Ian Curtis (22)

Ian Curtis
1956–1980
Joy Division's voice from beyond
Cause of Death: Hanged himself on a clothing rack

Ice Age: Curtis checked out after watching Werner Herzog's extra-depressing movie Stroszek, immediately dignifying his group's statuesque dirges with a scary seal of authenticity. A month later, posthumous single "Love Will Tear Us Apart" became Joy Division's biggest-ever U.K. hit, but his bereft bandmates (by then trading as New Order) resisted Curtis’s transformation into tortured postpunk poster boy, painting the epileptic singer as a "silly bastard" who dug beer and girls.
New Dawn: Joy Division's 45 recorded songs didn't make anyone rich: not the surviving band members—whose royalties were funneled into the unsuccessful Haçienda nightclub until it went bust in 1997 -- nor the Curtis estate (widow Deborah and daughter Natalie). But the ’90s saw a resurgence of the group as an influence on the Smashing Pumpkins, Hole, Nine Inch Nails and Moby. Deborah's weepy '95 memoir, Touching From a Distance, provides the basis for a Curtis biopic (provisionally titled Control) to be directed by Anton Corbijn this spring, while in the U.K. last year, "Love Will Tear Us Apart" was topped for the title of Best Song of the Last 25 Years only by British pop star Robbie Williams’s "Angels."