10 Darkest Rock Albums Of The 70s

Punk was always meant to be a bit of an ugly genre. Even though you had people like Billy Idol strutting his stuff on MTV in the '80s, the origins of punk like The Sex Pistols and the Ramones had their minds set on something more morbid, whether that's outright nihilism or the wonders of horror movies. That was the first wave of punk though, and Joy Division cranked up the angst on Unknown Pleasures.

Being one of the first real entries into the world of post punk, the stories coming out of Ian Curtis' mouth were not for the faint of heart, detailing his own struggles with mental illness and getting more jaded by the second on songs like She's Lost Control. Even though a band like the Sex Pistols may have written about morbid subjects back in the day, this was the first time that the music matched the lyrics, with a caustic sound that felt like the walls were about to close in around you.

This turned out to just be the beginning for Curtis, as his lyrics would get even more confessional on the next album Closer before being found dead by suicide before the album could even come out. Whereas punk's original message was to bring down the artificial sides of music, this is what it sounds like when the world of underground music starts to fall apart.