TURN-ONS AND TURN-OFFS IN CURRENT HOME ENTERTAINMENT RELEASES : Excellent Good Fair Poor : COMPACT DISCS

“Unknown Pleasures.” “Closer.” Joy Division. Factory. AAD (analog recording). Detractors claim compact discs cannot properly deliver certain music, especially non-high-tech recordings of distorted-sound rock. This short-lived but inestimably influential English band’s cheaply recorded albums seem an excellent test of that theory. Verdict: The disturbed emotions of the group’s two great, dark masterpieces come shooting out of the speakers like flying glass in the CD versions. No texture seems missing from these thrashing representations (rather than mere portrayals) of deep pain and cathartic passion.