Track Listing

Disc 1:

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

Disc 2:

1. Dead Souls
2. Only Mistake
3. Insight
4. Candidate
5. Wilderness
6. She's Lost Control
7. Shadowplay
8. Disorder
9. Interzone
10. Atrocity Exhibition
11. Novelty
12. Transmission

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7079 in Music
• Released on: 2007-09-17
• Number of discs: 2
• Format: Original recording remastered

CD Description
Remastered and expanded version of Mancunian post-punks JoyDivision's debut album. A dark, spacey record that sounds as fresh today as it did when it was released in 1979, this album is a touchstone for bands such as Editors, Interpol andcountless other guitar acts drawn to the bleak sounds and mesmerising lyrics. Includes the tracks 'She's Lost Control','Shadowplay' and 'New Dawn Fades', as well as a bonus disc featuring a live set from the legendary Factory venue.

Customer Reviews

Not really unreleased material
BEWARE! If you already own the Heart and Soul box set, then you already own all but 2 of the tracks on this 2 CD set, since Unknown Pleasures is included in its entirety on the box set, and the first 10 tracks on Disc 4 are 10 of the 12 tracks on the bonus live CD. The 2 tracks not on the box set are Shadowplay (in fact previously unreleased from this gig), and Transmission, previously available on the 1988 Atmosphere CD single and on one of the 1995 Love Will Tear Us Apart CD singles. Still a good gig. Actual date and location were The Factory, Hulme, Manchester, July 13, 1979.

You should already own this... if you don't, you can't get a better package than this reissue
The Joy Division catalogue is fast becoming a minefield. For a band that kept a stringent, straightforward release schedule during it's short life, the two albums and five singles have been endlessly milked to become three albums, six official live records, two Radio Session releases, an exhaustive box set, and two 'best of' compilations. With these latest re-releases, I become owner of these albums for the fourth time. (On top of this, the best Joy Division concert recording from Amsterdam, the first album recorded for RCA in 1978, as well as the official live films, remain frustratingly unavailable officially).

Make no mistake though. If ownership of music was commensurate to it's brilliance, then I'd have these records twenty times over. In one respect, you should see these reissues as a continuation of the handful of short-run, poorly selling Joy Division live albums issued in the late Nineties. The bonus discs that come with these packages, containing full recordings from the miniscule Joy Division concert archive, are welcome additions to the canon. Given the limitations of time, technology, and cashflow from a penniless Manchester band struggling on an indie label and regularly playing shows to a few hundred people without anything approaching a big hit, it's some wonder that anything remains in a usable form. As Peter Hook once said, they couldn't even record rehearsals and thus, the songs only existed at the time those four people were in the same room together. So little remains, and yet, so much.

Of the three albums, "Unknown Pleasures" is the icy cold sound of a frozen, sterile Manchester : a fierce contrast to the live sound showcased on the second disc, "Unknown Pleasures" is and was an utterly alien experience. At the time, the brief aftermath of punk was raging against everything and anything in a display of full-on inarticulate aggression - Joy Division were the first truly post-punk band, moving from this rage to a state of ambition and aspiration - not just to rage but also to seek a way out. The LP is a short, harsh, alienated essay on then-modern life : under the age of vinyl LP's, records were often just 36 minutes long, and "Unknown Pleasures" holds no flab or filler. Every song is a concise, but unhurried experience, and the rarified, dry, near academic atmosphere created by Martin Hannett shows clearly that Joy Division were, in the studio at least, Hannett's creation. Nowhere is this more noticable than in the sets accompanying concert CD, which shows Joy Division for the rough'n'ready rock act that they were - all rough edges, sharp corners, abrasive guitars, pounding drums of controlled, primed release, and Peter Hook's distinctive, unique bass melodies. The whole package is mastered over by Ian Curtis' troubled, but vital vocals : the language of rock has rarely been so rich. Most people add words to songs. Curtis added poetry, and used his words as an extra instrument instead of an afterthought - adding to the dense soundscape an intense and complex lyrical world with compelling vocals. This is not just musak : you can't just listen to this stuff whilst doing the washing up or shopping. This isn't music to be heard, but music to be listened to with intent.

Thankfully, disc 1 - the studio album - has been unencumbered with the addition of unnecessary, ugly extra tracks : the album is a complete statement in and of itself. The live disc is (mostly) a repackage of material from 1997's "Heart And Soul" box set, capturing a rough recording of the group performing at Manchester's Factory : an abrasive rock band powering loosely through, and extrapolating from, the bulk of their then new LP with a theraputic aggression. If you don't have "Heart And Soul", this isn't a bad purchase (and good value at the price), but is strictly rather unnecessary.

An upbeat Joy Division
It's not very often I can say that I was there at the beginning, but it was certainly the case with Joy Division. I bought Unknown Pleasures shortly after its release, on the advice of a friend and was immediately hooked, and I remember well how devastated I felt when John Peel announced on radio 1 in May 1980 that Curtis was dead.

This is the Joy Division album in my opinion. The second and last album, Closer, is a lot darker, and almost a suicide note. It seems to me that Ian Curtis knew that there would be no third album, and Closer, whilst undeniably a great album and worthy of five stars itself, is weighed down by depression.

Unknown Pleasures is the sound of a band trying to make it, looking to the future, at the start of their careers, and is about as upbeat as Joy Division could be. The album starts with the manic, classic drum beat of "Disorder", and then Curtis's vocals "I've been waiting for a guide to come and take me by the hand". For nearly 30 years I thought he sang guy NOT guide, until at last the penny dropped when I bought this CD.

"Disorder" comes crashing to a halt, but before you've had time to draw breath, the ominous bass of "Day of the Lords" begins. No longer manic, this is dark and considered "This is the room, the start of it all, no portrait so fine, only sheets on the wall.......Where will it end? Where will it end?". By the time "Day of the Lords" ends, you know you're listening to a special album.

But for all this great start, complimented well by songs 3 & 4, "Candidate" and "Insight", it is the middle part of the album which makes it so great in my opinion. After all that has proceeded it, "New Dawn Fades", the final track on the original "Outside", begins almost like a gentle pop song in comparison, but don't let this deceive you. It's the start of a remarkable group of songs that transform the album from great to classic status. "A change of speed, a change of style, a change of scene with no regrets.", it is indeed, and it builds to mighty climax "We'll give you everything and more, the strain's too much, can't take much more!".

The original "Inside" opens with "She's Lost Control", Curtis sings "Confusion in her eyes says it all, She's Lost Control, And she's clinging to the nearest passer by, She's Lost Control". In contrast, Joy Division are now in complete control, and by now you're wondering why you never see the album in the Top 20 greatest ever albums. And just when you thought it couldn't get any better, it does. The tempting, ominous symbols which open "Shadowplay" are not a false dawn and are not misjudged, as the guitars kick in and one of the greatest and most under estimated rock songs ever is suddenly blasting out of your speakers. "In the Shadowplay acting out your own death, knowing no more". The drums keep thumping and the guitars keep rocking.

If anything the pace now increases, with two more great rockers, "Wilderness" and "Interzone", before "Unknown Pleasures" grinds to a halt with "I Remember Nothing".

There's only really two Joy Division albums to own, "Unknown Pleasures" and "Closer". You need both in your collection, but this is the first to buy.

Disk 2 is a live performance, and is worth listening to, because it's Joy Division as they were "live", a raw, exciting punk rock group. It's not great quality, but then it's just like being at a gig. "Atrocity Exhibition" stands out on this disk, which later appeared on "Closer".