Transmission

September 15, 2009 12:03 AM

The cover to Joy Division's debut album Unknown Pleasures, animated. The original cover, by Peter Saville, consisted of a reversed image from The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Astronomy showing radio pulses over time from CP 1919, now known as PSR B1919+21, the first pulsar to be discovered. Read the covers story here.
posted by Artw (26 comments total)

30 years later and it still sounds good to me.
posted by jsavimbi at 12:13 AM on September 15

Is there anything better than Peter Hook on bass. That sound never ages. Brilliant.
posted by vronsky at 12:16 AM on September 15 [2 favorites]

this is basically perfect.
posted by flod at 12:17 AM on September 15

Great album. Great. Album.

(And great album cover - the t-shirt was like the bat signal that kids like me wore in the 80s to call out to each other.)
posted by The World Famous at 12:26 AM on September 15 [5 favorites]

I love this.
posted by basicchannel at 1:16 AM on September 15

(I'm wearing the shirt right now. :batsignal:)
posted by basicchannel at 1:17 AM on September 15 [1 favorite]

First link not working for me.
posted by zardoz at 1:37 AM on September 15

One of the few music purchases I ever made where I can tell you exactly where I was and why I purchased it. From the last article:

A box of some new delivery was opened on the counter, and out of it emerged this black enigmatic textured item. I bought it immediately.

This pretty much mirrors my experience. The shop I was in had just put the album in their bins. I saw this cover and bought the thing immediately.
Great, great album.
posted by Thorzdad at 2:52 AM on September 15

I still have the tape of my friend's copy ;-)
posted by i_cola at 4:23 AM on September 15

Had that t-shirt in the '80s. I was so cool. Nobody knew it until now, of course.
posted by Ironmouth at 4:45 AM on September 15

Very nice.
posted by jdfan at 5:00 AM on September 15

An album and cover art of immense brilliance. I had no idea about the origins of the artwork. Love this post, thanks.
posted by blucevalo at 5:57 AM on September 15

Fantastic post.
posted by exogenous at 6:46 AM on September 15

This is absolutely beautiful. Does anyone have recommendations for general music visualizers? All the stock ones I've seen look like a psychedelic rabbit threw up all over them.
posted by geoff. at 6:58 AM on September 15

First link not working for me.

Flash version issue perhaps?
posted by Artw at 7:18 AM on September 15

Geoff: I've been a decades-long fan of WhiteCap visualizer. It has an interesting sort of wireframe render, works well with most music, and has a strange affinity for DSoTM. (Hey, I'm a hippie, what do you want from me?)

I haven't actually used it in years, so I'm not exactly sure how it is looking these days, but I probably spent enough time with it in ages past to make up for my neglect of it now.
posted by hippybear at 8:29 AM on September 15

Most excellent. That cover has aged so fucking well, the hairs still rise on my neck when I see it.

Also, the "origin" article does justice to the tactile pleasure in holding the original LP cover--the heavy card stock, the perfectly proportioned wave form image...mmmmmmm.
posted by everichon at 8:38 AM on September 15

I was looking for a friend of mine,
Yeah looking for a friend of mine...


This album was such an essential part of my freshman year in college, haunting, haunted, bleak beautiful, burning up with manic energy and that hyper-wackedbass sound like the grooviest hammers in your eardrums or zipping up the melody on She's Lost Control Again...and the slow majesty of New Damn Fades...utter exhaustion of I Remember Nothing

Still sounds like a blast of sound from it's own universe and has aged well.

Yeah, in the 80s that cover was like a major bat signal and I never stop getting tickled and annoyed when I see it worn these days as tie die or in pink, purple, green t-shirt variations. Even open backed shirts. I always wonder if these fashionable young ladies know of the pain and alienation that it signifies or if they know anything by JD other than Transmission and that they're were an influence on Interpol et al...
posted by Skygazer at 8:52 AM on September 15

Also, the "origin" article does justice to the tactile pleasure in holding the original LP cover--the heavy card stock, the perfectly proportioned wave form image...mmmmmmm.
posted by everichon at 11:38 AM on September 15 [+] [!]

Oh shit...that's right that heavy dutu textured cover. Fuck, now I have to pull it out again, but dammit I just moved and it's in storage for now.....
posted by Skygazer at 8:55 AM on September 15

Slow majesty of New Dawn Fades......
posted by Skygazer at 9:01 AM on September 15

I was poking around the National Geographic collection in a college library in the late 1980's and found the graphic of this, totally and utterly at random, in an issue from (I think) the 1950's.

I believe that makes me one of the first Joy Division fans, outside of the actual band and their artists, and the small subset of Joy Division fans and radio astronomers, to be aware of the logo's provenance.
posted by Aquaman at 10:49 AM on September 15 [1 favorite]

This is awesome, if only because it's like some kind of crazy Rorschach test (and it's awesome for more than that).

I saw a totem pole comprising a few clowns, many Tibetan Buddhist deities, and a few keyboard cats.
posted by six-or-six-thirty at 12:43 PM on September 15

Nice timing. I finally saw Control the other day and have been listening to them again for the first time in ages. Thanks.
posted by homunculus at 5:53 PM on September 15

Famicon -- She's lost control
posted by vronsky at 6:22 PM on September 15 [1 favorite]

I had a co-worker ask me yesterday if I had ever heard of that band, "Joy Division"? I felt really, really old. And really cool.
posted by the_royal_we at 8:13 PM on September 15

Smashing!
posted by wherever, whatever at 10:37 PM on September 15