---

A conversation between Tyler and Writers’ Loom guest Travis.

Tyler: Travis, upon my first listens to Unknown Pleasures, I heard direct paths to bands that would follow in Joy Division’s wake.  We can break down some of those later, perhaps. What really strikes about that, though, is how important and—tired word—seminal this album is.

I’m entranced by it, for the record.  I find myself struggling to differentiate certain tracks from one another, as there’s such a consistent mood maintained from start to finish.

Where does your appreciation for Unknown Pleasures begin?

Travis: I came to Unknown Pleasures backwards, as I think a lot of people our age (really anyone who was born after it came out in 1978) did. It was something I bought because reviews and interviews of bands I liked namedropped it as an influence. I think in that way it can be hard to listen to, initially, because so much of it has become sort of cliche. Like watching Casablanca and feeling like the dialogue is unoriginal because you’ve heard it so many times. But as I listened to it over the years, it grew on me because it is a lot more idiosyncratic, alien, and downright noisy than the 2000s bands that often imitated but never duplicated it.

It had to have sounded completely alien and “from nothing” if that makes sense, in 1979. Public Image Limited had done “post-punk” before them, but no one else really that I’m aware of, and the sound of it sort of comes out of nowhere.

Tyler: I will say, given my very-limited knowledge about the band and the album, I expected something even darker.

That’s my own misinterpretation, though.

Travis: It gets pretty dark in spots, but I think it’s a lot less, I guess, monochrome than its reputation. “Disorder” is pretty dancy and points forward to what much of the band would wind up doing in New Order. “Interzone” is a killer punk song.

Tyler: The sound of it is something else.  If Time Out Of Mind conjures the mood of a cinematic bar/juke joint, Unknown Pleasures makes me feel like I’m in a very dank and very spacey club in New York, late-‘70s.

“Disorder” is a blast.

Travis: the producer, Martin Hannett, had some pretty specific ideas of how he wanted it to sound. He recorded every drum separately, which wasn’t as common then, so that sounds of different drums wouldn’t bleed into each other in the mix. There’s a lot of negative space in the music.

I don’t know if it’s him or just the bandmates’ specific vision and interplay, but they feel very fully formed for this being a debut LP

Tyler: I love that about it.  During one listen, I thought of London Calling, which is in its own way a “post-punk” album, though it’s not at all an entry in that genre.

It’s such a striking contrast.

And absolutely.  There’s confidence in this one.  We’re gonna do what we want and you’re going to be intrigued.

Travis: How did you feel about Ian Curtis’s voice? It’s kind of an acquired taste.

Tyler: I was immediately cool with it.

Travis: Nice. Like Morrissey’s voice (or Bob Dylan’s, or many other people’s) it’s one that is kind of easy to make fun of. But it’s also really unselfconscious and I couldn’t imagine anyone else singing these songs.

Tyler: I think it’s note-perfect for what they’re trying to do.

“She’s Lost Control” is perhaps the most memorable track to my ear.  The “chorus” becomes almost a mantra.

I didn’t like it, or didn’t want to like it maybe, and it’d be wrong to say I “warmed” to it, but multiple plays brought me into its sway.

Travis: Yeah, I think that’s probably the most well-known song from the album, and people really associate it strongly with Ian Curtis since it’s about epilepsy, which he suffered from. When all of the indie rock kids started doing coke and doing dance nights at the Upstairs Lounge, “She’s Lost Control” was a mainstay.

Tyler: I didn’t know it was about epilepsy.  That’s a complete left turn for somebody who came in here mostly blind.  I knew Curtis was deeply troubled and I knew his fate.

Travis: Suicide sucks, and isn’t funny! No matter how much the movie 24 Hour Party People wanted to make it funny.

But that’s another topic for a different day.

Tyler: Not a fan?

As perhaps the most prominent cinematic portrayal of Curtis, I figure a little discussion is relevant.

Travis: I thought the movie was fine. I thought the depiction of Curtis’s suicide was a tad flip, but it’s also been what, twenty years since I’ve seen it?

Showing him hanging there with Looney Tunes playing is how I remember it.

Tyler: I watched it in bed after a boozy football Sunday.  I do recall the image of him hanging.

Travis: Something I did enjoy about 24 Hour Party People: the utter disdain the movie showed for also-ran band A Certain Ratio.

Tyler: Do you find your emotions influenced by Curtis’s suicide when you listen to Joy Division?

Travis: When I listen to Joy Division, I think it is hard for me to get the fact that Ian Curtis committed suicide out of my mind completely. I find myself dwelling on it less with this album than with their second album, Closer, or with the song “Love Will Tear Us Apart,” which was their last single.

Also, the New Order song “Ceremony,” which was originally a Joy Division song.

Tyler: Makes sense.

Travis: Closer is a lot more claustrophobic and abrasive. I think it might be closer to the Joy Division one would imagine never having heard them.

Tyler: I’d listen to that in a hot second.

Not good: the movie Closer

Travis: Listening to Joy Division depresses me a lot less than watching the movie Closer.

Tyler: Would you hear only tracks from Unknown Pleasures at the Upstairs Lounge, or would those abrasive sounds from Closer make their way into the mix?

Travis: Only Unknown Pleasures and assorted non-closer singles.

Tyler: “Love Will Tear Us Apart,” I figure, was a mainstay.

Travis: Yes.

Back to “She’s Lost Control” for a moment, if I may.

Tyler: Absolutely.

