Line #130 Music/UnknownPleasures


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/unknown_pleasures.png]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:''"Tears of sadness for you. More upheaval for you. Reflects a moment in time, a special moment in time."'']]
3
4	->''"This is the car at the edge of the road,\
5	There's nothing disturbed, all the windows are closed,\
6	I guess you were right, when we talked in the heat,\
7	There's no room for the weak, no room for the weak.''\
8
9	->''Where will it end? Where will it end?\
10	Where will it end? Where will it end?"''
11	-->-- "'''Day of the Lords'''"
12
13	''Unknown Pleasures'' is the debut studio album by English PostPunk group Music/JoyDivision, released in 1979 as the very first album from Creator/FactoryRecords. It would be the only full musical album that frontman Ian Curtis lived to see released, as he took his own life in 1980; a posthumous album, ''Music/{{Closer}}'', was released two months after his suicide.
14
15	At the time of the album's release, the band had already instigated a shift from their origins as a standard Music/SexPistols-inspired PunkRock band, with Factory's mad producer Martin Hannett introducing a number of processing effects that turned what were once ThreeChordsAndTheTruth songs into sparser, more haunting dirges and shrieks of anguish. ''Unknown Pleasures'', by comparison, marked the point where these techniques first started to truly become a major artistic force in the British music landscape, leading the album to be regarded as a seminal release in the British side of the post-punk movement. Most other acts in the scene owe a great deal of their own sound and style to this album, and ''Closer'' would only further up the ante one year later.
16
17	While the album failed to chart on initial release in the U.K. Official Albums Chart, it peaked at No. 2 on the U.K. indie chart when it was first published in January 1980. Later, the album peaked at No. 71 on the standard U.K. Albums chart when it was reissued following Ian Curtis' suicide, as well as [[PosthumousPopularityPotential topping the indie chart]] at the same time. The album completely missed the Billboard album chart when it was belatedly released stateside in October 1980.
18
19	Breaking tradition with the industry standard, no singles were released to support ''Unknown Pleasures''. A re-recording of "She's Lost Control" ''was'' included as a B-side to a posthumous reissue of the non-album single "Atmosphere", but that's about it. This would set a precedent that would carry over into the early output of Music/NewOrder as well, with the Curtis-less incarnation of the Manchester quartet not putting out any album singles until ''Music/LowLife'' in 1985.
20	----
21
22	!! Tracklist:
23	!!!Original 1979 LP:
24	[[AC:Outside]]
25
26	# "Disorder" (3:32)
27	# "Day of the Lords" (4:49)
28	# "Candidate" (3:05)
29	# "Insight" (4:29)
30	# "New Dawn Fades" (4:47)
31
32	[[AC:Inside]]
33
34	# "She's Lost Control" (3:57)
35	# "Shadowplay" (3:55)
36	# "Wilderness" (2:38)
37	# "Interzone" (2:16)
38	# "I Remember Nothing" (5:53)
39
40	!!!Bonus Disc: ''The Factory, Manchester Live 13 July 1979'' (included with the 2007 remaster):
41
42	# "Dead Souls" (4:25)
43	# "The Only Mistake" (4:12)
44	# "Insight" (3:52)
45	# "Candidate" (2:07)
46	# "Wilderness" (2:32)
47	# "She's Lost Control" (3:47)
48	# "Shadowplay" (3:34)
49	# "Disorder" (3:28)
50	# "Interzone" (2:05)
51	# "Atrocity Exhibition" (6:14)
52	# "Novelty" (4:28)
53	# "Transmission" (3:49)
54	----
55
56	!! Principal Members:
57
58	* Ian Curtis - lead vocals
59	* [[Music/NewOrder Peter Hook]] - bass, backing and lead vocals
60	* [[Music/NewOrder Stephen Morris]] - drums, percussion
61	* [[Music/NewOrder Bernard Sumner]] - guitar, keyboard
62	----
63
64	!! ''I've been waiting for a trope to come and take me by the hand'':
65	* AccentuateTheNegative: The album is depressing throughout.
66	* AllForNothing: "Candidate":
67	--> ''I campaigned for nothing, I worked hard for this''
68	* AlternateAlbumCover: The 40th anniversary reissue inverts the color scheme of the entire album packaging, such that what once was black is now white, and vice-versa.
69	* AwfulWeddedLife: "Candidate":
70	--> ''I tried to get to you''
71	--> ''You treat me like this''
72	* TheBadGuyWins: "Day of the Lords":
73	--> ''There's no room for the weak''
74	* ContinuityNod: "Leave Me Alone" from Music/NewOrder's ''Music/PowerCorruptionAndLies'' (1983) uses the same chord progression (on bass, at least) as "Shadowplay", albeit in a different key and slowed down a little.
75	* CrapsackWorld: It's a Joy Division album, after all.
76	* DeliberatelyMonochrome: The cover art, which suits the album's somber mood.
77	* DenOfIniquity: "Day of the Lords":
78	--> ''This is the room, the start of it all''
79	--> ''No portrait so fine, only sheets on the wall''
80	--> ''I've seen the nights, filled with blood-sport and pain''
81	--> ''And the bodies obtained, the bodies obtained.''
82	* DesignStudentsOrgasm: Peter Saville's TextlessAlbumCover, which is based on an image of radio waves from pulsar CP 1919.
