By Adam Payne-Reichert
As an admitted music snob and an alleged hipster, there are certain things I avoid doing to ensure that I don’t advertise those tendencies too flamboyantly. There is no denying that I’ve tipped my hand a bit by hanging up a The Velvet Underground and Nico poster in my room, but when you’re low on cash and rich in blank wall space, a poster as frequently printed and as cheaply sold as that is at least a defensible decision.
However, in an attempt not to play into the stereotype too much, I’ve avoided a different purchase: anything branded with the Unknown Pleasures album art. So if you’re wondering, as I was, what the story is behind those weird wavy lines set against a black background, you’ve come to the right place.
Unknown Pleasures, the debut album from short-lived English rock band Joy Division, has been referred to as one of the most influential post-punk records of all time, and with good reason. The album borrows ideas from punk rock, such as its energy and its willingness to reduce a song to its bare essentials. Unknown Pleasures experiments with these ideas in a variety of interesting ways.
Take, for example, the album’s production. Throughout most of the album, there are gigantic amounts of sonic space dividing one set of notes from another. Instrument separation is far from the only studio track that the album’s producer, Martin Hannett, used to invoke a sense of an expansive atmosphere.
Sound effects such as breaking glass, the flush of a toilet and what sounds like an electric zap are modified and deployed at key points in a number of the songs to add to the foreboding energy that characterizes Unknown Pleasures’ sound.
Hannett also layered effects onto the instruments, allowing the guitar riff in “Day of the Lords” to originate in the left channel and then bleed throughout the entire mix. Further, the song “Insight” is sung through a telephone line in order to achieve a sense of distance and isolation.
In addition to inspiring and influencing a huge number of post-punk albums to follow, these production tricks serve the album by helping to create a dark backdrop against which Ian Curtis, the group’s singer, can deliver his gloomy lyrics.
Curtis was intensely affected by a variety of mental and somatic ailments, including depression and epileptic seizures. The dissatisfaction with his quality of life can be felt throughout Curtis’ vocal performance and lyrical content.
On “Disorder,” he laments poetically and tragically that he’s “got the spirit” but “lose[s] the feeling”; in “She’s Lost Control,” Curtis describes a fellow epilepsy victim who “turned around and took [him] by the hand and said/‘I’ve lost control again.’” On “Day of the Lords,” he asks simply, “Where will it end? Where will it end?”
Curtis’ vocal performance throughout is also emotionally moving and inspired, creepily whispering at points and shouting at other times in near unhinged anger and frustration. Granted, these dark themes are what may repel some listeners, but Curtis’ lyrics may also prove deeply relatable to some.
I personally struggled with this album for a while and understood that there was something in it that I just wasn’t getting. However, when I listened to it during a particularly anxious period, something immediately clicked.
This is not to say that one must be suffering from some mental condition in order to “understand” or to “truly appreciate” the album. There is something here for most people, even if that something is just the danceable yet still dour opening track “Disorder.”
If you decide to explore past that track, I would recommend “Wilderness” and “Interzone” as good next steps. For anyone who is still hooked at that point, I would recommend that you give the entire album a listen.
Every track has something unique to offer, and listening through the whole 40 or so minutes of Unknown Pleasures will give you a much better sense of the thematic continuity of its melodies and the lyrics.
