10 Songs That Sound Better Live Than On Record

7. Joy Division - She's Lost Control

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVc29bYIvCM Bernard Sumner was always reasonably ungrateful about the supernaturally terrific job producer Martin Hannett did on Unknown Pleasures and Closer, sniffily maintaining that Joy Division were better live than in the studio and that Hannett insisted on turning down his guitars. Anybody who's heard the patchy live compilation Still,may feel compelled to disagree, but Exhibit A in Barney's defence must always be She's Lost Control. A thoroughly despondent and compellingly impersonal mediation on his own epilepsy, it's hard to argue that Ian Curtis' lyric wasn't perfectly suited to the production job Hannett performed. The drums are metronomic, the bassline intrusive and the guitar part buried deep in the mix perfectly invokes a creeping sense of dread-Hannett probably understood the lyric far better than Curtis' bandmates did. She's Lost Control performed live is a different beast altogether. The drumming remains metronomic, but is played at breakneck pace, the bassline throbs and leads from the front, while fighting for attention with Sumner's energised, urgent riffing. Even before you take Curtis' twitching, jerking dancing into account, the whole thing feels like it must exhaust itself before it's due to finish and come crashing to the ground. A perfect metaphor for the band itself.