Joy Division: Disorder

Track of the Week - 16 June 2019

I couldn't let the fortieth anniversary of the release of Joy Division's debut album Unknown Pleasures go by without comment and ultimately choosing a track from it this week.

I was too young to pick up on it when it was released but within three or four years it would have been a favourite album in my developing record collection. Joy Division and New Order played a big part in forming the direction of my musical preferences.

Having said that I hadn't heard the album in full for many years. It's not that I stopped liking it, I think it's more of a mood thing. The record's ambience is quite dark. Homer Simpson said: "Making teenagers depressed is like shooting fish in a barrel," it's been a long time since I was a teenager.

As Mary Anne Hobbs was playing the album in its entirety on her BBC Radio 6 Music show it seemed a good opportunity to re-familiarise myself with the record. It's still great. Dark or not it doesn't deserve to be left forgotten in my vinyl rack.

Hard to pick a favourite track from it in fact. It could have been She's Lost Control, Insight, Shadowplay or Interzone on another day but I'm going with Disorder.

Side one, track one - are there many starts to a debut album better than this? Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook and Stephen Morris provide the post-punk backing and the late Ian Curtis' anguished vocal style fits perfectly.

A personal conclusion after listening again to this iconic, timeless record - maybe I still have the spirit, must remember to try not to lose the feeling.