transformation happens in real time. Track by track, New Order absorbs Joy Division’s darkness and points it toward the dancefloor. Blue Monday. True Faith. Bizarre Love Triangle. There is no other compilation in rock history that captures a band’s evolution this clearly. New Order became one of the most influential bands in electronic music. They never had to leave Joy Division behind to do it.