| Product: |
Unknown Pleasures: Remastered & Expanded - Joy Division |
| Date: |
19/03/02 (136 review reads) |
| Rating: |
 |
Advantages: Songs, Atmosphere
Disadvantages: Brooding
Steel and glass, austere and brutal, punctuating the doomy, booming silence of the empty warehouse at the end of the world, symbols of the industrial depression of England in the 70's and 80's, the soundtrack for the Great Unforgotten Hordes and their introverted, careworn lives.
Cometh the hour, cometh the men, and into this laden, desolate landscape came four grim faced youths in raincoats with a beat and a voice and a harsh, addictive melody, right for the time, right for the place.
Joy Division were everything to some people, wilfully obscure to many, and unknown to most, fashionably hip and cool in their desolation and separateness, taking their militaristic, industrial name from the mythology of Nazi Germany, as an ironic forerunner of the later, more sinister New Order label. Their sparse, rhythmic interplays went soaring way over the heads of many, but if they hit you then you stayed hit, seduced by the compulsive power and raw emotion of their art.
Like so many, Joy Division were an acquired taste, exciting passion, love and contempt in those that knew of them, and twenty odd years have not changed the memory. The brasher dance rhythms of New Order excited more chart attention, but the original sound of Joy Division was something else, the stuff of the massive cult, spawning endless hordes of copyist Northern bands with their death march worldview and urgent beats.
I LOVED THEM...
Joy Division were a band from the grimy wastelands of Salford, committed and defiant and different. Emerging from the ashes in the mouth, rank punk rantings of Stiff Kittens and Warsaw, they were reborn with a new name and individual stance, pushed on the ultra hip (to be) Factory Records label by Tony Wilson, a small time entrepreneur who made a name for himself with the indie music TV show, So It Goes.
The voice, manic dancing and deathly stare were Ian Curtis, seemingly the only thing that moved on the stage he sh
ared with Bernard Albrecht/Sumner/Dicken (guitar), Peter Hook (bass) and Stephen Morris (drums). Hook and Albrecht flanked the bizarre death disco moves of Curtis, the first blasting out lead bass melodies from his wide legged Ramones like stance, the second prim and proper in his buttoned up shirt, firing off grey guitar lines from his Shergold, while the whirl of activity that was Morris coaxed electronic, pulsing soundscapes out of his array of percussion at the back of the stage.
This was an extraordinary act, an apparently cold and lifeless soundtrack that nevertheless bred enormous affection amongst those whom it touched.
Joy Division's debut album, 1979's Unknown Pleasures, designed by the band and Peter Saville, was defiantly obscure and non-populist, right from the stylish black and oddly textured sleeve, hiding the white inner sleeve, with just the one pictorial clue, a self consciously sinister photo of a dark hand closing a door in a deserted corridor. Was it a mental institution, or some unspeakable squat?
The sound of Unknown Pleasures was stark and empty and deserted, huge open spaces of sound, with the tinkle of breaking glass and the whoosh of lifts in the background, emphasising the bitter mood. Factory's house producer Martin Hannett manufactured the atmosphere and approach and set the scene for the songs which ushered in the New Gods -
Disorder
Day of the Lords
Candidate
Insight
New Dawn Fades
She's Lost Control
Shadowplay
Wilderness
Interzone
I Remember Nothing
The one word titles hinted at depth and importance and darkness and insanity, much as everything about Joy Division did and the songs themselves were certainly able to sustain those impressions and hints, the stage upon which Curtis and his army stalked, dropping their clues and notes, imploring us to follow. It was like some intense Passion Play, set in a grim 70's timescape
, with few moments of optimism or cheer, but resolutely assured and committed.
I LOVED THIS ALBUM....
A thousand words of over the top adoration and perspectiveless fawning will change nothing and convince no one whom they have not already touched, so I won't attempt to paint any more pictures of legend or mystery, instead I'll just point out that Joy Division tried something new, a very vulnerable and scary approach which won the hearts of many, but the contempt and disinterest of others. I know which side of the debate I will always be on and would only urge you to check out some of this marvellous band's material. You can get at samples of the tracks on this album at
http://cdnow.com/switch/from=sr-470763/target= buyweb_purchase/ddcn=SD-7599+258 40+2
Listen to She's Lost Control and Shadowplay, at the start of the second side of the LP and know what true rock brilliance sounds like, unyielding and hard, offering no solutions or sympathy, cold and calculating, yet somehow exceptionally uplifting and hopeful.
