Joy Division ‎– Unknown Pleasures

Rock

New Wave, Post-Punk

1979

Initial run of 10,000 copies was housed in a textured cover, pressed by the WEA pressing plant in West Drayton and sold until October 1979. Another 10,000 copies were sold until Mid 1980. Reissued / repressed again in July 1980 (so that until July 1981, 77.523 copies were pressed in total). The Townhouse edition is from late 1980. Later confirmed represses from 1981 and 1984.

Peaked at # 71 in the UK Album Charts in August 1980.

Recorded in April 1979 at Strawberry Studios, Stockport. Also recorded during these sessions were the tracks "Autosuggestion" and "From Safety To Where...?" (both released on Earcom 2) as well as "Exercise One", "The Only Mistake", "Walked In Line" and "The Kill" (all later released on Still).

Outside is side A and Inside is side B. This however got mixed up by the pressing plant, assigning Outside = B and Inside = A in the runouts.

The centre sleeve depicts "100 consecutive pulses from the pulsar CP 1919", taken from an image that Bernard Sumner found in 'The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Astronomy' (page 111, 1977 edition), which was a reproduction of a visualization created by Harold D. Craft, Jr., for his dissertation “Radio Observations of the Pulse Profiles and Dispersion Measures of Twelve Pulsars,” (September 1970).

UK re-releases and re-pressings:
June 1985: Cassettes (cat# FACT 10c) - boxed and plastic cases.
April 1986: CD (cat# FACD 10).
July 1993: MC, CD (cat# 520 016-2 / 4), with repressings in 1994, 1996 and 1998.
January 2000: CD (cat# 39842 8223-2), with repressings in 2005.
September 2007: LP (cat# 25646 4015 1) - 180 gram remaster in original artwork.
September 2007: CD (cat# 25646 9778 9) - Collector's Edition.
June 2015: LP (FACT 10R / 25646 1839 0) - Vinyl Collector Edition.
June 2019: LP (FACT 10 40) - White sleeve/Red vinyl edition to celebrate the 40th anniversary of release

US releases:
October 1980: LP (cat# FACTUS 1), with repressings in 1987.
November 1981: MC (cat# FACTUS 1C).
March 1989: LP, MC (cat# 9 25840-1 / 4).
June 1989: CD (cat# 9 25840-2) with CD repressings in 1994, 1997, 2005.
September 2007: LP (cat# RHI1 73395) - 180 gram remaster in original artwork.
September 2007: CD (cat# R2 331260) - Collector's Edition.
June 2015: LP (cat# R1-465628) - Vinyl Collector Edition.

Japanese releases:
July 1984: LP (cat# YX-7337-AX).
February 1989: CD (cat# 25CY-3101).
November 1993: CD (cat# POCD-1879).
March 2000: CD (cat# AMCE-6108).
June 2005: CD (cat# WPCR-75047).
March 2008: CD (cat# WPCR-12838/9) - Collector's Edition.

International licensing for Australia, New Zealand, Italy, France, Germany was done in 1980.