All the hoo-ha in the "hip" media this week about the 40th anniversary of Unknown Pleasures, the debut album by Joy Division released this week in 1979, has paid dividends, it seems - for the first time since its release, it looks like the album is headed for the Top Ten in the UK.
This news just makes me wonder... if everybody's coming out of the woodwork to tell the press about how "brilliant", "seminal", "influential", [insert hyperbole here] it was, why did nobody buy a copy first time around?! On its release, it failed to chart in the UK and on its re-release after the death of lead singer Ian Curtis in August 1980 only peaked at the not-very-impressive Number 71 slot. Its successor LP Closer [a copy of which is in my vinyl collection at Dolores Delargo Towers] did much better...
Whatever, it gives me a perfect excuse (if any were needed) to play two of my favourite Joy Division tracks:
Oh, teenage angst - I remember it well. Where did those decades go? And where's my long black trench-coat?!
Unknown Pleasures on Wikipedia
Love his voice, imagine him during puberty! Terrifying.
ReplyDeleteHe wasn't that far off it when he killed himself (he was 23). Apparently he suffered from epilepsy, and the band believe that he danced frenetically on stage to mimic his fits... Jx
DeleteThis is more evidence I lived my 20s in a parallel universe, one where Joy Division and the New Order were huge news to me and my friends. Huge. And then only years later discovered the rest of the world was, at best, only vaguely aware of them. Ay.
ReplyDeleteThere was Molly Ringwald, Judd Nelson, Emilo Estevez, Ally Sheedy... and you. Jx
DeleteI'm more familiar with Love Will Tear Us Apart, but never really got into Joy Division - I had friends who were though. I kind of recall them being more popular after the death of Ian Curtis.
ReplyDeleteI do like New Order though!
You couldn't go wrong in a black trench coat!
Sx
Untimely deaths tend to do that for pop music - who would really pay attention to Nirvana these days if it weren't for Mr Cobain's shotgun? Jim Morrison is worshipped as a demi-god, but had he lived he'd probably be another Ozzy Osbourne. Jx
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