Unknown Pleasures or Closer?
Joy Division is the human condition more than it is pop. Pop’s history is a late fifties one, and the spirit of Joy Division goes outside of that. The Coliseum is pretty inspiring, isn’t it? Not the Marquee. For me there are two Joy Divisions. Unknown Pleasures is an underpass with iodine streetlights through Manchester at night. Closer and Atmosphere are the city’s gothic revival cathedral and the moors around the Pennines.
Peter Saville quoted in Designed By Peter Saville. (It’s clear that the chilling elegance of Unknown Pleasure’s cover puts the cover of Kate Bush’s Ariel in deepest shade.) The book is a fascinating look at the deepening quandary of Saville’s position. A minor, but arguably important note is the extent to which only the front covers are reproduced – it’s as though each design were a single sided painting rather than the double-sided, twice over integral design that a record cover really is (if it has an inner sleeve of course) – and let’s not forget the all important spine…
When I were a wee bairn, the talk was always of which was somebody’s favourite Bowie’s Heroes or Low. The next generation, mine, would debate over the relative merits of Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures and Closer. On the former question I tend towards Heroes, having, as an adolescent, walked fogs accompanied by its soundtrack. As to the latter, I can more easily choose Closer, particularly for its amazing second side: Heart and Soul, Twenty Four Hours, Decades, The Eternal. I wonder whether a more recent generation has the same problem with Radiohead’s OK Computer and Kid A, or maybe The Bends.
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