Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Exercise One
2. Ice Age
3. Sound of Music
4. Glass
5. Only Mistake
6. Walked in Line
7. Kill
8. Something Must Break
9. Dead Souls
10. Sister Ray [Live at the Moonlight Club, London April 1980]
11. Ceremony [Live at Birmingham University]
12. Shadowplay [Live at Birmingham University]
13. Means to an End [Live at Birmingham University]
14. Passover [Live at Birmingham University]
15. New Dawn Fades [Live at Birmingham University]
16. Transmission [Live at Birmingham University]
17. Disorder [Live at Birmingham University]
18. Isolation [Live at Birmingham University]
19. Decades [Live at Birmingham University]
20. Digital [Live at Birmingham University]

Disc 2:

1. Sound of Music [Live at High Wycombe Town Hall, Feb. 20, 1980]
2. Means to an End [Live at High Wycombe Town Hall, Feb. 20, 1980]
3. Colony [Live at High Wycombe Town Hall, Feb. 20, 1980]
4. Twnety Four Hours [Live at High Wycombe Town Hall, Feb. 20, 1980]
5. Isolation [Live at High Wycombe Town Hall, Feb. 20, 1980]
6. Love Will Tear Us Apart [Live at High Wycombe Town Hall, Feb. 20, 1980]
7. Disorder [Live at High Wycombe Town Hall, Feb. 20, 1980]
8. Atrocity Exhibition [Live at High Wycombe Town Hall, Feb. 20, 1980]
9. Soundcheck: Isolation [Live]
10. Eternal [Live at High Wycombe Town Hall, Feb. 20, 1980][Version]
11. Ice Age [Soundcheck][Live]
12. Disorder [Soundcheck][Live]
13. Sound of Music [Live at High Wycombe Town Hall, Feb. 20, 1980][Version]
14. Means to an End [Soundcheck][Live]

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12309 in Music
• Brand: Dig
• Released on: 2007-10-30
• Number of discs: 2
• Formats: Collector's Edition, Extra tracks
• Dimensions: .34 pounds

Album Description
2007 digitally remastered and expanded two CD edition of the influential Manchester quartet's 1981 posthumous compilation album. Joy Division's influence on modern music is not only based around the band's unique sound, but also their vision, their personalities and their intense and troubled vocalist, Ian Curtis who committed suicide on the eve of their first tour of the U.S. Disc One features the original album containing 20 tracks including live and previously unreleased studio tracks. Disc Two features 14 tracks recorded live at High Wycombe Town Hall in February of 1980. Rhino UK.

Customer Reviews

Outstanding album gets outstanding remaster and an extra live disc
Being the record by which I discovered Joy Division (and possibly because of that fact) it is still my favourite. I didn't know it at the time, but it's a fairly random collection of studio out-takes from the band's three-year history (the original first vinyl disc) and a live recording of the band's final concert at Birmingham University in May 1980 (the original second vinyl disc). To further confuse the issue, the original CD release, while almost identical, inexplicably omitted "24 Hours" from the live set altogether (it having been omitted from the track listing of the vinyl only, showing up as a sort of anticipation of the DVD Easter Egg on the actual record). Weird: it was by no means the worst quality track on the set (several others suffered, either from poor mixing (Ceremony), synthesiser meltdown (Isolation and Decades) or guitarist correct-chord meltdown (Bernard misses a doozy in the intro to New Dawn Fades)).

And if that were not random enough, this remaster includes another live set, from High Wycombe Town Hall (yes, that legendary Rock 'n' Roll venue - it's almost Tapular, isn't it) in February 1980 plus some material from the soundcheck!

For all that, the (original) record hangs together coherently - the outtakes pace themselves nicely from the creepy foghorns and droning basslines of Exercise One through the near-punk workouts (Ice Age, Walked in Line) to the desolate, stately majesty of classic tracks like The Only Mistake and Dead Souls which represent high-Mannerist Joy Division, the only jolt being, from nowhere, an unexpected live cover of the Velvets' Sister Ray at the end of (original vinyl) disc two.

