Joy Division - 1979 - Unknown Pleasures

It even looks like something classic, beyond its time or place of origin even as it was a clear product of both — one of Peter Saville's earliest and best designs, a transcription of a signal showing a star going nova, on a black embossed sleeve. If that were all Unknown Pleasures was, it wouldn't be discussed so much, but the ten songs inside, quite simply, are stone-cold landmarks, the whole album a monument to passion, energy, and cathartic despair. The quantum leap from the earliest thrashy singles to Unknown Pleasures can be heard through every note, with Martin Hannett's deservedly famous production — emphasizing space in the most revelatory way since the dawn of dub — as much a hallmark as the music itself. Songs fade in behind furtive noises of motion and activity, glass breaks with the force and clarity of doom, minimal keyboard lines add to an air of looming disaster — something, somehow, seems to wait or lurk beyond the edge of hearing. But even though this is Hannett's album as much as anyone's, the songs and performances are the true key. Bernard Sumner redefined heavy metal sludge as chilling feedback fear and explosive energy, Peter Hook's instantly recognizable bass work at once warm and forbidding, Stephen Morris' drumming smacking through the speakers above all else. Ian Curtis synthesizes and purifies every last impulse, his voice shot through with the desire first and foremost to connect, only connect — as "Candidate" plaintively states, "I tried to get to you/You treat me like this." Pick any song: the nervous death dance of "She's Lost Control"; the harrowing call for release "New Dawn Fades," all four members in perfect sync; the romance in hell of "Shadowplay"; "Insight" and its nervous drive toward some sort of apocalypse. All visceral, all emotional, all theatrical, all perfect — one of the best albums ever.

		1		Disorder	Curtis, Hook, Morris, Sumner	3:36
		2		Day of the Lords	Curtis, Hook, Morris, Sumner	4:43
		3		Candidate	Curtis, Hook, Morris, Sumner	3:00
		4		Insight	Curtis, Hook, Morris, Sumner	4:00
		5		New Dawn Fades	Curtis, Hook, Morris, Sumner	4:47
		6		She's Lost Control	Curtis, Hook, Morris, Sumner	3:40
		7		Shadowplay	Curtis, Hook, Morris, Sumner	3:50
		8		Wilderness	Curtis, Hook, Morris, Sumner	2:35
		9		Interzone	Curtis, Hook, Morris, Sumner	2:10
		10		I Remember Nothing	Curtis, Hook, Morris, Sumner	6:00

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Joy Division - 2000 - The Complete BBC Recordings

When Ian Curtis committed suicide by hanging himself in the kitchen of his ex-wife's home in 1980, he left behind a masterfully talented band and only two legitimate studio albums (if one ignores the aborted first attempt "ruined" by an overzealous engineer and some synthesizers). As with other influential acts, the subsequent years have been filled with releases of miscellaneous records, bootlegs, posthumous videos, and other collections. Two recorded performances of note were Joy Division's appearances on the John Peel show in January and November of 1979. These sessions were issued later as two four-song EPs on the Strange Fruit label. In 2000, the BBC released several of its recordings to the Fuel 2000 label, including everything on tape by Joy Division; hence the name of this collection -- The Complete BBC Recordings. Both Peel Sessions EPs are here, as well as two songs performed live on the Something Else television show on September 1, 1979. The Something Else recording is significant -- it is some of the band's most heavily bootlegged material, featuring Curtis in the last year of his life performing in full spazzed-out, epileptic glory. A three-minute interview of Curtis and Stephen Morris with Richard Skinner on BBC Radio 1 is also included, providing a valuable look at the human side of one-half of the band. Surprisingly enough, Curtis and Morris come across as quite cheerful fellows, despite the dark songs they produced. Jokes are even cracked about Gary Numan's then-recent comments about "machine rock" being the wave of the future, and Joy Division's shrugging off of that title. Of course, after Curtis' death, the remaining bandmembers formed New Order, a group known for its synthesizer-laden dance-pop sound. Funny how that turned out. The recorded performances themselves are of exceptional quality, and the two extra songs help dispel the myth that Joy Division wasn't particularly good in a live setting. The second versions of "Transmission" and "She's Lost Control" even take on a much more aggressive quality than what was originally put to tape. The production of the drums alone reveals a difference from Martin Hannett's methods; instead of the cold beating of the studio albums, a thicker, slightly more distorted impact exists. Curtis' vocals alternate between the "very bored Brit" style that Stephin Merritt would later perfect, and a style much more feisty and energetic than Curtis had been known for. The Complete BBC Recordings is a fine collection of Joy Division's broadcast performances, especially for the band's fans who do not want to hunt down the Strange Fruit releases. [Also available as a United Kingdom import.]

		1		Exercise One	Curtis, Hook, Morris, Sumner	2:32
		2		Insight	Curtis, Hook, Morris, Sumner	3:53
		3		She's Lost Control	Curtis, Hook, Morris, Sumner	4:11
		4		Transmission	Curtis, Hook, Morris, Sumner	3:58
		5		Love Will Tear Us Apart	Curtis, Hook, Morris, Sumner	3:25
		6		24 Hours	Curtis, Hook, Morris, Sumner	4:10
		7		Colony	Curtis, Hook, Morris, Sumner	4:05
		8		Sound of Music	Curtis, Hook, Morris, Sumner	4:27
		9		Transmission	Curtis, Hook, Morris, Sumner	3:18
		10		She's Lost Control	Curtis, Hook, Morris, Sumner	3:44
		11		Ian Curtis & Stephen Morris Interviewed by Richard Skinner		3:32

¡Aquí!