Toronto - This has been quite a year for Factory Records. There were ups, there were downs. However, you could argue this was the year that people started recognizing the importance and impact that Factory Records had in it’s short existence. I guess the death of Tony Wilson this summer put the world on notice. People do get all introspective when other people die. A quick introduction would be that Factory Records is responsible for the bands Joy Division, New Order and Happy Mondays. They also owned the club the Hacienda, which was a club people say were responsible for the rave scene that was popular in the late 80s. They also have the #1 selling single of all time, in the form of New Order’s Blue Monday.

The reason I brought this up was because of the fantastic BBC documentary “FACTORY - Manchester From Joy Division to Happy Mondays”. This documentary is a must watch for any fan of the bands from that generation and it chronicles with great detail how Factory Records got started, the difficult times it went thru, the successes, the stupidity and inevitably, the demise of the company. It features interviews with Tony Wilson, Peter Saville, New Order and the Mondays (Shaun Ryder looks ROUGH) among others. It’s a very interesting documentary and even talks about the inability of Factory Records inability to sign the likes of The Smiths, Stone Roses and The Fall.

I highly recommend this documentary, I don’t know how one would get their hands on it or stuff, its probably on torrents somewhere.

Wiki: Factory Records

Accompanying Pieces to watch:

Movie:

Control, by Anton Corbijn

Movie:

24 Hour Party People

Id recommend the books Touching From a Distance, by Deborah Curtis, but in reality, thats the movie Control and the movie is like 90 minutes or something, but reading it would take more time. So I’m saving you time.