I love Still, but the cognoscenti don't seem to. Even the liner notes accompanying this new release describe Still as "above all the expression of weakness in the Joy Division sequence of releases" (what on earth were the marketing guys thinking?), but that's extraordinarily harsh, to the point of being plain old horse-manure. Yes Still may represent an un-chaperoned wander through the band's unreleased catalogue, and sure, there are no radio singles here (but then, nor are there on Unknown Pleasures or Closer: Joy Division *never* released radio singles on studio albums) but there are certainly standout tracks, and as (ahem) a *closer* (noun) - that is, a summation of what Joy Division were about, a precis, plus a snapshot of where they ended up - I can't think of how else one might have done it, without ripping off the fans by recycling material already available.

I have heard people complain bitterly about the quality of the Birmingham live set, but for my money it's a banker in every respect. There's more bottom end than usual in Peter Hook's bass and Steve Morris' drums, Bernard's guitar is rich and full, and Ian Curtis's vocals are superb (when audible - there are a couple of occasions where the mixer has a melting moment and forgets to push the faders up). I've heard several other Joy Division live sets, and the Still set is easily the most assured performance, and the cleanest recording. The crowd is on fire. Added to that is the frisson derived from the fact that this really was THE last time Joy Division ever performed as Joy Division, and Ian Curtis ever performed at all. Great gig to go out on. A historical performance.

The High Wycombe gig - I suppose thrown on to persuade mugs like me to acquire yet another copy of the same record (I now have four) is interesting artefact, but not much more: The band is certainly tight, and the performance sounds a lot closer to - well, Closer - although I found the distant, icy arrangements on that album a little *too* spartan, and the recording quality isn't a patch on the Birmingham gig. Love Will Tear Us Apart is surprisingly faithfully executed - after three years and some 120 gigs, Joy Division had turned themselves into tight musicians - but the crowd's reaction to the songs: polite, but clearly appreciative applause - sounds more like an audience than a moshpit. Perhaps the High Wycombe Mayor was on hand to keep an eye on the Kids, it being the Town Hall and all.

Lastly, credit to Factory, who have maintained the Peter Saville feel of the original album, and which I now own in four versions, including, I'm proud to say, an original pressing vinyl with the Hessian sleeve ... and the missing Twenty Four Hours!

Olly Buxton

A note on remastering
Still was always a little bit misbegotten, cobbling together demoes and half-finished tracks with indifferent live tracks designed to beat the bootleggers at their game. Here it's beefed up with a whole extra show from High Wycombe, no worse in sound quality than is usual for late period Joy Division shows. The question will be whether those who already own earlier CD issues of Still or the Heart and Soul boxed set need this reissue. The quality of the remastering is as high as it is on the Unknown Pleasures and Closer reissues, and the mastering is at the same, higher volume (a problem on the boxed set, which was mastered too softly by London). The remastering itself makes less difference for relatively crude early tracks and the only revelation is Walked in Line, which has never sounded better. Thus as album and repackage, this is less essential than its companions, but probably worth it for the remastering of the first half (once upon a time LP 1) of the original Still.

A remaster...... but not really complete
Still, to me still ranks as a great album. Everything that can be said about this album has been said and to be honest I can't really add anything new. The studio tracks are interesting and and the live tracks are of course poorly mixed as usual. They are however better in quality than the original vinyl version of the album so for this cd set the relastering has worked a treat. But there is one MAJOR niggle..... WHERE THE F**K IS 24 HOURS???

When I first bought this album many many moons ago I was really taken back by the fact that they had slipped in an extra track and not credited it on the cover... It made the album 'special'. And to my ears the version of 24 hours on Still is a great recording, so why omit it from the CD? I've heard that the running time on the CD wasn't long enough to take the extra track, but in all honesty I would have prefered them to cut out one of the so called bonus tracks to make room for it.... and also not credit it on the CD booklet. This CD set is great but I feel short changed by it not being a complete remaster of the ORIGINAL album.