Dutch photographer, music video director and film director Anton Johannes Gerrit Corbijn van Willenswaard was born in Strijen, the Netherlands. His father was a parson in the Dutch Reformed Church. The family moved to Hoogland in 1966 and Gorningen in 1972. His younger brother Maarten Corbijn is also a photographer and film director. Corbijn’s career as a music photographer began around 1975 in Groningen. Corbijn saw the Dutch musician Herman Brood perform in a café and began to take photographs of Brood and his band. The photographs contributed to an increase in Brood’s fame and provided exposure for Corbijn as a photographer. The New Musical Express (NME) started to feature Corbijn’s portraits of rock musicians from the late 1970s. Corbijn was also a regular contributor to The Face magazine. Corbijn is best known for his black and white photography, but began working in colour in 1989. His first colour portraits were of Siouxie Sioux. Corbijn has photographed many musicians and actors, but he is most associated with the Irish rock band U2, particularly his photographic work for their albums The Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He directed a number of music videos for the band. Corbijn was also creative director for the visual output of the British band Depeche Mode, including photography and music videos. Corbijn directed his first music video in 1983, for the German new wave band Palais Schaumberg. Between 1983 and 2017 he directed 82 music videos. Corbijn’s experience of directing music videos led to his first short film, a 1994 documentary for the BBC about American singer-songwriter and artist Captain Beefheart. He made his first feature film in 2007, the biopic Control, about the life and death by suicide of Joy Division singer Ian Curtis. His other films include The American (2010), starring George Clooney, A Most Wanted Man (2014), and Life (2015), about the friendship between photographer Dennis Stock and actor James Dean.

Joy Division began in Salford in 1976. Guitarist Bernard Sumner (also known by the surnames Albrecht and Dicken) and bass player Peter Hook formed the band after attending one of the Sex Pistols gigs at Manchester's Lesser Free Trade Hall in 1976. The day following the gig, Hook borrowed £35 from his mother and bought a bass guitar from Mazel Radio on London Road, Manchester. Sumner already had a guitar. The pair rehearsed in Sumner’s grandparents’ house in Salford, their instruments wired into a gramophone instead of an amplifier. Sumner and Hook formed their first band with schoolfriend Terry Mason on drums. They tried to persuade another schoolfriend, Martin Gresty, to join as vocalist. When he declined, the band placed an advert for a singer in the Manchester branch of Virgin Records. Ian Curtis responded to the advert and was hired without an audition. Sumner, Hook and Mason knew Curtis from attending gigs in Manchester and got on well with him. The band was billed as Stiff Kittens on flyers for their first gig at the Electric Circus in Collyhurst, Manchester. The band was supporting Buzzcocks, and guitarist Pete Shelley and Buzzcocks manager Richard Boon suggested the name. The band changed the name to Warsaw shortly before the gig on 29 May 1977. This was a reference to the David Bowie song ‘Warszawa’ on his album Low. Two days before the gig, Tony Tabac joined Warsaw as drummer, with Terry Mason taking on the role of band manager. A month later, Steve Brotherdale replaced Tabac as drummer. Brotherdale also played in the punk band The Panik. Warsaw recorded five demo tracks at Pennine Sound Studios in Oldham, Lancashire in July 1977. Soon after the sessions, the band fired Brotherdale as drummer. The following month, Warsaw placed an advert for a drummer in Jones’ music shop in Macclesfield. Stephen Morris responded and met up with Curtis at his home. Curtis played Morris the demo tracks and the pair talked about their musical interests and the punk scene in Manchester. Morris joined Warsaw at a rehearsal at the Abraham Moss community centre in Crumpsall, Manchester the following week. Warsaw recorded tracks for a debut EP, An Ideal for Living, at Pennine Sound Studios in December 1977. They played the Swinging Apple in Liverpool on New Year’s Eve 1977, their last gig as Warsaw. A London punk band already had the name Warsaw Pakt and so, to avoid confusion, Warsaw renamed themselves Joy Division. The name came from the novel House of Dolls. Their first gig under the Joy Division name was at Pip’s Disco, Manchester, on 25 January 1978. In March 1978, RCA Records approached Joy Division to record a new wave cover version of a Northern Soul classic, ‘Keep on Keepin’ On’, for a compilation album. In April 1978, Joy Division met TV news reporter and broadcaster Tony Wilson and band manager Rob Gretton at a band contest, the Stiff/Chiswick Challenge, held at Rafters nightclub, Manchester. Gretton was also the house DJ at the nightclub. He was impressed by the band’s performance and offered to be their manager. Wilson was also impressed and, after being challenged by Curtis about why he had not yet put Joy Division onto his music show ‘So It Goes’, promised that they would be the next band he would showcase. Joy Division did not record the cover version for RCA Records. Instead the band recorded an album for RCA at Arrow Studios, Manchester in May 1978. They were not happy with the final mix and asked