Peter Hook’s album recommendations for angsty teens
There is a moment in all of our youth when culture presents new possibilities, mine came in a literal package. It is a hot, sticky late summer’s day, and I, a 15-year-old, have just walked home from a new term at secondary school. Upon opening the door, I stepped over a large white parcel, with a strange return address, simply labelled ‘Peter Hook’.
As a clichéd, sad, angsty teenage boy, my unhealthy obsession with Joy Division was an inevitability. Every day, I would return from a miserable day at school and put Unknown Pleasures, Closer or Substance on my turntable. At the time, my parents and friends accused me of wallowing in my own sadness, but to me, Joy Division were much more than a gloomy post-punk band, like thousands of other kids in other suburbs dotted around the land, they offered assurance that I was not isolated in my acne-clad angst and that there is beauty and poetry in sadness. So, as a bored Joy Division obsessive, I decided to write to Peter Hook, the band’s marauding bassist.
Truthfully, I did not expect a reply – I had written to The Clash guitarist Mick Jones at the age of 11 and heard nothing back – but I remember decorating the envelope in a Haçienda theme in the hopes that it might catch his eye enough to open it. I had succeeded.
Opening the parcel, there were some Yamaha guitar stickers, a signed poster of Joy Division’s first EP, An Ideal for Living, which still hangs on my bedroom wall, and, crucially, a letter of response. Much to my amazement, Hook had taken the time to write to me with a list of album recommendations to further my musical education beyond Joy Division. “You’re lucky, you’re 15,” he writes, “You have the whole world ahead of you. Get out there and enjoy yourself”.
Hook’s first group of record suggestions read like an introduction to proto-punk: New Boots and Panties by Ian Dury, Chelsea Girls by Nico, Loaded by The Velvet Underground, Raw Power by Iggy and the Stooges, Lust for Life by Iggy Pop.
Although I had already dabbled in The Velvet Underground and Iggy Pop, to have these albums presented to me opened up a whole new world of music that I still revel in to this day. I cannot remember what I wrote in my letter to the bassist, but he must have sensed that I was not the happiest teenager around because he also suggested I try the lighter side of the record store. “Get some dance stuff going,” he suggests, “Chemical Brothers, Underworld, even New Order”.
His last two recommendations came in the form of Her Satanic Majesties Request by The Rolling Stones and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles. Shamefully, at the time, I viewed both of those bands with a kind of teenage punk elitism and the copy of Sgt. Pepper that my grandmother had given me when I started collecting records at age 12 was gathering dust. After hearing Hooky’s recommendation, I played it endlessly and had my young mind blown.
Armed with this list of recommendations, I walked to school the following day with a spring in my step and Ian Dury in my ears. To be introduced to so much seminal music at a young age was amazing enough, but to be guided through the journey by the bassist of my favourite band was an experience I never expected to have, and it certainly sent me down a path of fervent musical discovery. So, thank you, Peter Hook – you have a lot to answer for.
Hooky’s album recommendations for angsty teens:
- New Boots and Panties!! – Ian Dury and the Blockheads
- Chelsea Girls – Nico
- Loaded – The Velvet Underground
- Raw Power – Iggy and the Stooges
- Lust for Life – Iggy Pop
- Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band – The Beatles
- Their Satanic Majesties Request – The Rolling Stones
