Buzzcocks

Another chance to fall in love with albums you should have first time around. Reissues

They were among the first wave of punk bands, but there was more to Buzzcocks than just boredom and power chords. Following the departure of frontman Howard Devoto after just a few months to form Magazine, the most sardonic band of all time, Pete Shelley brought to Buzzcocks a style of songwriting that was both aggressive and wistful. With Steve Diggle providing a boxer’s attitude to the guitar, Buzzcocks became punk’s most realist band, writing songs about love and disappointment, identity and romance, instead of pretending to care about the government.

Their debut album, Another Music In A Different Kitchen (10/10), is one of the great mission statements. The sleeve looks like the contents – metallic silver with orange flashes – and the contents sound like nothing else; songs that race past in a blur not matched until Hüsker Dü got going, riffs that reference both T.Rex and the Stooges, motoric beats, and the most amazing melodies. Produced by Martin Rushent to sound both speedy and shiny, Another Music still sounds brilliant, from the opening snatch of an upgraded Boredom to the astonishing Moving Away From The Pulsebeat.

The stream of extraordinary singles Buzzcocks were releasing enabled them to get into the charts, and Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t Have), their biggest hit, is one of the greatest songs of all time, with guitars shoving each other forward and Shelley’s most defining and anthemic chorus. It’s survived cover versions and adverts and it’s still wonderful.

It’s also just one of the excellent parts of the curate’s egg that is Love Bites (8/10), an album that still feels like a grab-bag of instrumentals, hastily written songs and the odd classic. Love Bites is Buzzcocks’s big pop album, put together at the height of their near-fame, and it shows. The best songs are as good as anything the band recorded: Nostalgia (recorded by Penetration, trivia fans), Sixteen Again and the concert closer E.S.P. And while some, like Just Lust (a B-side on an album? Punk heresy) and Operator’s Manual are merely good, the oddities, such as Diggle’s Love Is Lies and the band-written instrumental Late For The Train, have worn well.

After Buzzcocks’ second album the cracks began to show, in singles like the superbly cynical Everybody’s Happy Nowadays, there was a brilliant third album that deserved to sell millions but didn’t, and the band’s first era ended with a stubbly, acid-fuelled singles trilogy. But these albums, still excellent, still influential and still entertaining, are essential.