Joy Division were a 70's English post-punk rock band from Salford. In 1980, their lead songwriter and lyricist Ian Curtis committed suicide, most probably due to his epilepsy and the collapsing relationship with his wife.
Their posthumously released second album, Closer, and the single "Love Will Tear Us Apart" were the band's highest charting releases. After the death of Curtis, the surviving members reformed as New Order, a band that itself left a mark on the British music scene.
Today, Joy Division and their music is regarded mostly as sorrowful and Curtis lyrics are noted to repeatedly reference such themes and images as coldness, pressure, darkness, crisis, failure, collapse and loss of control.
The Wombats however differ hugely from Joy Division in their musical style and themes. They are a modern indie band from Liverpool, and is much more upbeat (to quote Ms. B, 'Music to tap your feet to')
The Wombats' song 'Let's Dance To Joy Division' is all about getting past the bad times and moving on. It suggests dancing to a band synonomous with sadness and 'celebrates the irony' of such an action. In fact, the lyric 'let love tear us apart' and the fact the song samples part of the original Joy Division song further strengthen this link.
My treatment would follow our own groups treatment in that the group could be playing in a public space, to no crowd at first, almost like a casual jam session, with the lead guiatrist having a picture of a girl on his stand. Slowly we could see a crowd start to gather around, with shots of a mysterious hooded girl making her way around the crowd. While interspersed with shots of the band playing to a highly recpetive and joyful crowd. Eventually we see the girl and she is the girl form the photo, she catches eyes with the guitarist, but he is unperturbed, he is happy and is escaping in the music. We see shots of the joy of the crowd, old couples, young couples and friends.
However since doing my research I would make some changes to further strengthen the link to Joy Division in the video. During the verses I would show the band also playing in a remote and empty room, similar to the one shown in the original video for 'Love Will Tear Us Apart'. I would tend to show the shots in the public place during the much more upbeat chorus, while cross cutting shots of the guitarist arriving in Liverpool on the band coach in the initial line 'I'm back in Liverpool' with some of its famous landmarks being shown out of the window whilst the guitarist looks melancholy and instead is looking at the picture of the girl here. I feel these changes would further strengthen the story and the tribute to Joy Division and Ian Curtis.
No comments:
Post a Comment