Joy Division – Unknown Pleasures

Unknown Pleasures is the debut studio album by English rock band Joy Division, released on 15 June 1979 by Factory Records. The album was recorded and mixed over three successive weekends at Stockport’s Strawberry Studios in April 1979, with producer Martin Hannett contributing a number of unconventional recording techniques to the group’s sound. The cover artwork was designed by artist Peter Saville, using a data plot of signals from a radio pulsar. It is the only Joy Division album released during lead singer Ian Curtis’s lifetime.

Factory Records did not release any singles from Unknown Pleasures, and the album did not chart despite the relative success of the group’s non-album debut single “Transmission”. It has since received sustained critical acclaim as an influential post-punk album, and has been named as one of the best albums of all time by publications such as NME, AllMusic, Select, Rolling Stone, and Spin.