- For Peter Hook’s memoir about Joy Division, see Unknown Pleasures: Inside Joy Division.
Unknown Pleasures is the first full studio album of Joy Division. Note that it does not mark the debut of Joy Division, that title instead belongs to the EP An Ideal For Living. It contains tracks like "Disorder" and "She's Lost Control". It was released on 15 June 1979 with the FAC number of 10.
Background[]
Joy Division started recording Unknown Pleasures on the dawn of April 1979, at Strawberry Studios, Stockport. They weren't happy about its "empty, spacious" sound, and was hoping for a more "aggressive, sounding" album. Peter Hook, who played the bass in this album, said in 2006, "It definitely didn't turn out sounding the way I wanted it... But now I can see that Martin (the producer) did a good job on it... There's no two ways about it, Martin Hannett created the Joy Division sound." Tony Wilson, the head of Factory Records, having faith in the album put his life insurance money (8,500 pounds) in the production of 10,000 copies.
However, Unknown Pleasures sold poorly during its release on 15 June 1979. Nevertheless, the release of the single, "Love Will Tear Us Apart", from Joy Division in April 1980 (After singer Ian Curtis had died), which quickly became a hit, made Unknown Pleasures, which came from the same band, substantially successful.
The album cover is derived from the pulses of the first discovered pulsar, PSR B1919+21. The album was going to be called CP 1919 in relation to this.
Reimagined[]
Unknown Pleasures Reimagined is a project that gave each song off Unknown Pleasures a music video for its 40th anniversary. Each video had a separate director, and most of them were based in different countries. The first video, for I Remember Nothing, released on 13 June 2019 and the final video, for Wilderness, released on 8 May 2020.
Reception and Reviews[]
Allmusic's Ned Raggett with 5 stars "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, and 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 was at once warm and forbidding, and Stephen Morris' drumming smacked 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."[1]
Robert Christgau: A- (Notably incorrectly labeled as releasing in 1980) "...it's hard to pass off [Ian's] depressiveness as affectation even though critiques of his sincere feelings are definitely in order: the man is idolizing as fast as he oxidizes, a role model as dubious as Sid or Jimbo for the inner-directed set. Nevertheless, it's his passionate gravity that makes the clumsy, disquieting music so convincing--not just a songwriting stroke like "She's Lost Control" but gothic atmosphere like "Candidate" and "I Remember Nothing." Do what he does, not what he did."[2]
NME: 10/10
Pitchfork: 10/10 "It's one of the most perfect pairings of artist and producer in rock history, but that shouldn't undersell the band's input."
Q: "5 stars only for the song "She's Lost Control."
Rolling Stone: 5 stars "...it's nothing less than a surpassing testament to the life force itself."
Spin: 9/10
Uncut: 5 stars
Tracklist[]
"Outside" Side One[]
"Inside" Side Two[]
2007 "Live at the Factory" bonus, 13 July 1979.[]
All songs are live.
- Dead Souls
- The Only Mistake
- Insight
- Candidate
- Wilderness
- She's Lost Control
- Shadowplay
- Disorder
- Interzone
- Atrocity Exhibition
- Novelty
- Transmission
Artists[]
Ian Curtis - vocals
Bernard Sumner - guitar, keyboards
Peter Hook - bass guitar, vocals on Interzone
Stephen Morris - drums
Martin Hannett - producer