Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures (Thirty Three and a Third series)

Chris Ott has produced a document that is, disappointingly, guilty of exactly the same dreary fetishism of Ian Curtis that Ott allegedly sets out to avoid. We get the same hyperbolic ex post facto over-analysis of each and every word of every song lyric the chap ever wrote as if his tragic end were there for all to see if only we had been smart enough to understand his lyrics 12, 18, 24 or even 30 months before his suicide. Ott in his own words says of Curtis that his "every word seems to have layered meanings entwining personal struggles - his disease, ensuing success, possible failure and the ultimate futility of either - with more universal pleas for honesty and conviction." In Ott's mind, Curtis was some kind of John Keats/Byronic hero of the punk generation, a dark, brooding poetic genius who blurred the line between life and art. And since Ott lacks the musical vocabulary to actually speak to the creation and recording of the album itself, he spends most of the book building up the chronological narrative of his mythical Ian Curtis-as-suffering-poet. This attitude is the reason why I have always liked Joy Division but always found their fans so unpleasant.Ott actually takes a very long time to get to the actual discussion of the Unknown Pleasures album, spending the first two chapters building up a long winded, dull narrative of the pre-history of Joy Division, chasing down subtle nuances like trying to pin down the exact date when they changed their name from Warsaw to Joy Division or whether Ian Curtis was always epileptic or his tendency to abuse pharmaceuticals as a teenager brought about his epilespy.When Ott eventually gets to discussing the recording of the Unknown Pleasures album in Chapter 3, it is strangely to grind an ax with Martin Hannett. While I understand that Martin Hannett was a self-destructive, abrasive person who eventually was consumed by the drug-fueled excesses of the Factory Records Manchester music scene in the 1980s and that New Order eventually grew tired of working with him when they had learned enough about music production (and had earned enough autonomy with the Factory Records "management") and set out to produce their own work after the "Movement" album. But Ott becomes a bit of a champion of the historical revisionism that Bernard Sumner and Peter Hook would in recent years engage in, understating or downplaying the positive significance of Martin Hannett's production work, while emphasizing the damage he did (allegedly) to the Joy Division sound. I admit that I came to this book with a different point of view for two reasons: (1) I have long held Unknown Pleasures in the highest regard because, like Bauhaus' studio work with Bela Lugosi's Dead at the same time, it marked a very meaningful step forward in the evolution of British music from punk rock to the darker sounds that characterised the early 1980s (at a time when Robert Smith was still playing with "Boys Don't Cry" and "Killing an Arab") and (2) influenced by Twenty Four Hour Party People I gave Martin Hannett a lot of the credit for taking Joy Division and moving them away from the three chord punk sound that every band in England was playing at the time toward something more unique and remarkable.Instead, what Ott has offered is a description of Hannett as effectively "ruining" the Joy Division sound by taking away from the band their autonomy as creative artists and forcing them to sound like something they didn't want to be. Ott then spends an extraordinary amount of time analyzing and comparing - in purely untechnical, subjective terms - album versions of songs to their random, stray demo or alternative recordings that have been gathered, catalogued and made available over the years in order to show how much "harder" or edgier the non-album versions sound. In Ott's words, for example, Hannett turned Sumner's "fuller live" guitar playing into an "echoing squeal" on the album. In Ott's value-laden vocabulary, the bass and guitar are "relegated" to minor positions on the mixing board, and Sumner's and Hook's contributions are "hugely diminished on the record" compared to the Peel Sessions versions of some songs. The narrative is heavy with quotes from either Bernard Sumner or Peter Hook supporting this revised "history" of the recording. There are a couple of things wrong with this: (a) a quote from Bernard Sumner is offered up about how Martin Hannett was being paid to force the band to do things and sound in a way that the band did not want to sound (when in reality it was Tony Wilson and the Factory management team that was paying for Hannett and the entire studio recording costs, not the band members) (b) the public reception of the final product speaks for itself. Martin Hannett's production work on Unkown Pleasures was and still is a "hit" - the album still sounds fresh, interesting, and unique not because of Ian Curtis' frequently flat and off-key singing or Bernard Sumner's still amateur and unoriginal guitar playing, but because of the surprising, unexpected and original post-production sound. I am part of the camp that thinks that the people who hired Hannett, and who paid his fees, and let him do his work, had faith in the vision he was pursuing and that the end product was a success.Overall, Ott's vocabulary and topical preferences make it clear that he is more comfortable discussing lyrics than either musical composition or sound recording techniques. As a result, he short changes any discussion of musical composition or playing technique - often just glossing over the discussion in vague subjective platitudes like references to Hooks unique "liquid, high octave bass" playing style or Sumner's "huge, deafening" guitar playing - and then spends paragraphs and paragraphs quoting and picking part Ian Curtis' lyrics.In conclusion - it may be true that Hannett's behavior with the young band members was a bit autocratic - but this shouldn't translate into a journalists' picking sides or downplaying the end result work product.By Chapter 4, the discussion of Hannett and the recording of the album is over, and the Ian Curtis adulation is back in full force. Chapter 4 apparently describes the commercial impact of the Unkown Pleasures album and the band's touring to support it, all the while talking ad nauseum about Curtis, his psychological state on a month-by-month basis, his marital problems, his work writing the lyrics to the songs on the Closer album, culminating in Curtis' divorce and suicide.The final Chapter, Chapter 5, is a quick whirlwind tour of Curtis' "poetry" (a term Ott uses 11 times to describe Curtis' lyrics in this book) on the Closer album, with minimal - almost no - discussion of the song composition or studio recording of the Closer album itself.So there you have it - if you want a 5 chapter Ian Curtis adulation-fest, this book is for you. Otherwise, if you want to actually know about the recording of the album, it is covered in Chapter 3 (and only in Chapter 3) in a very biased, anti-Martin Hannett accounting of things.