Ian Curtis was deeply affected and troubled and touched by madness and at times such loneliness shines through, but there are other moments here of rare emotion and gentle pleasure, truly meriting the legend, Unknown Pleasures.
Now, it's easy to go completely over the top about Joy Division and their works. Check out this particular quote from James Oldham of the New Musical Express: "The emotionaI impact of their music was shattering and irreversible, their records an icy collision of romance and alienation. Between 1977 and 1980, they recorded the two most affecting and influential albums of their generation - and on May 18, 1980 the lifetime of both the band and their lead singer Ian Curtis was tragically cut short by suicide, an appalling end to one of Britain's greatest groups. In the aftermath of punk, Joy Division invented a glacial new sound which dramatically co
nnected with a country lurching towards an unforgiving era of Thatcherism. A band capable of touching the outer reaches of human emotion, they were driven by the wired and spinning music created by Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook and Stephen Morris and the starkly personal, often depressive, lyrics of their troubled vocalist, Ian Curtis. Even today, their music and darkly powerful sentiments echo through the work of contemporary groups such as The Verve, Radiohead, Spiritualized and Primal Scream."
I know I'm sometimes as guilty of empty rantings as this, but in the case of JD much of the hype and over the top ravings are actually merited, for they were quite simply breathtaking at the top of their form.
You only have to listen to Unknown Pleasures with an open mind to GET IT - the bass dominated songs with Hook taking the lead role was different from almost everything else around at the time and oddly attractive, providing the room for the odd scratching of the guitar and the thrashing, melodic drums while Curtis told his strange stories of alienation, loneliness and despair, at the same time a huge turn off, but the biggest turn on imaginable.
New Dawn Fades-
Change of speed, a change of style
A change of scene, with no regrets
A chance to watch, admire the distance
Still occupied - though you forget
Different colours, different shades
Over each mistakes were made
I took the blame
Directionless, so plain to see
A loaded gun won't set you free
So you say
We'll share a drink and step outside
An angry voice and one who cried
We'll give you everything and more
The strain's too much, can't take much more
Oh I've walked on water, run through fire
Can't seem to feel it anymore
It was me - waiting for me
Hoping for something more
Me - see me in this time -
Hoping for something else
Disorder-
I've been
waiting for a guide to come
and take me by the hand
Could these sensations make me feel
the pleasures of a normal man
New sensations bear the innocence -
leave them for another day
I've go the spirit, lose the feeling
take the shock away
It's getting faster, moving faster now,
it's getting out of hand
On the tenth floor, down the backstairs
into no-man's land
Lights are flashing,
cars are crashing,
getting frequent now
I've got the spirit, lose the feeling, let it
out somehow
What means to you,
what means to me -
and we will meet again
I'm watching you, I watch it all
I take no pity from friends
Who is right and who can tell,
and who gives a damn right now
Until the spirit, new sensation
takes hold - then you know
I've got the spirit, but lose the feeling
Feeling
And feeling was truly what this album was all about - it's all too easy to dismiss it as the ravings of a morbid, manic depressive, but to do so would have been sadly missing the point. Curtis, in a way which he strangely never managed in his personal life, sang of confronting the hopelessness and emptiness and finding solutions. Joy Division were about solutions and hope and I loved them for it.
Joy Division were THE rock band of the 79-80 period, catapulting Tony Wilson's Factory Records into the international limelight. They gained a devoted, almost religious following with their eerie, chilling music and the live performances of the sometimes manic singer Ian Curtis. Unknown Pleasures is one of THE debuts of all time and put them up at the forefront of rock music.
Factory made the great leap of faith and, gambling that Joy Division were the group of the moment, spent all their profits plus Wilson's life savings to record the album. Martin Hannett's production made Steve Morris' drums a lead instrumen
t, and added eerie sound effects like the clanking of an old lift and the smashing of glass to Curtis' haunting vocals and Peter Hook's upfront basslines.
Factory called them 'the ultimate Eighties hard rock group'.
It was an astounding collection with too many highlights to mention and the album was just so awe inspiring that it operated at completely new levels. Nothing beats this album in my book - it is quite simply the greatest album of all time. Many find it too gloomy and grim, but emotion is a scary thing to contend with.
BUY THIS ALBUM.
Summary:
|
Last comment:
 |
majorb - 06/04/02 Yes, this is one album that simply does not date. They don't write 'em like that any more.
I loved them too. |
View all
7
comments
|
