1. Wilderness

1. Wilderness

From The Rise and Fall of ... by BBC Radio 6 Music

March 16, 2026 · 18 min · Season 5 · Episode 1

About this episode

The episode explores the emergence of Joy Division and the cultural revival of Manchester in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Manchester in the late 1970s is a city in retreat. Industry is collapsing and jobs are disappearing. Whole neighbourhoods feel abandoned. Out of that stillness comes a stark, unsettling new sound. Joy Division capture the mood of a city that has lost its rhythm. Their music is tense, mechanical and unflinching. When Ian Curtis dies in May 1980, just as the band stand on the brink of America, it feels like the end of something fragile and important. A month later, Love Will Tear Us Apart is released. But this story does not end there. Tony Wilson, television presenter and cultural instigator, has already opened a club night called The Factory. Within two years, the surviving members of Joy Division return as New Order and take a huge gamble to open a cavernous nightclub by the canal. On opening night at The Haçienda, a white grand piano sits in the middle of a vast, echoing room. Almost nobody dances. Episode 1 of The Rise and Fall of Madchester tells the story of how a broken industrial city began to rebuild itself through sound. From the Russell Club in Hulme to the birth of Factory Records, from the stark poetry of Joy Division to the uncertain promise of the Haçienda, this is…

People in this episode

Guest: Mike Pickering

Topics covered

  • Manchester music scene
  • Joy Division
  • New Order
  • Factory Records
  • 1980s music history
  • cultural revival
  • industrial decline

Keywords

  • Joy Division
  • New Order
  • Tony Wilson
  • Factory Records
  • Manchester
  • The Haçienda
  • Ian Curtis
  • music history
  • cultural revival
  • Love Will Tear Us Apart

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Joy Division, New Order, Factory Records

Books & works: Love Will Tear Us Apart

Places: Manchester, The Haçienda, Russell Club

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