---
product_id: 10243953
title: "Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures (Thirty Three and a Third series)"
brand: "chris ott"
price: "€ 30.45"
currency: EUR
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 12
url: https://www.desertcart.fi/products/10243953-joy-divisions-unknown-pleasures-thirty-three-and-a-third-series
store_origin: FI
region: Finland
---

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

**Brand:** chris ott
**Price:** € 30.45
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

## Quick Answers

- **What is this?** Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures (Thirty Three and a Third series) by chris ott
- **How much does it cost?** € 30.45 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.fi](https://www.desertcart.fi/products/10243953-joy-divisions-unknown-pleasures-thirty-three-and-a-third-series)

## Best For

- chris ott enthusiasts

## Why This Product

- Trusted chris ott brand quality
- Free international shipping included
- Worldwide delivery with tracking
- 15-day hassle-free returns

## Description

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

## Images

![Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures (Thirty Three and a Third series) - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61zvIsNIuFL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐ 2.0 out of 5 stars







  
  
    Yet another contribution to the fanatical mythology of Joy Division
  

*by S***O on Reviewed in the United States on July 23, 2012*

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.

### ⭐⭐⭐ 3.0 out of 5 stars







  
  
    Useful
  

*by J***Y on Reviewed in the United States on July 17, 2012*

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.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4.0 out of 5 stars







  
  
    Great read
  

*by J***N on Reviewed in the United States on February 27, 2022*

Great read about band and album

---

## Why Shop on Desertcart?

- 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016
- 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories
- 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price
- 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members)
- 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection
- ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews

**Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.fi/products/10243953-joy-divisions-unknown-pleasures-thirty-three-and-a-third-series](https://www.desertcart.fi/products/10243953-joy-divisions-unknown-pleasures-thirty-three-and-a-third-series)

---

*Product available on Desertcart Finland*
*Store origin: FI*
*Last updated: 2026-03-11*