Unknown Pleasures

Joy Division

album cover

An Early Antithesis of Punk

When the musicians of Joy Division first met in 1977, at a Sex Pistols show in Manchester, punk was everything cool, the prevailing expression of disaffected youth. Two years later, singer Ian Curtis (1956–1980) and his three musicians presented this astonishing counterargument, which amounts to the beginnings of a new rock and roll language.

Joy Division seized the blunt expressions and me-first narcissism of punk, then filtered them through restrained, and at times elegant, melodies. Its tunes build from pulsating war-drum tom-toms, and share grim narratives that describe deep and inescapable existential quagmires. Most punk productions are a poke in the eye with a sharp stick; Joy Division hovers in a predatory stance, the menacing stalker in the background.

Curtis's baritone emerges out of the blanket of fog, spreading dread before he even gets started on his tales of urban isolation and romantic betrayal. Like Jim Morrison and very few other rock singers, Curtis—who hanged himself shortly before the release of Joy Division's second and final album, Closer—commands the spotlight with just his presence, his weighed-down tone. The musicians and producer Martin Hannett seize on this, and through skillful use of reverb and other soundshaping effects position that foreboding voice at the center of music that broods and oozes, yet remains several sizes larger than life.

The thick and at times impenetrable wash of sound wasn't exactly a huge hit right away. But it resonated with an extraordinary number of musicians who became rock stars in the '80s and '90s, among them the Smiths, U2, the Cure, Depeche Mode, and Nine Inch Nails. Just about any rock that carries more than a veneer of darkness owes some debt to Joy Division and this still-surprising album, which makes despair and other dire emotional straits seem frighteningly alluring.

Genre: Rock
Released: 1979, Factory
Key Tracks: "Disorder," "She's Lost Control," "New Dawn Fades," "I Remember Nothing."
Catalog Choice: Closer
Next Stop: Bauhaus: Mask
After That: Echo and the Bunnymen: Heaven Up Here
Book Page: 414