At the end of 1980, "Closer" was voted the 22nd best record of the year in the Pazz & Jop, an annual poll of American critics published by "The Village Voice". Robert Christgau, the poll's supervisor, deemed the album an improvement over "Unknown Pleasures" in a retrospective review: "Curtis's torment is less oppressive here because it's less dominant—the dark, roiling, off-center rhythms have a life of their own. And if last time the dancier material had hooks, this time even the dirges have something closely resembling tunes." "Rolling Stone"s Mikal Gilmore, in a 1981 profile of the band's work, wrote: "The music turns leaden, gray and steady because it means to fulfill a vision of a world where suffering is unremitting and nothingness is quiescent."