A double album that pairs polished studio outtakes with a murky, illegally recorded final concert: that is Still, the posthumous compilation by the British post-punk band Joy Division. Released on Factory Records, the Manchester label that had signed the group, it arrived in 1981, after the death of singer Ian Curtis. The record was not meant as a tribute. It was a practical move to shut down the bootleg market that had sprung up around the band's final months. Joy Division released Still on October 9, 1981.
Studio outtakes on the first disc
The first disc collects previously unreleased studio material from 1978 to 1980. These were finished takes that never made it onto the group's two proper albums, Unknown Pleasures and Closer. One exception is "Dead Souls," which had appeared as a single only in France in 1980. The disc ends with an eleven-minute live cover of "Sister Ray" by The Velvet Underground, recorded at the Moonlight club in London.
The second disc is the reason Still matters. It contains the recording of Joy Division's last concert, at Birmingham University on 2 May 1980. The tape was made illegally by an audience member. Factory Records bought the recording to prevent bootlegs, then decided to release it because of its historical importance to the band's story. The sound quality is average at best, and the surviving members, already performing as New Order, later overdubbed extra guitar and bass parts.
That final show included the only public performance of "Ceremony," a song that would become New Order's debut single. On Still, the track is incomplete and the vocals are almost inaudible due to poor mixing. The concert also featured "Decades" from Closer, and this is the only officially released live version of that song. During the performance, guitarist Bernard Sumner's synthesizers overheated, producing a distorted, wavering sound that adds to the record's eerie atmosphere.
Release, chart positions and title
Still was originally planned for August 1981 but appeared on 9 October of that year. It reached number 5 on the British chart and number 3 in New Zealand in February 1982. The title is an antonym of Movement, the debut album by New Order, which came out the same autumn. New Order had formed from the remaining Joy Division members a year earlier, after Curtis's death.
Critics have always been divided. In 2013, BBC Music called the album a "partially disappointing compilation," aimed at quickly shutting down the bootleg industry that followed the death of a young idol. Joshua Klein of Pitchfork described Still as a "ragged, enigmatic coda" and an "uneven collection of lost tracks." That unevenness is exactly what makes it feel honest: a band caught between what it was and what it would never become.
That unevenness is exactly what makes it feel honest: a band caught between what it was and what it would never become.
The cover, designed by Peter Saville's firm, features the letter "f" for Factory Records, with the album title printed on the back. The producer was Martin Hannett, and the engineer was Chris Nagle. Still was remastered and reissued in 2007 alongside Closer and Unknown Pleasures, with a bonus disc of a concert from High Wycombe. But the heart of the record remains that final Birmingham show—flawed, incomplete, and impossible to ignore.