Joy Division's debut remains the high-water mark of post-punk's architectural bleakness. Martin Hannett's production strips the band's live fury into cavernous dread, all spatial delay and disassembled drums echoing through empty warehouses. Ian Curtis intones like a man trapped between frequencies, while Peter Hook's bass carries melodies that guitars abandoned.

The pulsar on Peter Saville's cover became shorthand for a generation's alienation. What sold modestly in 1979 now stands as patient zero for decades of beautiful misery, its influence metastasising through every shadowy corner of alternative rock.