5. Joy Division | "Atmosphere"

"Atmosphere" by Joy Division from the album Atmosphere (1980)

Haunted and desolate, you couldn’t script a better song to be the closing credits to the brief career of Joy Division. Weighty and sparse, and driven by a simple but stirring bass line, “Atmosphere” was released as a single in the wake of Ian Curtis’s suicide in 1980, providing the blueprint for the entirety of the goth period the Cure would go through for the next few albums. Eight years later, the Anton Corbijn-directed video provided a eulogy of sorts with pint-sized Jawa clones carrying portraits of the band and Curtis mournfully through a barren landscape. It was a fitting tribute, matching the track perfectly and reminding the mopey kids dressed in black what was what.
 Michael Christopher