Second appointment dedicated to Joy Division: today we talk about “Unknown Pleasures”.

The first actual studio album after the collection “An Ideal For Living”, “Unknown Pleasures" (1979) consolidates the band's sound, refined by Martin Hannett's production and driven by Ian Curtis's human drama, who in this project still manages to convey his despair with anger and a certain clarity. Despite the album not being preceded by any singles, it reaches second place in the UK Indie Chart and after the release of the subsequent "Closer", it also enters the general chart of the best-selling albums of 1980. Much of this success is owed to producer Hannett, who, using innovative techniques for the time (including echoes and digital delays), helps make the band's sound more spatial and atmospheric, differentiating it from everything else populating the punk rock scene of the era. However, the band members, although they follow his instructions to the letter, initially show dissatisfaction with the result, determined to make their tracks as faithful as possible to the aggressiveness of their live performances. Hook, in particular, feels that Hannett gives the tracks an excessively dark mood, weakening them, while Morris and Curtis welcome his work more positively. As Hook himself would later admit, Hannett's role was crucial in giving the band a strongly identifiable sound. The iconic album cover is the work of Peter Saville, who takes the image of the radio waves of the pulsar star CP1919 from an encyclopedia and inverts the color to white on black. The album opens with the nervous rhythm of "Disorder", where Curtis's voice confesses: "I've been waiting for a guide to come and take me by the hand". In the dark "New Dawn Fades", guitar and bass riffs, central to Joy Division's music, overlap, and upon them rises all of Curtis's expressive power and intensity. In "She's Lost Control", Curtis's gaze falls on a woman he had met at a rehabilitation center for employment who, like him, suffered from epilepsy. Not seeing her at the center anymore, Curtis believed she had found a job, only to later discover her death due to a seizure. The album receives positive reviews following its release, but it is only from the '90s onwards that critics retrospectively recognize the value of "Unknown Pleasures", placing it in numerous lists among the best albums of all time.

Today we recommend immersing yourself in the atmospheres of Joy Division with "Disorder", through which we can momentarily grasp Curtis's disorienting perspective in the face of a reality with no escape routes.