Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-gtxcr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T11:49:39.769Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The (re)marketing of disability in pop: Ian Curtis and Joy Division

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 October 2009

MITZI WALTZ  and
MARTIN JAMES
MITZI WALTZ
Affiliation:
Autism Centre for Education and Research, School of Education, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B12 8RB, UK E-mail: m.waltz@bham.ac.uk
MARTIN JAMES
Affiliation:
Southampton Solent University, FMAS, East Park Terrace, Southampton, Hampshire SO14 0YN, UK E-mail: martin.james@solent.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this article we examine the relatively new use of disability as a marketing device in pop music. Our analysis makes specific reference to how the career of Ian Curtis and Joy Division has become overshadowed by his epilepsy, depression and subsequent suicide, with comparison between early press and promotional materials from 1979–1980 and more recent materials created to promote reissues and films about Curtis. It also references other relevant individuals from the pop music sphere and marketing campaigns created around them that ignore or highlight issues of disability.

Using these examples, we examine the ways in which messages about disability are packaged and presented within pop marketing discourses and discuss the issue of ‘acceptable’ and ‘unacceptable’ disability identities in pop, which have been created through a largely marketing-driven discourse. Finally, we briefly explore how the deployment of ‘disabled’ identities impacts on the musicians so identified, as opposed to on the sales of products.

Type
Articles
Information
Popular Music , Volume 28 , Special Issue 3: Popular Music and Disability , October 2009 , pp. 367 - 380
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References

Barnes, C., and Mercer, G., 2001. ‘Disability culture: assimilation or inclusion?’ in Handbook of Disability Studies, ed. Albrecht, G., Seelman, K.D. and Bury, M. (London, Sage Publications)Google Scholar
Church, D. 2006. ‘“Welcome to the atrocity exhibition”: Ian Curtis, rock death, and disability’, Disability Studies Quarterly, 26/4 (Fall), http://www.dsq-sds-archives.org/_articles_html/2006/fall/church.asp, accessed 30 October 2008CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Curtis, D. 1995. Touching From a Distance (London, Faber and Faber)Google Scholar
Dubos, J., and Dubos, R. 1987. The White Plague: Tuberculosis, Man and Society (New Brunswick, NJ, Rutgers University Press)Google Scholar
Emfoundation. 2007. Press kit for Joy Division [film] premiere at Toronto Film Festival (London, Emfoundation)Google Scholar
Fine, G.A. 2003. ‘Crafting authenticity: the validation of identity in self-taught art’, Theory and Society, 32/2, pp. 153–180CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flaherty, A.W. 2004. The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer's Block and the Creative Brain(Boston, Houghton Mifflin Books)Google Scholar
Frith, S. 2004 Towards an Aesthetic of Popular Music (London, Routledge)Google Scholar
Gee, G. [dir.] 2007. Joy Division [film] (London, The Works Media Group)Google Scholar
Hevey, D. 1992. The Creatures that Time Forgot: Photography and Disability Imagery (New York, Routledge)Google Scholar
Jamison, K.R. 1996. Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament (New York, Free Press)Google Scholar
Joy, Division. 2007. Closer (reissue), sleeve notes and press kit (Los Angeles, Rhino, R1980)Google Scholar
Kot, G. 2008. ‘Film, reissues pull Joy Division’s Curtis from shadowy myth', Chicago Tribune, 22 October 2008, http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/music/chi-1021_controloct22,1,5707655.story, accessed 25 April 2008Google Scholar
Lerner, N., and Straus, J.N. (eds.) 2006. Sounding Off: Theorizing Disability in Music (London, Routledge)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McLean, C. 2006. ‘Stop making sense’, The Observer, 5 March, http://arts.guardian.co.uk/features/story/0,,1723555,00.html, accessed 4 June 2008Google Scholar
Marshall, L. 2005. Bootlegging, Romanticism and Copyright in the Music Industry (London, Sage)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moore, A. 2002. ‘Authenticity as authentication’, Popular Music, 21/2, pp. 209–223CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morley, P. 2008. Joy Division Piece by Piece: Writing About Joy Division 1977–2007 (London, Plexus Publishing)Google Scholar
Mushroom Music Publishing. 2006. ‘Songwriters: The Vines’ (Victoria, Australia, Mushroom Music Publishing), http://www.mushroommusic.com.au/news/default.asp#446, accessed 5 June 2008Google Scholar
Mushroom Music Publishing. 2008. ‘Announce new album “Melodia”’ (Victoria, Australia, Mushroom Music Publishing), 23 May, http://www.mushroommusic.com.au/songwriters/songwriter.asp?id=61, accessed 5 June 2008Google Scholar
Nice, J. [dir.] 2006. Shadowplayers: Factory Records and Manchester Post-Punk 1978–81 [film] (Norfolk, LTM)Google Scholar
Northsee Films Ltd. 2007. Control: A Film by Anton Corbijn (press kit) (London, Northsee Films Ltd)Google Scholar
Peretz, I. 2001 ‘Brain specialization for music. New evidence from congenital amusia’, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 930/1, pp. 153–165CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Phillips, D.P. 1974. ‘The influence of suggestion on suicide: substantive and theoretical implications of the Werther Effect’, American Sociological Review, 39, pp. 340–354CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Reynolds, S. 2005. Rip it Up and Start Again: Post-Punk 1978–1984 (London, Faber and Faber)Google Scholar
Rubidge, S. 1996. ‘Does authenticity matter? The case for and against authenticity in the performing arts’, in Analysing Performance, ed. Campbell, P., (Manchester, Manchester University Press), pp. 219–233Google Scholar
Sacks, O. 1992. ‘Tourette's syndrome and creativity’, British Medical Journal, 305, pp. 1,515–16CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sacks, O. 2007. Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain (New York, Knopf)Google Scholar
Southall, G.H. 2002. Blind Tom, the Black Pianist-Composer (1849–1908): Continually Enslaved (Lanham, MD, Scarecrow Press)Google Scholar
Van Buskirk, E. 2008. ‘Coming soon: The Joy Division Zune (Updated)’, Listening Post blog, http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/04/coming-soon-the.html, accessed 25 April 2008Google Scholar
Waltz, M. 2001. Partial Seizure Disorders: Help for Patients and Families (Sebastopol, CA, O'Reilly & Associates)Google Scholar
Waxman, S.G. 2001. Form and Function in the Brain and Spinal Cord: Perspectives of a Neurologist (Cambridge, MA, The MIT Press)Google Scholar
Windsor, J. 1997. ‘Catch 22: the case of Albert Louden’, Raw Vision, 18, p. 50Google Scholar
Zatorre, R.J. 2001 ‘Neural specializations for tonal processing’, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 930/1, pp. 193–201CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

Discography

Joy Division, An Ideal for Living EP. Manchester, Joy Division; Enigma PSS139. 1978Google Scholar
Joy Division, ‘Transmission’. Manchester, Factory Records, FAC 13. 1979Google Scholar
Joy Division, Unknown Pleasures. Manchester, Factory Records, FACT 10. 1979Google Scholar
Joy Division, ‘Atmosphere’/‘She's Lost Control’. Manchester, Factory Records, FACTUS 80. 1980Google Scholar
Joy Division, Closer. Manchester, Factory Records, FACT 25. 1980Google Scholar
Joy Division, Substance. Manchester, Factory Records, FACT 250. 1988Google Scholar
Joy Division, Heart and Soul. London, London Records, 828 968-2. 1997Google Scholar