According to Morley it was these two visits that were at the root of the explosion that not only saw the creation of Joy Division, but The Buzzcocks, Howard Devoto's Magazine, The Fall, and maybe, most importantly of all, was the impetus for the creation of Martin Hannett's Factory Records. Not only did they record and produce most of the above, they were responsible for Manchester's second wave of post-punk performers in the early 1980s with bands like A Certain Ratio and Duretti Column.

In the mid to late seventies Manchester was struggling through a recession caused by being an industrial city without industry and in desperate need of an infusion of some type of new energy. As Morley was writing his first article for NME about the Manchester music scene he was also dealing with the fact that his father had just committed suicide. Morley makes it clear that his father's suicide and the state that Manchester was in at the time were definitely related. He's also honest enough to admit that it obviously coloured what he wrote, and because of that he couldn't write off a quartet of guys called Warsaw, who would become Joy Division, no matter how lost they appeared on stage.

He never claims any precognition: no "I saw the greatness in them before they were great". Instead the implication is that on some level, because his father had felt so little hope that he wasn't able to continue, Morley wasn't going to be the one to dash anybody's hopes if he saw anything at all that suggested they could be going somewhere.

I have to admit that I found Morley's language a little too grandiose for the topic; popular music is fun, and occasionally intelligent, but is still more reliant on craft than artistry. Whenever I read people who write about popular music as if its of vital importance, I'm left with the feeling that they are working under the following premise: If what I write about is important, than I'm important, so I must make it sound as important as possible. Joy Division were an exciting pop group that were part of an exciting music scene in the late seventies and early eighties, but the real reason they are still remembered as well as they are to this day is because their lead singer committed suicide.

Paul Morley has done a good job of recreating the atmosphere and energy that was part of the alternative music scene during the late seventies when Joy Division were at their peak. He is also able to provide us with an insider's view — as much as anybody can be an insider when suicide is involved — of the turbulent and sad history of the late Ian Curtis. Yet in the end, no matter how hard he tries to make a case for it, there's nothing really earth-shattering about the subject matter and nothing about the book justifies its 380-plus pages.