# Joy Division — Love Will Tear Us Apart

Joy Division’s Love Will Tear Us Apart (1980) appears on 3 of our lists — Post-Punk, The Eighties, and The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred, highest at No. 1 in Post-Punk. Every verdict, in full.

- **Released:** 1980
- **Label:** Factory
- **On:** Post-Punk, The Eighties, and The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred
- **Updated:** 2026-08-29
- **Artist:** [Joy Division](https://waxonia.com/artist/joy-division/)
- **Canonical page:** https://waxonia.com/track/joy-division--love-will-tear-us-apart/

## What 3 lists say

### No. 1 in [Post-Punk](https://waxonia.com/genre/post-punk/)

Peter Hook plays the melody on bass, Bernard Sumner plays the atmosphere on a cheap synth, and Ian Curtis writes the plainest lyric of his life. The genre's one unarguable pop record.

### Picked by [The Eighties](https://waxonia.com/theme/the-eighties/)

Factory gave its bands the copyrights and had no contracts to speak of, which was ruinous as a business and is the reason this record sounds like nobody was consulted. The decade's most covered song, released by a Manchester club with a design habit.

### Picked by [The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred](https://waxonia.com/selection/the-desk-the-hundred/)

The bass carries the melody, a cheap synth carries the weather, and the lyric refuses every available metaphor. Guitar music's most perfect three minutes.

## Analysis

6 sections, no single moment the energy jumps to, 59% of it spent climbing.

- **Tempo:** 143.6 BPM — holds throughout
- **Dynamic range:** 3.3 dB — compressed hard — very little between the quiet and the loud
- **Length:** 3:30

- `0:00` A · **peak**, instrumental — sits at the top of this record's range — playing: drums, other
- `0:15` B · **breakdown** (bar 9), instrumental — energy falling away mid-record, percussion thinning — playing: drums, other
- `0:27` C · **peak** (bar 16), sung — sits at the top of this record's range — playing: drums, vocals, other
- `0:48` A · **build** (bar 29), sung — energy and brightness climbing without a break — playing: drums, vocals, other
- `2:51` A · **lift** (bar 103), instrumental — a short rise that does not resolve — a fill or a transition, not a build — playing: drums, other
- `3:12` D · **outro** (bar 115), instrumental — the closing fall

**What is playing.** Separated into parts by a source-separation model, so each lane is the instrument it names.

- **drums:** the drum kit, separated from the mix
- **bass:** the bass part, separated from the mix
- **vocals:** the voice, separated from the mix
- **other:** everything else — synths, guitars, keys, strings

Measured from the YouTube master on 2026-08-29. Section labels describe how the energy
moves, not musical form. Anything we were not confident enough to state is omitted
rather than hedged.

## Listen

[Search Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/search/Joy%20Division%20Love%20Will%20Tear%20Us%20Apart) · [YouTube Music](https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=zuuObGsB0No)

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