Curtis’s suicide made the whole post-Joy Division generation deem itself inauthentic for surviving.

Evidence

“The whole thing was reinforced by the fact that Ian Curtis had killed himself,” Smith recalled in the Uncut interview, speaking for the post-Joy Division generation (which would of course include New Order) that would deem itself inauthentic simply by dint of the fact that it had carried on living. “I knew that the Cure were considered fake in comparison, and it suddenly dawned on me that to make this album convincing I would have to kill myself. If I wanted people to accept what we were doing, I was going to have to take the ultimate step.” — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1060

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Faith’s debt to Joy Division both enabled it and doomed it to derivative status. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1060; Ian Curtis’s suicide made post-Joy Division musicians feel their survival was inauthentic — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1060

Broader Connections

• Faith’s debt to Joy Division both enabled it and doomed it to derivative status. #responds-to (0.85) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1060