436. Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures (1979)
















Track Listing

1. Disorder
2. Day Of The Lords
3. Candidate
4. Insight
5. New Dawn Fades
6. She's Lost Control
7. Shadowplay
8. Wilderness
9. Interzone
10. I Remember Nothing

Review

This is a pretty amazing album from the best band ever to come out of my adopted land of Manchester, but that is not the only reason why it is so good. This is post-punk at its best, the slower pace, the threat the depression, the doom, it is all here ant it is all perfect.

We had some gothy music with Siouxsie in 1978, but this is an even more radical departure from Punk into something darker and more menacing. Few albums have been more laced with death than this one, but it is done so perfectly that you get the strange oxymoron of it being a joy to listen to.

The name of the band is actually pretty appropriate, taking their name from an SS division there is this whole Eros and Thanatos thing going on here. It all sounds amazing, there is not a single dud in the whole album and there are two real standouts in She's Lost Control and New Dawn Fades, two amazing dark anthems. And then there is that cover, the radio emissions of a star dying, nothing could have been more appropriate and albums rarely have been better than this.

Track Highlights

1. She's Lost Control
2. New Dawn Fades
3. Day Of The Lords
4. I Remember Nothing

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The original LP release contained no track information on the labels, nor the traditional "side one" and "side two" designations. The ostensible "side one" was labeled Outside and displayed a reproduction of the image on the album cover, while the other side was labeled Inside and displayed the same image with the colors reversed (black-on-white). Near the inner groove of the Inside is etched in script: "I've been looking for a guide", a reference to the song, "Disorder". The Outside and Inside designations were also used on the inner sleeve.

She's Lost Control: