Joy Division and the Making of Unknown Pleasures by Kennedy, Jake (2006) Hardcover

by Jake Kennedy

This volume sets the scene in the context of the band's early history and the Manchester music world when it was recorded. It includes interviews with musicians, producers, fans and technicians involved.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Biography

Hardcover

First published October 26, 2006

About the author

From the cover of "The Lateral":

Jake Kennedy's writing has appeared in "McSweeney's Internet Tendency," "Pissing Ice Anthology: New Canadian Poets," "Drunken Boat," "Kiss Machine," and "The Diagram." His BookThug chapbook entitled "Hazard" won the 2006 bpNichol Chapbook Award. Jake also helped edit, with his artist friend Paola Poletto, "Boredom Fighters: A Graphic Poem Anthology" (Tightrope Books) in 2008.

Reviews

[Neil · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kennedy concludes at the end of this book that we shouldn't try to pin down exactly what it was Joy Division gave us in Unknown Pleasures and yet he spent 174 pointless pages doing just that. Although nothing is gained from this volume I still - after 38 years and counting - love the record. Not even you and your various factual errors can suck the life out of this great lp Jake.

[Daniel Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disappointingly boring book based only on what happened, read like a text book, struggled to read it.

[Adrian Turner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Joy Division, New Order and Factory Records in general must have had more words written about them than anyone in the music sphere this side of Dylan and The Beatles. With that in mind, this is a book that's showing its age somewhat, not because the album under review has aged badly (quite the reverse), but because it's the sort of catch-all, surface-level analysis that's now been replaced with Wikipedia and the internet, where all this kind of information is available at the click of a mouse.

Obviously this wasn't always the case, and this wide, rather than deep analysis of the circumstances leading to the creation of this classic album would have been a decent purchase on first release in 2006, in that it covers most bases, and it's especially good on the local Manchester music scene. The writing is fairly brisk and conversational, but a significant number of pages are taken up with discographies, track listings and lists of gigs, so it isn't quite as long a read as the page count might suggest.

Overall and on its own merits, it's a perfectly reasonable book that covers the main points of its topic well enough, but it should be considered a first step introduction rather than the final word on the subject.

[Ellen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this on the train travelling to and from Manchester the last couple of weeks because it’s really important to me to be as annoying as possible at all times. A technical, non-sensationalist analysis on the band’s history and of course the album itself - reads a bit like a text book but v interesting none the less!
Did however feel like it could’ve done without the couple of paragraphs towards the end feverishly distancing Unknown Pleasures from the label of goth - if we were splitting hairs I personally probably wouldn’t class it as an out and out goth record either but reducing an entire genre down to “upside down crosses and pentagrams” in comparison just felt a bit unnecessary

[Ipswichblade · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent enough book about the making of the superb Unknown Pleasures album

[Gabriel Clarke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Somehow feels rushed and a bit thin. Not enough primary research?