Travis: So I own Unknown Pleasures on vinyl. It’s actually one of my two most-prized records, as it is an original pressing on Factory Records and though the cover is a little beat up, the record itself is in good shape, with only a few extra pops (that, honestly, fit right in with the experience of hearing it on vinyl). Anyways, it’s one of those records where the label doesn’t totally make it clear which is side A and which is side B. So it’s almost a crapshoot when I put it on whether I get it right. But She’s Lost Control opens side B, and listening to the album that way, tracks 6-10 then 1-5, is a lot different experience than listening to it in its actual order, with Disorder kicking off the album.

Tyler: That’s a hell of a way to hear the album.  Both the inverted side order and the authentic vinyl experience.

Travis: I’m not always a “This sounds better on vinyl” guy, but this album…sounds better on vinyl.

Tyler: Saying an album sounds better on vinyl is a cliche for a reason.  It’s mostly correct

Travis: True dat. So as I was jotting down notes upon listening to this, I thought of a bunch of bands that it feels like would not exist without this album.

Tyler: Fire away.

Travis: Off the top of my head: Bauhaus, Nine Inch Nails, Interpol (and a thousand other Meet Me in the Bathroom-adjacent New York bands of the oughts), the Killers (who covered Shadowplay, apparently, I bet that sucks!), and U2. I’ve had objections to the U2 assertion before but to my ear, early U2 (War and before) sounds to me like “Joy Division but with actual Joy”. Beyond that, after Joy Division and the Buzzcocks both had success, Manchester became such a musical hotbed. Maybe there’s even no Smiths or Oasis without Joy Division (though I think the musical through-line is iffier on both of those)

Tyler: Don’t forget your beloved The National.

Travis: oh yeah, Mistaken for Strangers is mad Joy Division

Tyler: I don’t know them very well at all, but I did think of TV On The Radio.

Travis: Yeah, them too. There’s probably a million 80s bands I’m not thinking of like Echo and the Bunnymen, et al

Tyler: Del Amitri

Travis: Dishwalla

a song we have not yet mentioned but which may be my favorite on the album is “New Dawn Fades,” that shit rocks to me.

Tyler: No lie, that’s playing as we write.

Those ringing guitars.

The bass.  Such a prominent instrument on this album.

Travis: Yeah. I would say that the bass takes the lead on a lot of the songs, or at least shares the lead. It’s not virtuosic playing like a lot of bands where the bass is this prominent, but it’s always doing something interesting.

Tyler: Think you’d rank this one among your top debuts?

Travis: I will also say for a band with a rhythm section this tight, this is some very white music. Just no blues or R&B influence in this at all. Compared to Joy Division, the Sex Pistols swing like the Stones.

This has led people to conclude (along with their provocative name) that this is Nazi music, which it in no way is, but people are dumb.

Tyler: I’ve debated inwardly whether we should break down the origins of that name, given that it’d likely be indefensible to many.

Travis: I always took it as punk provocation rather than any Nazi sympathy. Like naming your band The Dead Kennedys.

Tyler: Excellent point.

Travis: That said, I’m sure one could make an argument how you shouldn’t name your band after something so tragic, and I think that’s a fair argument too. I’m not opposed to revisiting things like that. Some things don’t age well.

Tyler: I’ve skipped ahead to “I Remember Nothing,” the trance-y finale.

Travis: I think it’s a fitting ending song to the album. For me this one has no skips. For a debut LP, that’s pretty unusual. Since I wasn’t around when it came out, I’d be hard-pressed to put it at the top of my “best debuts” list. I think one could make an intellectual argument it’s the best debut of its genre and one of the best debuts in rock history, but there are plenty of debuts I like more, for either personal (gut) reasons or intellectual reasons.

Tyler: Pocket Full Of Kryptonite?

Travis: Was that a debut?

I’m picturing a very halting, half-time, almost martial Joy Division sounding “One two, princes kneel before you…”

Tyler: A quick Google search confirms that it was their first.  Thank God, for the sake of my joke.

Travis: I think the only punk or punk adjacent debut (of that original era) that competes with Unknown Pleasures is the first Clash album. Which I don’t like as much, but is just as, if not more, iconic. Never Mind the Bollocks was more important than good, though it’s about half bangers.

the album that immediately came to mind as being as this fully formed and alien upon debut is Are You Experienced, an entirely different kind of thing but probably deconstructed rock to a similar level.

Black Sabbath’s first LP was probably pretty shocking, but I don’t think it’s that good in comparison to some of their later work

Tyler: On any given day: New Order or Joy Division?

Travis: Joy Division. New Order is better for parties though.

Tyler: Aside.  On my Spotify homepage is a category called “pov fall is your entire personality”

The albums included include Blood On The Tracks, boygenius, folklore, and Bridge Over Troubled Water.

Travis: Whiter than Joy Division: vocalizing one’s anticipation for pumpkin spice

to tie back into the topic, Unknown Pleasures is obviously winter music, if one must tie it to a season

i’m not sure why boygenius is “fall”

Tyler: I think it plays better at night, too. This afternoon I was listening to Unknown Pleasures while putting away some dishes.

Travis: definitely plays better at night, and not really good chores music I’d say

Tyler: Well, I think we might have reached an appropriate closing moment.  Any albums you’d recommend for those who liked what they heard here?

Travis: To close, I’d say some further recommended listening if Unknown Pleasures was your jam would be the other Joy Division material (Closer and the singles collected on Substance), the New Order collection also called Substance (New Order’s albums are never as good as their singles, and Substance collects most of the good ones of those), and for similarly gothic post-punk, the Bauhaus 4AD EP and Siouxsie and the Banshees’ Kaleidoscope. I think Gang of Four’s Entertainment would also be an appropriate followup. As for the later imitators, I think Interpol’s Turn on the Bright Lights is the best oughts Joy Division ripoff, because they understood that you need a kickass rhythm section.

And if you don’t like Joy Division, well, go listen to Bobby McFerrin.

---