Originally posted by MemberD:
My fave studio album is Closer by the way.
It is mine too. Believe it or not it is mentioned somewhere that it is George Michael's all time favourite album. All Heart and Soul for George!
Unknown Pleasures succeeds in depicting perfectly it's theme, Manchester in 79 and Ian coming as a modern day messiah like most pop stars aim to be! It's a very uniform album, very well produced by Martin Hannett, all instruments played exceptionally well, although too dark for my taste.
Closer was more of a collection of songs as the band was moving into a more commercial direction . The album couldn't be finished properly due to Ian's untimely death. Over 10 songs had been finished but not the album concept. Yet it proved to be a masterpiece just for Ian's prose in the advent of his suicide.
Really intriguing was Ian's death. As we all have read he was going through the pressures of a pop star, taking drugs for his epilepsy, going though a marriage break-up and moreover he was a depressive character. It's mentioned that when Ian committed suicide he was listening to
Iggy Pop's The Idiot. There's nothing suicidal about this album. It was probably his favourite, so he played it. I've also read somewhere that Ian was obsessed with the
Throbbing Gristle track
Weeping , which I've never heard before. Those who are into TG would know this track and like most TG tracks are very shocking and venomous! On Genesis' diary notes he mentioned that the night before his suicide Ian was very depressed and was heavy on this song and sounded very suicidal on the phone. Genesis warned some of his friends but did not believe him. The rest was tragedy.
http://www.genesisp-orridge.com/index.php?section=article&id=65 Anyhow, yep
Heart and Soul box set is the definitive collection of a band that became New Order and continued to influence British pop music. Like Ultravox, a band of excellent musicians.
Chris