I'm starting to get the hang of the books in this series: there is no formula. I like that. And that said, I like this entry, but not as much as I wish I did.I confess that of their two albums proper, I prefer  Closer (Reis) (Exp) , which is less studio-gimmicky and, well, more depressing in its tone and atmosphere (and Atmosphere), but Unknown Pleasures is a pretty impressive album in its own right. Ott does a nice job of giving us a sense of how special this album and this band were, with a special focus on the way that they transformed themselves, in what was really a pretty short period of time, from what (based upon the recordings extant) was a pretty dire punk band, frankly, into a one of the most influential and singular bands of the post-punk era. And rightly so. Joy Division were a monolith, really. I admit, too, that I never much cared for New Order.Ott also does a pretty nice job of giving a thumbnail view of JD in the studio and he is meticulous in presenting their recorded output, including session dates, various releases, who / what / when / and where. He also does a nice job of explaining what Martin Hannett brought to the party in the studio (and how he adjusted after Unknown Pleasures on the singles, and Closer, that followed).Where he is weaker, I think, is in his presentation of the band as Ian Curtis and, um, some other guys. No one else in the book emerges as more than a two-dimensional presence. Heck, other than Peter Hook, who gets a few quotes off, no one else gets even two dimensions. While certainly Curtis' vocals, lyrics and stage presence were obviously major determining factors of Joy Division, and the major factor in the IMAGE of Joy Division, the other guys would seem to have had a little something to do with the band and its music.And his treatment of Curtis is somewhat problematic. His portrait of his inner turmoil, his pompousness, his struggles to both deal with and accept his epilepsy (not to mention his marriage) are noble, he too often, and easily, falls into the "tortured genius" mode while insisting that Curtis was NOT a tortured genius. Thought he was, you know, tortured, um, and a genius. This is not meant to in any way diminish Curtis' life, inner struggles, or death, it ultimately feels pat to me - there's no real answer, but here is the answer.All in all, the book is a mixed bag, but worthy of the series and a useful read. Ultimately, it sends me back to a wonderful record I hadn't listened to in a while, makes me reflect on it and appreciate it all over again. That's useful.

Great read about band and album

This is what I hoped all 33 1/3 books read like. It actually takes you through the band's recording processes leading up to and including the album. Some entries in the series are much more about the author than the subject matter. Chris Ott does a fantastic job of providing interesting information for obsessive types.

Tons of insights regarding this influential album and band.

quite informative nonetheless. Chris Ott does a good job after setting the stage, a little clunky in the beginning, but afterwards, he settles in and gives all the info any fan would either enjoy ... or already know. Now, if somebody would do Closer ...Good stuff!JCS

Clearly written mini-history presented with sensitivity and attention to detail. A great introduction to the whole Joy Division experience. The book itself is sturdy and well put together. A fine addition to your collection.

This book was sent as a gift and the recipient loved it! It is a great tribute to a wonderful album by an historic, influential band.

This little book provides a good overview of the all-too-brief life and times of Ian Curtis and Joy Division. Essential reading if you want to know the background of this ground-breaking debut album.

