Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures

2007 digitally remastered and expanded two CD edition of the influential Manchester quartet's 1979 debut album. Joy Division's influence on modern music is not only based around the band's unique sound, but also their vision, their personalities and their intense and troubled vocalist, Ian Curtis who committed suicide on the eve of their first tour of the U.S. Disc One features the original album containing 10 tracks including 'Disorder', 'She's Lost Control' and 'Interzone'. Disc Two features 12 tracks recorded live at The Factory in Manchester, April of 1980. Rhino UK. Album Description

Prefer Over Closer

Love ALL that is Joy Division & I've gotten pretty much everything I can get that's available. As a whole, I prefer the first CD, UnkPleasures, to the last but not to say Closer isn't fantastic also. So unfortunate the band did not continue with it's original sound. However, the fact the original band members overcame tragedy, and continued playing together, is surely a testament to their musical talent and personal stamina. I'm checking out New Order now - don't know yet what the verdict will be - haven't received the music yet. September 27, 2008

Dark Delicacies

Come here young lass, let me prop you up on me knee, and tell you of Joy Division, a band that lacked that mushy-gushy ecstasy. I will play you songs of singer/lyricist Ian Curtis' depressive ills, and you will find that this doom-laded group from the 1970's Manchester, England scene had a frothy venom to all those that have ever betrayed. "Unknown Pleasures" will make your heart break open and bleed from its opening cry of, "I've been waiting for the guide to come and take me by the hand," (from "Disorder.") This sound helped lay the groundwork for Goth Rock and the Post-Punk genres, and is intentionally vapid and monotonic, attempting to sail a sea of shattered fantasies through a current of disdain. Miss-stepping and never diving into a sea of murky boredom, the album pulls the audience's emotions around, as if they were sailors off course, with their ships lower hull stuck into the bottom of the rocks at the mouth of the river Styx.

Although the sense of life affecting art would be much more apparent after Ian's death by his own hands shortly before the release of their second album, "Closer"-- this debut album still contains a cathartic feeling, purging out all the anger inside its audience through its dire, yet lyrical rhetoric. We are drawn in, ever so quaintly, by this fascination of one man`s depression, as a sense of emotion is acquired and contained from both this written poetry and the low-key, atmospheric instrumentals. The intrigue that the listener has of Curtis' morose gives them the strife to push on until there is nothing left but a relic of past happiness, while a stranglehold grips your throat, as if putting the ship onto the corner of a flat planet, with its bow about to fall into nothingness, and the captain's tears flowing down like candles' melting wax, as the crew's cries to repent caterwaul out of horror much alike a pleading bird of prey. More tears are shed as the wooden walls condense in, and an everlasting storm destroys the peaceful sail towards an island getaway. Then as the calm waters begin to rise exponentially like a virus, the sailors now know by the rising sun they only have damnation in a future where the light of the heavens will not shine.

This sense of paradise taken away is at its most poetic on this album, as at many times, a sense of youthful, depressive heartache is Shakespearian in a dark-and-gloomy vortex of fractured passions and disbanded ecstasies. The instrumentals accompany the flat and off-key, yet mood setting croon of Curtis, who with all the begotten in his scorched heart, cries out in miserable dire for the bleak future. Beats pulse, joy is subverted and subdued, tears are shed, and the listener feels as if they are in a Dracula story, in which the Prince of Darkness just wants someone to love-- all while a lingering sensation of hopelessness is acquired and the music fades to later reanimate, digging down into the recess of human emotion, and striking into the human consciousness, like a railroad spike.

As mentioned before the album is down n' low from its first verse, yet Joy Division is even hopeless in its name, as the Joy Divisions were a section of the concentration camps in which woman were forced into sexual labor. The metaphor behind their name can be looked at as the human dream to live long and be happy being squandered, as the sense of something better in this life now seems so sacred. Curtis sings on "New Dawn Fades, "Oh, I've walked on water, run through fire/ Can't seem to feel it anymore." This line shows the mindset of someone who thinks they have nothing to offer the world anymore, and earlier in the song when he sings the tragic refrain," A loaded gun won't set you free/ So you say," shows that when trumpets of a brighter time fade, only the silence of persecution lies in its wake.

There is a sense of anger toward god, as well as the commonalities of worship. This untraditional approach (or is that reproach?) with mood swings of bottled up and disheartened feelings makes it radical of traditional societal roles. Yet this is not so much an anarchist rallying cry against all that is government, but rather it gives a socialistic view of love, and the roles that one takes in a relationship-- both at its most intimate, its most confrontational, and lastly, its most adoringly depressive. The last sentence may not make much sense, as many would site a grave difference between depression and beauty: yet, Joy Division gives love at its most skeletal form of heartache, a certain suppression of one's own demonic dark side. This anchor to all that is enclosed in the deepest chambers of the human soul, of which, drive Joy Division's bewitchment over even the most mirthful of humankind, so long as they go into the music with an open mind.

However, even if someone can't get into this acquired-taste cult band, one feeling is still apparent-- loneliness--however, it's their opinion if it's out of callow introversion, or a belief of accepting the world for what it can seem like often on the news programs that take on a "no news but bad news" philosophy: thus accepting a belief that life is only a dark labyrinth of pent up hurt and sorrow-- shown with true tantamount in lyrics such as those in "Candidate," of which declare this beguiled disappointment as, "I worked hard for this/ I tried to get to you/ You treat me like this." In the end, even if the band is all about the doom-and-gloom surrounding the underbelly of humanity, there is not much that is disappointing on this album, at least aside from the too-lengthy final song, "I Remember Nothing." As nearly thirty years after its 1979 inception, "Unknown Pleasures," is still a cacophony wrecking ball into the heart of everything that humans hold sacred.

The End

**** ½ (Out of 5) July 10, 2008

Pleasurable Discovery

I feel embarassed to admit I had never heard this album until this week. I saw a movie last week which featured one of the songs in it. (The movie was called "Reprise" (amazing film!) and the song was "New Dawn Fades.") Then I got the album the other day, put it on and was BLOWN away. The fact that more radio stations don't play the song "Disorder" even now is criminal. It's truly a classic song and the CD just takes off from there. Sure, it has dark themes and can be depressing at times. And I'll admit I've been a big fan of so-called goth music for decades, which is why I honestly feel embarassed to admit that I've never heard this album before. I've had "Closer" for years, but somehow missed this dark, beautiful, haunting gem. What a find! May 22, 2008

most overrated post-punk band ever?

in a word, "yes"

someone has to say it- joy division, while not a bad band, is really nothing special given the company of their peers during '79-'81. it baffles me why there are so many reverent (sycophantic, more like) "hosannas" thrown at their feet. face it, if their singer hadn't hung himself then there wouldn't be nearly as much unnecessary reverence thrown their way. anyway, this album, like all of theirs, is a gloomy, "oh god i am miserable and art is a pain on my sensitive soul" affair, and those who consider it deep or profound probably wear trenchcoats during the spring, wish they were vampires, wrote gloomy poetry, and find something erotic about the nazis. in short, they confuse angst with insight. sure, along with bauhaus, the cure, echo and the bunnymen, etc. etc. it was a brave new genre of what we now call post punk, but really, it's not noticeably better than the best of any of these bands. maybe if these bands had killed themselves we'd all be salivating over their alters as well.

fire away, fanboys! January 31, 2008

a known pleasure

a superb re-mastering or rendition of this remarkable record that never tires even after repeated play. January 14, 2008

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