Best of the 70's: Unknown Pleasures by Joy Division

The late 70's were a critical time for rock.  On one hand you had punk which was stripping down rock to its bones.  If you look at the punk bands we've seen so far in this list you can see that there were many different ways to interpret that, think Patti Smith and the Ramones.  On the back side of the punk wave came post-punk, and since we are currently in the midst of a post-punk revival let's take a minute to look at what post-punk is.

While punk wanted to tear rock down to its essentials, post-punk wanted to add depth of emotion and sound.

Let's look at a couple of cover songs and think of how the two would approach it.  On the Ramones first album they did a cover of "Let's Dance."  The formula is pretty simple.  You strip down the sound, you speed it up, you simplify the beat and you've got a punk version of "Let's Dance." Of course first it's important to note that they would choose a song like "Let's Dance." A fairly simple rocker to begin with and this is what punk was all about. When they looked back at the history of rock music, they were more interested in songs like "Let's Dance" and its simplicity.



OK now let's look at a post-punk cover. Let's look at Siouxsie and the Banshees covering "Helter Skelter" on their 1978 debut. The approach here is quite different. They focus much more on creating an atmosphere around the song even starting with a slow intro to pull you into the moment. Again it's important to note the type of song they have selected to cover. Yes it's a Beatles tune, but this is not an early simple Beatles pop tune.



Obviously I wanted to focus on post-punk on this Joy Division review because Joy Division is probably considered the top dog of the post-punk movement. This 1979 debut album comes in at number 13 on the Best of the 70's list.

This album is in many ways all about atmosphere. It's dark and moody and the music is distorted and layered and complex. It's not hard to see the long term influence a band like Joy Division has had on the music scene, especially now with the current post-punk revival.

Because of its dark mood it's not something for every day listening. I could see throwing this on during the night after you've gotten home from a ten hour shift at Wendy's and you're not necessarily in the best mood ever.

Following the Rhapsody rating method I give it 3 out of 5 stars for Pretty Good.