As a start point, let me just say that I think that Siriam's review is pretty much on the money and he has expressed much of what I might have written in this review.This is not so much a book about Unknown Pleasures, more a book about Joy Division that manages to avoid anything much to do with Closer. In this respect, it doesn't do precisely what it says on the cover, but having started on the tack it has, you sort of wish that it had kept going and dealt with Closer too.This is the first book I have read in the series, so I am not sure what to expect. I think what I might have expected was a real in depth analysis of the album in question. In this analysis, I would want to know more about the lyrics and would probably expect to see them reproduced. It wouldn't be much to ask. There is a general discussion of some of Curtis' lines, but nothing that really approaches textual analysis. As a guitar player, I would also really have liked to have known what amps and equipment were used and if possible, how these choices were decided on. Reading around this suggests that Sumner used Vox guitars, which are an unusual choice. Why? How did they contribute to the Joy Division sound, if indeed they did?The writing is OK but at times typical rock journalist, which has a tendency to be slightly bombastic ,as if it has real literary pretensions. It isn't easy to write about music, though, to get the reader to experience what the author as listener has experienced. There was a passing comment on Proust which just betrayed deep ignorance of his work, but I can't be bothered to leaf through the book to tell you what it was.In summary, a good and interesting book on Joy Division for the fan, though if you have read around the subject, I am not sure that this work is going to enlighten you over much. It won't tell you a huge amount more about the album in question than perhaps you already know.

"Unknown Pleasures" is a recording that like Jeff Buckley's "Grace", has become near mythical as a memorable initial recording followed by the singer's early death with no time to subsequently disappoint fans by later output. As a result many writers on limited evidence feel able to extrapolate their views and this book is sadly no exception.Chris Ott is clearly a long time US based devotee of the group and their output and as an American has done a lot of homework on the Mancunian rock scene of 1976-1980. He covers well how it grew out of copying the London led punk scene and was then left behind by Joy Division as they moved on from their initial incarnations as the Stiff Kittens and Warsaw. His detailed coverage of the early recordings and John Peel "Top Gear"sessions and the growing contact with Rob Gretton and Tony Wilson plus producer Martin Hannett (whose cutting edge if erratic approach to new recording techniques was used so effectively but at the cost of alienating group members by his control freak approach), is the best retelling of the story I have seen to date.Where the book starts going astray is half way through as we move to the recordings of the songs that made it to the final LP and the remainders that were used on later releases and compilations. That Ian Curtis developed quickly as a great lyricist and singer and that he was a major catalyst with other members of the group in how songs were developed is well covered - however the haliography with which Ott imbues him and the interaction of his private life (relying heavily on his widow's recent biography) lead to an overemphasis on the tragic suicide that occurred shortly after and little evaluation of the LP and its subsequent impact (the small sales of 15,000 in six months being little explanation of why the recording is cited in many "best of" lists). Instead what is provided is a retelling of Curtis's quick and sad decline in health and the tragic interaction of drugs and manic live performances reflecting the growth of intensity in his epilepsy seizures. One sad result is the rest of the group become a mere backdrop, which as New Order subsequently showed they were clearly not.

Is it possible to be a Joy Division fan without succumbing to Ian Curtis mythology? Apparently not, and this book is no exception.Though author tried to avoid it for the better part he only managed to fall into dry listing of chronology in which even events like Ian running around in the rehearsal room with a bucket on his head make no impression nor inspire emotion. Barely few facts are new in this book - it mostly caters to the hardcore devotees comparing every possible rendition of the songs fueling further that Curtis myth.Image keeps springing in my mind of a poster that covered better part of the wall in my best friend's room - Ian sitting on an amplifier with head bowed down and a hand over his eyes. For some reason or another (being more or less the same age as Ian was then) my friend took to worshipping Joy and all that weight of the world on shoulders posture and demeanor. Unfortunately it also had an air of being better than the rest, too (apparently because of that same huge weight).Another image that follows it along the same lines is of a guy from my high school who tried to be a film director while being an overtly huge fan of Joy and was walking around all misunderstood evoking weltschmertz. Unfortunately, even Ott slides towards it in the end, mentioning Goethe and young Werther. The very last sentence in the book is overflowing with pathos: However casually, critically or romantically we approach Joy Division's music, we can only mourn the overwhelming, frustrated agony that Ian Curtis could not bear.If only someone could approach that music without mourning...