Sunday, 12 May 2013

ANALYSIS: JOY DIVISION- UNKNOWN PLEASURES ARTWORK



It is one of the most successful pieces of album art ever to be produced. The New Romantics saw artists and bands such as Gary Newman, and Joy Division emerge, music that romanticized the idea of death, pain and also the beauty of life. It was the first time music had an image that was both clean and dark, and this would later be the influence behind the art of musicians such as Marilyn Manson. The artwork for ‘Unknown Pleasures’ was taken from the Cambridge book of astronomy, and represents the first pulses and movements found in space. However, Joy Division used this to connote the concepts of the record, and so this became the representation of a heart beat, and showing it’s many different speeds, dependent on the excitement of what was going on. It has since become of the most iconic pieces of artwork, and I would find this relevant to my own work in the way in which I want one simple image to tell a narrative, whilst at the same time give itself it’s own sense of identity. The artwork has not only become the identity of Joy Division, but the depressing yet very dark image, and identity of the New Romantics. 

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