83	* DespairEventHorizon: Most songs would apply, most strikingly in "New Dawn Fades" where Curtis sings he's not afraid anymore to make an end to his life.
84	* DesperatelyLookingForAPurposeInLife: "Disorder":
85	--> ''I've been waiting for a guide to come and take me by the hand,''
86	--> ''Could these sensations make me feel the pleasures of a normal man?''
87	* DownerEnding: Not that the album is particularly upbeat anyway, but "I Remember Nothing" manages to be this, being a lengthy synth dirge about the distance Curtis felt from his acquaintances.
88	* DrivenToSuicide: A theme of the album, which in hindsight feels eerily prescient in the wake of Curtis' death the year after this album's release.
89	* EchoingAcoustics: Martin Hannett's production used a lot of reverb, courtesy of then-new digital delay. Hannett, however, set the circuit to the ''lowest'' possible time, foregoing the traditional "chamber" effect associated with this trope in favor of a ghostly warble.
90	* EmptyShell: Induced by feelings of depression. Particularly prominent in "New Dawn Fades":
91	--> ''It was me, waiting for me, hoping for something more,''
92	--> ''Me, seeing me this time, hoping for something else''
93	* EverythingIsAnInstrument: According to the liner notes of the 2007 Collector's Edition, Martin Hannett incorporated processed samples of bottles smashing, backwards guitar, a Leslie speaker playing inside the studio building's elevator, and even a person eating crisps into the album.
94	* GothRock: A cornerstone of PostPunk that influenced the genre.
95	* HumansAreBastards: "Wilderness" revolves around a man who travels the world and constantly encounters depraved groups of people who act on their most hateful instincts, celebrating "the power and glory of sin" to the point where the narrator compares them to Jesus' crucifiers.
96	* IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming: The two sides of the LP and cassette versions are labeled "Outside" and "Inside".
97	* InnocentBystander: The protagonist in "Shadowplay" notes how he "could only stare in disbelief" throughout the song's events; he ultimately calls the "innocent" part into question out of guilt.
98	* LettingTheAirOutOfTheBand: The end of "Candidate".
99	* LiteraryAllusionTitle: "Interzone" is named after a location in Creator/WilliamSBurroughs' ''Literature/NakedLunch''.
100	* LongestSongGoesLast: "I Remember Nothing", which is nearly six minutes long.
101	* AMindIsATerribleThingToRead: Assuming that the lyrics reflect Ian's thoughts.
102	* MindScrew: "She's Lost Control":
103	--> ''And walked upon the edge of no escape''
104	--> ''And laughed I've lost control''
105	--> ''She's lost control again''
106	* MinimalisticCoverArt: Just an image of radio waves on a black background.
107	* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: "Shadowplay":
108	--> ''I did everything, everything I wanted to''
109	--> ''I let them use you for their own ends''
110	* NonIndicativeName: This gloomy album isn't about "unknown pleasures" at all. Or, in a bit of FridgeBrilliance, it is, since those feelings are "unknown".
111	* PostPunk: Frequently considered the TropeCodifier for the British side of the movement, with its forebodingly cavernous sound and brooding lyrics being imitated by a large number of acts in the years after its release.
112	* RealLifeWritesThePlot: "She's Lost Control" was inspired by a woman with UsefulNotes/{{epilepsy}} at Ian's day job attempting to find employment for her, as well as Ian's own experiences with epilepsy. When the woman stopped showing up, he called her home to find she'd died after a seizure, resulting in him spending the rest of his life paranoid about dying the same way (to the point where his wife had to monitor him whenever he went to bed to make sure he wouldn't have a seizure in his sleep).
113	* ReligionIsWrong: "Wilderness" lambasts atrocities committed in the name of Christ:
114	--> ''I saw all knowledge destroyed''
115	--> ''(...) The blood of Christ on their skins''
116	* SelfBackingVocalist: "I Remember Nothing" has Ian backing himself via overdub.
117	* ShoutOut: Peter Saville's cover took some design cues from Music/PinkFloyd's ''Music/TheDarkSideOfTheMoon'', with a simple, abstract design based on a scientific image against a black background.
118	* StepUpToTheMicrophone: Peter Hook sings lead on "Interzone", although Ian Curtis does the background vocal.
119	* SuicideIsPainless: "Insight":
120	--> ''And all God's angels beware''
121	--> ''And all you judges beware''
122	--> ''Sons of chance, take good care''
123	--> ''For all the people not there''
124	--> ''I'm not afraid anymore''
125	--> ''I'm not afraid anymore''
126	--> ''I'm not afraid anymore''
127	--> ''Oh, I'm not afraid anymore''
128	* TearsOfRemorse: "Shadowplay", where Curtis feels guilty of letting the assassins "use you for their own ends".
129	* TimeTravel: "Wilderness", in which Curtis sings as if he's an ancient traveler who saw nothing but mankind's misery and despair around him.
130	%%* WithFriendsLikeThese: "I Remember Nothing".
131	%%* WretchedHive: The lyrics paint the image of one.
132	* YouCannotKillAnIdea: Inverted in "Wilderness", in which the narrator recounts how he "saw all knowledge destroyed."
133	* TheXOfY: "Day of the Lords".

Context Music / UnknownPleasures