to be released from the RCA contract. Their debut record was the self-released EP ‘An Ideal for Living’, in June 1978. Tony Wilson’s late night music programme ‘So It Goes’ was cancelled before Joy Division was able to perform on it. In September 1978, the band made its television debut performing ‘Shadowplay’ on ‘What’s On’, Wilson’s music segment in the evening news magazine programme Granada Reports. In October 1978, Joy Division recorded two tracks for the Factory Records double 7-inch EP ‘A Factory Sample’. The band recorded with producer Martin Hannett at Cargo Recording Studios, Rochdale, Lancashire. They contributed two tracks, ‘Digital’ and ‘Glass’, to the EP. Joy Division then joined Factory's roster, with Gretton becoming a partner in the label to represent Joy Division’s interests. On 27 December, during the drive home from a gig in London, Curtis suffered his first recognised severe epileptic seizure and was hospitalised. He recovered in time to record a session for BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel in January 1979. In April 1979, Joy Division recorded their debut album ‘Unknown Pleasures’ at Strawberry Studios, Stockport, with Hannett again on production. Factory Records released the album in June 1979. The band performed on ‘What’s On’ the following month and made their only national TV appearance on BBC 2’s ‘Something Else’ in September 1979. From October 1979, they joined Buzzcocks on their UK tour. This allowed the band members to quit their regular jobs and become full time musicians. Joy Division is known for not releasing album tracks as singles. The band’s debut single was the track ‘Transmission’, released in November 1979. In January 1980, Joy Division toured Europe. The gig at Kant Kino in Berlin inspired the track ‘Komakino’, which Factory later gave away as a 7-inch flexi-disk in June 1980. Before that, in March 1980 Joy Division recorded their second album, ‘Closer’, at Pink Floyd’s Britannia Row studio in London. Hannett was the record’s producer. The same month they released two tracks recorded as part of the ‘Closer’ sessions, ‘Atmosphere’ and ‘Dead Souls’, as an art package called ‘Licht und Blindheit’ through the independent French record label Sordide Sentimental. Curtis’s health deteriorated during the recording of ‘Closer’. Depressed about the restrictions his epilepsy placed on his ability to perform live, he made his first suicide attempt in April 1980. The band was due to tour the USA in May 1980, to promote ‘Closer’. Curtis’s death by suicide the evening before the band was due to fly over to the USA prevented the tour taking place. In June 1980, Factory Records released Joy Division’s final single, ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’. The following month, the label released ‘Closer’. Following Curtis’s death, the remaining members of Joy Division re-formed as New Order.

Martin Hannett was born in Manchester in 1948. He attended Roman Catholic primary and secondary schools in Manchester before studying chemistry as an undergraduate at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST). He graduated in 1970 and took a job in a science laboratory. He left his job in the early 1970s to set up the musicians’ collective Music Force in Manchester with Tosh Ryan, Bruce Mitchell and others on the Manchester music scene. At Music Force, Hannett booked venues, arranged equipment hire and organised fly posting of gig promotion posters. Hannett became a musician, playing bass guitar and joining the band Paradox in 1973. He also began working as a sound mixer at gigs around Manchester. Hannett moved into record production in the early 1970s. His first jobs as a producer included the soundtrack to the animation film “All Kinds of Heroes” and the 1975 self-titled album by the Belt and Braces Roadshow Band. Hannett made a name for himself as Martin Zero when he produced the Buzzcocks’ “Spiral Scratch” EP in 1977. As Martin Zero, Hannett also produced recordings by the poet John Cooper Clarke and by the comedy artist Jilted John. With money made running Music Force, Hannett and Ryan set up the independent record label Rabid Records. The label released the debut single by Slaughter and the Dogs, which Hannett also produced. Between 1978 and 1980, Hannett was most associated as a producer with the recordings of the band Joy Division. Hannett produced Joy Division’s first recordings for Factory Records, the tracks “Digital” and “Glass” which appeared on FAC 2 A Factory Sample. His involvement with Joy Division led to him becoming a partner in Factory Records. He produced the majority of the releases on Factory, but left the company in 1982, following a legal case brought by Hannett against Factory Records. He returned on a freelance basis in 1988 to produce the debut album by the band Happy Mondays. Hannett was known for his use of pioneering digital sound recording equipment, including the AMS 15-80 digital delay, the Marshall time modulator, and early synthesisers such as the Powertran Transcendent 2000 and the ARP Omni. He is associated with the 24 track recording facility at Strawberry Studios in Stockport, which included state of the art Westlake studio equipment, and also with the 16 track Cargo Studios in Rochdale. Hannett was a habitual drug user throughout his life. His drug and alcohol consumption is believed to have contributed to his death from heart failure in 1991.