The Killers Codexery

Shadowplay (song)

Joy Division song later covered by the Killers.

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Joy Division’s “Shadowplay” first appeared on their debut album Unknown Pleasures, which came out on June 15, 1979. The band had already played it live during their first TV appearance, on Granada TV in September 1978. The track later turned up on the compilation Silhouettes and Statues.

The Killers version

The Killers covered "Shadowplay" for the 2007 biopic Control, which tells the story of Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis. Their rendition appears over the movie's end credits and on its soundtrack. During the Sam's Town Tour, the band regularly performed it live. The track later appeared on Sawdust, a collection of B-sides and rarities.

Rolling Stone criticized the recording, saying it should have remained unreleased. In April 2013, Joy Division and New Order guitarist Bernard Sumner joined the Killers onstage for the first time to play the song at Colombia's Festival Estéreo Picnic; they repeated the collaboration later that year at Lollapalooza. The Killers' version came out as a digital download single on October 9, 2007, reaching number 68 on the Billboard Hot 100. A music video, directed by Spencer Kaplan and Jonathan V. Sela, was released on November 21, 2007, mixing footage of the band with clips from Control.

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Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.

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