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Joy Division

Unknown Pleasures

  • AMG Review of Unknown Pleasures

    Amg
    Ned Raggett
    All Music Guide

    It even looks like something classic, beyond its time or place of origin even as it was a clear product of both -- one of Peter Saville's earliest and best designs, a transcription of a signal showing a star going nova, on a black embossed sleeve. If that were all Unknown Pleasures was, it wouldn't be discussed so much, but the ten songs inside, quite simply, are stone-cold landmarks, the whole album a monument to passion, energy, and cathartic despair. The quantum leap from the earliest thrashy singles to Unknown Pleasures can be heard through every note, with Martin Hannett's deservedly famous production -- emphasizing space in the most revelatory way since the dawn of dub -- as much a hallmark as the music itself. Songs fade in behind furtive noises of motion and activity, glass breaks with the force and clarity of doom, minimal keyboard lines add to an air of looming disaster -- something, somehow, seems to wait or lurk beyond the edge of hearing. But even though this is Hannett's album as much as anyone's, the songs and performances are the true key. Bernard Sumner redefined heavy metal sludge as chilling feedback fear and explosive energy, Peter Hook's instantly recognizable bass work at once warm and forbidding, Stephen Morris' drumming smacking through the speakers above all else. Ian Curtis synthesizes and purifies every last impulse, his voice shot through with the desire first and foremost to connect, only connect -- as "Candidate" plaintively states, "I tried to get to you/You treat me like this." Pick any song: the nervous death dance of "She's Lost Control"; the harrowing call for release "New Dawn Fades," all four members in perfect sync; the romance in hell of "Shadowplay"; "Insight" and its nervous drive toward some sort of apocalypse. All visceral, all emotional, all theatrical, all perfect -- one of the best albums ever.

2007 Reissues
about 1 year ago

Some albums are just too good to settle for crappy sounding MP3s. Even as albums are slowly becoming available in lossless codecs, the pricing is way out of whack. At $1 a song, the deluxe reissue of Young Marble Giants' Colossal Youth & Collected Works would cost $46. CDs still look just as great as books on shelves, and reissues usually have the perk of expanded album art and liner notes that...

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Albums That Saved My Life #3 -- Joy Division's "Unknown Pleasures"
over 2 years ago
Blog post image preview

Tracklisting:DisorderDay of the LordsCandidateInsightNew Dawn FadesShe's Lost ControlShadowplayWildernessInterzoneI Remember NothingFormation: They were originally known by Warsaw until they finally found a permanent drummer and then they changed their name to Joy Division. The name was taken from a novel called _House of Dolls_, in which "the joy division" was a slang term for the female inma...

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And to the throngs of you who've missed my thong songs...
about 1 year ago

As I sit here at work... listening to the lovely tunage my ipod shuffles just for me, I am struck by how much I missed you guys !!! I am still recovering, but I am back & ready for action, who's with me ?!?Let's see... during my hiatus, I listened to music sporadically at best, mostly slept & watched movies & slept some more. When I did listen to music, I found even more comfort in the arms o...

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Joy Division Shoes...New Balance.
about 1 year ago

Gotta throw down some loot for these bad boys.Either those or the Johnny Marr designed shoes. The New Balance shoes get my vote since I love NB and it's extra width.

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2007 Reissues
about 1 year ago

Some albums are just too good to settle for crappy sounding MP3s. Even as albums are slowly becoming available in lossless codecs, the pricing is way out of whack. At $1 a song, the deluxe reissue of Young Marble Giants' Colossal Youth & Collected Works would cost $46. CDs still look just as great as books on shelves, and reissues usually have the perk of expanded album art and liner notes that...

More >
Joy Division SNEAKERS!?!?!?
over 2 years ago

I don't know if they will ever be released to the public but there is a custom pair of New Balance Sneakers out there based on Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures album.

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Tony Wilson 'Mr. Manchester' Dead At 57
over 2 years ago
Blog post image preview

Tony Wilson, a virtual rallying point in the Manchester music scene, died of cancer on August 10. He was 57. Wilson, who set up the Factory Records label and the Hacienda Club, recorded Joy Division, New Order, the Happy Mondays and many others. ??Tony Wilson??Originally, Wilson was recognized as a television personality between 1976 and 1977 on ??So It Goes??, a British TV music show on Granad...

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Albums That Saved My Life #3 -- Joy Division's "Unknown Pleasures"
over 2 years ago
Blog post image preview

Tracklisting:DisorderDay of the LordsCandidateInsightNew Dawn FadesShe's Lost ControlShadowplayWildernessInterzoneI Remember NothingFormation: They were originally known by Warsaw until they finally found a permanent drummer and then they changed their name to Joy Division. The name was taken from a novel called _House of Dolls_, in which "the joy division" was a slang term for the female inma...

More >

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