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eeriemusick's review
dark
emotional
informative
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced
scheu's review
5.0
A love letter to a wonderful album by an imperfect band. Contains lots of terminology that means little to me, but gathers the essence of a thing that has moved me greatly.
erik_gamlem's review
1.0
I really wanted to love this and the research is spot on, but the voice, unfortunately sounds like the Pitchforkian drivel their writers seem to be forced to write in. Better luck next time I guess.
gengelcox's review
dark
informative
sad
medium-paced
3.0
This is the first of the 33 1/3 series to feature an album I’ve never cared for. Some of the other books have been about albums I didn’t know, but this is one that I have listened to in the past and simply not been able to understand why people love it so much. Possibly, it’s because I was never a suicidal goth as a teen or even mildly disenchanted. I may not have been the most popular person, but I had friends and enjoyed a fairly social existence and never had the desire to end it all.
That may be treating Ian Curtis’ true disease a bit lightly, but I have a knee-jerk attitude to the hagiography surrounding the rock stars who felt they had to burn out instead of fade away, either consciously or unconsciously. Curtis, the lead singer of Joy Division, had some real health issues. He suffered from epilepsy and the rock-n-roll lifestyle he desired to partake of was antithetical to the treatment he needed for that disease. Conversely, by not taking care of himself, he likely ruined his mental health, encouraging him in these thoughts of following in the go out grandly style of his rock gods (not to mention his disdain for Bowie, who wrote “All the Young Dudes” and failed to live up to its message).
What does all that have to do with Unknown Pleasures. Simply it is impossible to talk about Joy Division without confronting Curtis. So many people, including the author Chris Ott, find Curtis’ lyrics to be genius; I find them overwrought and tepid. The music behind the words is slightly of more interest to me, such that I’m not surprised I enjoy the work of New Order (i.e., Joy Division post-Curtis) much more.
To each their own. Not everyone loves the same albums. I enjoyed reading this to learn more about an album and band I never cared for and came to understand possibly why given some of the details of the life of Curtis and the band and the production choices.
mham's review
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
Bascially a brief history of the band vs. details about the album. Very good intro for a non-listener
mattrabpc's review
3.0
It's not a bad book, but it isn't a series highlight. It references so much other Joy Division literature that it seems more like an overview of the band's early career focusing mostly on Ian Curtis. The most unique part was that it gives a good timeline to the band's releases, but otherwise I think it would only be enjoyable if you didn't know too much about the band already like I did.
wmhenrymorris's review
This covers all of Joy Division's oeuvre rather than just the album Unknown Pleasures, which means that it won't be of much interest to the band's die-hard fans unless they are compulsive completists. It is, however, a fairly good introduction if you are intrigued by the story of Ian Curtis and Joy Division, but don't yet know much about, dealing forthrightly with a host of issues related to the band.
That said, there are sections of music criticism, especially of the tracks on Unknown Pleasures itself that are fairly interesting and a couple of insights to be gleaned. The problem, though, is that so much of the book is trying to give context to Curtis' suicide and tease out the mystery of how they band went from a bunch of wannabe punks to something else quite entirely. However, I guess it does provide on service in that Ott generally sidesteps the overwroughtness that tends to attach itself to Joy Division. I mean, I love Paul Morley but he does go on.
That said, there are sections of music criticism, especially of the tracks on Unknown Pleasures itself that are fairly interesting and a couple of insights to be gleaned. The problem, though, is that so much of the book is trying to give context to Curtis' suicide and tease out the mystery of how they band went from a bunch of wannabe punks to something else quite entirely. However, I guess it does provide on service in that Ott generally sidesteps the overwroughtness that tends to attach itself to Joy Division. I mean, I love Paul Morley but he does go on.