Artist – Album: Joy Division – Unknown Pleasures
Released: 14th
June 1979
Sounds Like: That anti-Friday feeling
Well, it’s been a
long (looong) slog of a week, but it’s finally the weekend. A bit of a special
weekend at that, for I, Joseph Francis Douglas, celebrate my 25th
anniversary of birth on Sunday. It’s also Father’s Day on the 16th
so I get to spend some time in the pub with my Dad, and tomorrow some sort of loose
gathering will occur. Tonight I’m getting treated to a meal and drinks on the
Manchester’s world famous curry mile. It’s almost too much for my limited
vocabulary to express, and so I’ll leave it to the loquacious Rebecca Black to
describe exactly how it goes:
“Yesterday was Thursday, Thursday
Today i-is Friday, Friday (Partyin’)
We-we-we so excited
We so excited
We gonna have a ball today
Tomorrow is Saturday
And Sunday comes after...wards
I don’t want this weekend to end”
Today i-is Friday, Friday (Partyin’)
We-we-we so excited
We so excited
We gonna have a ball today
Tomorrow is Saturday
And Sunday comes after...wards
I don’t want this weekend to end”
If Miss Black is at one end of the respective spectrums of
excitement, talent and cool, Joy Division are way off on the distant opposite
pole. Not for them partyin’ partyin’; instead they serve up for today one of
the most melancholic and despairing albums of all time. The robotic percussion
and hypnotic bass is one thing, the sparseness of the production and the
ominous atmosphere another, but it’s Ian Curtis’ low moan and desperate, simple
lyrics that takes the group to another level of bleakness.
Now I know none of you are thinking that you’d rather listen
to “Friday” right now, but I feel I
may have to reassure you that it's good. Yes, it can be hard work, but
with songs like the post-punk disco of ‘Disorder’
and ‘She’s Lost Control’ or the
brittle and brooding ‘Shadowplay’ on
display, the album remains captivating and awesome. It’s well worth giving a
listen. Just maybe not on a Friday.
Albumaday... rating:
9/10
1. Disorder
– 3:32
2. Day
of the Lords – 4:49
3. Candidate
– 3:05
4. Insight
– 4:29
5. New
Dawn Fades – 4:47
6. She’s
Lost Control – 3:57
7. Shadowplay
– 3:55
8. Wilderness
– 2:38
9. Interzone
– 2:16
10. I
Remember Nothing – 5:53
Listen to ‘Disorder’:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PldpBJEn4vQ
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