Joy Division – Unknown Pleasures (Collectors Edition) (1979/2013) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Unknown Pleasures is the 1979 debut by the influential Manchester quartet. This landmark release is packed full of energy and passion. Featuring bold and powerful performances, Unknown Pleasures includes the monumental hits, “Disorder,” “She’s Lost Control” and “Interzone.” The album, not only one of music’s greatest debuts, is also one of the best albums ever released. It is included on various “Greatest Albums” lists including Rolling Stone, Spin, Q, NME, MOJO and more. This Collector’s Edition expanded with a second disc featuring their live concert at the “Factory” on 13th July 1979.

Chart History/Awards:
– One of Rolling Stone’s “50 Coolest Records.”
– One of Q’s “100 Greatest British Albums.”
– One of NME’s “Top 30 Heartbreak Albums.”
– One of MOJO’s “Top 50 Punk Albums.”
– One of NME’s “Greatest Albums of All Time.”
– One of Spin’s “50 Most Essential Punk Records.”
– AllMusic.com – 5 out of 5 stars.

It even looks like something classic, beyond its time or place of origin even as it was a clear product of both — one of Peter Saville’s earliest and best designs, a transcription of a signal showing a star going nova, on a black embossed sleeve. If that were all Unknown Pleasures was, it wouldn’t be discussed so much, but the ten songs inside, quite simply, are stone-cold landmarks, the whole album a monument to passion, energy, and cathartic despair. The quantum leap from the earliest thrashy singles to Unknown Pleasures can be heard through every note, with Martin Hannett’s deservedly famous production — emphasizing space in the most revelatory way since the dawn of dub — as much a hallmark as the music itself. Songs fade in behind furtive noises of motion and activity, glass breaks with the force and clarity of doom, minimal keyboard lines add to an air of looming disaster — something, somehow, seems to wait or lurk beyond the edge of hearing. But even though this is Hannett’s album as much as anyone’s, the songs and performances are the true key. Bernard Sumner redefined heavy metal sludge as chilling feedback fear and explosive energy, Peter Hook’s instantly recognizable bass work at once warm and forbidding, Stephen Morris’ drumming smacking through the speakers above all else. Ian Curtis synthesizes and purifies every last impulse, his voice shot through with the desire first and foremost to connect, only connect — as “Candidate” plaintively states, “I tried to get to you/You treat me like this.” Pick any song: the nervous death dance of “She’s Lost Control”; the harrowing call for release “New Dawn Fades,” all four members in perfect sync; the romance in hell of “Shadowplay”; “Insight” and its nervous drive toward some sort of apocalypse. All visceral, all emotional, all theatrical, all perfect — one of the best albums ever.

Tracklist:
01. Joy Division – Disorder (03:31)
02. Joy Division – Day Of The Lords (04:49)
03. Joy Division – Candidate (03:04)
04. Joy Division – Insight (04:29)
05. Joy Division – New Dawn Fades (04:49)
06. Joy Division – She’s Lost Control (03:57)
07. Joy Division – Shadowplay (03:56)
08. Joy Division – Wilderness (02:39)
09. Joy Division – Interzone (02:16)
10. Joy Division – I Remember Nothing (05:54)
11. Joy Division – Dead Souls – [The Factory, Manchester Live 11 April 1980] (04:25)
12. Joy Division – The Only Mistake – [The Factory, Manchester Live 11 April 1980] (04:12)
13. Joy Division – Insight – [The Factory, Manchester Live 11 April 1980] (03:52)
14. Joy Division – Candidate – [The Factory, Manchester Live 11 April 1980] (02:07)
15. Joy Division – Wilderness – [The Factory, Manchester Live 11 April 1980] (02:31)
16. Joy Division – She’s Lost Control – [The Factory, Manchester Live 11 April 1980] (03:47)
17. Joy Division – Shadowplay – [The Factory, Manchester Live 11 April 1980] (03:34)
18. Joy Division – Disorder – [The Factory, Manchester Live 11 April 1980] (03:28)
19. Joy Division – Interzone – [The Factory, Manchester Live 11 April 1980] (02:05)
20. Joy Division – Atrocity Exhibition – [The Factory, Manchester Live 11 April 1980] (06:14)
21. Joy Division – Novelty – [The Factory, Manchester Live 11 April 1980] (04:28)
22. Joy Division – Transmission – [The Factory, Manchester Live 11 April 1980] (03:49)