Unknown Pleasures

by Joy Division

Unknown Pleasures cover art
  • Type: Album
  • Released: 15 June 1979
  • Label: Factory
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Length: 39:23
  • Community rating: 4.36/5 from 180 ratings

Artists on this release: Peter Hook, Stephen Morris, Ian Curtis, Bernard Sumner

Album Notes & Community Reviews

On 'Unknown Pleasures', producer Martin Hannett's revolutionary and unconventional studio techniques transformed Joy Division's raw, aggressive live sound into a desolate and spacious sonic landscape, establishing a new template for post-punk. Peter Hook's high-register melodic bass lines, Bernard Sumner's sharp guitar riffs, and Stephen Morris's metronomic drumming are framed within this cavernous atmosphere, anchored by Ian Curtis's detached baritone vocals and their haunting lyrical explorations of isolation, despair, and control.

Genres

Descriptors: bleak, minimal, atmospheric, bassy, lo-fi, repetitive

Tracklist

  1. Disorder (3:32)
  2. Day of the Lords (4:49)
  3. Candidate (3:05)
  4. Insight (4:28)
  5. New Dawn Fades (4:48)
  6. She's Lost Control (3:57)
  7. Shadowplay (3:55)
  8. Wilderness (2:38)
  9. Interzone (2:16)
  10. I Remember Nothing (5:55)

Credits

  • Bernard Sumner - guitar, keyboards
  • Peter Hook - bass guitar, vocals
  • Ian Curtis - vocals
  • Stephen Morris - drums, percussion
  • Martin Hannett - producer
  • Peter Saville - sleeve design
  • Chris Nagle - engineer
  • Ralph Gibson - photography
  • Rob Gretton - smashing bottles

More from Joy Division: full discography