Iconic Joy Division Album Revamped as NFT with Novel Vocals

Positive times for Joy Division fans are in the making! A freshly minted NFT music project is set to stage animated versions of the renowned band’s ‘Unknown Pleasures’ album artworks alongside never-heard vocal clips from the late lead singer, Ian Curtis, on the NFT hub, Pace Verso, from October 9-13. 

The co-founder of Factory Records and the brainchild behind the iconic album cover, Peter Saville, teamed up with the drummer of Joy Division (and New Order), Stephen Morris, to craft the NFT project ‘CP1919’. The collectibles will bring a new lease of life to the celebrated album, which sold over a million international copies during its release year in the 1970s. 

The CP1919 digital assets convert the album cover’s sonic into pulsar form, seamlessly merging the artwork with rare cuts of the band’s voice. Lovers of Joy Division can shortly tap into two separate enticing 3D versions of the sleeve art, similarly spotlighting radio waves emerging from a collapsed star like the original. 

CP1919 is a new digital, visual, and audio project created by artist Peter Saville, musician Stephen Morris, and @joydivision. The project elaborates upon the iconic cover art of the band’s seminal album Unknown Pleasures, released by Factory Records 44 years ago. pic.twitter.com/raifmgEYjv

— Pace Gallery (@PaceGallery) September 13, 2023

The Evolution of Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures

The two separate artworks ready to make waves on Pace Verso are ‘CP1919: Sweeping Sun White 2023’ and ‘CP1919: Sweeping Sun Black 2023’. Both present the Unknown Pleasures masterpiece in one-of-a-kind monochromatic designs. The white version will be available in limitless copies of the never-listened-to-before Joy Division samples. Contrastingly, the black edition is a singular edition featuring new Joy Division vocal fragments inside an ambient soundtrack. Additionally, the latter will be delivered to buyers on a hard drive in a custom-designed case.

Proceeds from the NFT sales will support the initiative dedicated to preventing suicides in the UK, Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM) — a charity that profoundly resonates with the band, given Curtis’ tragic passing in 1980.

To this day, the original illustration of Unknown Pleasures is not just found on the album cover itself but also on t-shirts, fans’ tattooed skin, and more worldwide. The forthcoming Joy Division NFT album invites fans to sync into an innovative, modern interpretation of the famed band’s lauded voice and imagery through blockchain art and engaging multimedia.

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