I need, you need, we all need the Buzzcocks
jay_banerjee | NYC, USA | 09/09/2003
(4 out of 5 stars)
"Sure the Buzzcocks are the consummate singles band, as documented on "Singles Going Steady", an absolute essential for any rock and roll collection. They only had three LP's in their entire (pre-reformed group) career, and their brilliant singles rarely appeared on their albums. Because of this, and because their final two LP's suffer from inconsistency and trying too hard, you might hear from some that "Singles Going Steady" is really all you need. Well, whoever they are, they're stupid. "Another Music in a Different Kitchen" is rock and roll brilliance.This album is by far the best Buzzcocks LP, and one of the best punk records ever. Every song on here is at the very least great. Only four of sixteen songs on "Singles Going Steady" appeared on their albums, and "I Don't Mind" and "Autonomy" are two of them. "I Don't Mind" is punk/pop at its finest, and the quintessential Buzzcocks song. (To hear a soundclip of it you can visit the "Singles Going Steady" page...fortuitously it's the third track there!) Beautiful harmones, clever Pete Shelley lyrics about the frustrations of love, catchy melodies, buzzsaw guitars and 100 mph pace...what the Buzzcocks were all about! Every bit as immediate are "Fast Cars" and "Sixteen". The former is pure punk, and an hilarious critique of the objects in question--"Sooner or later, you're going to listen to Ralph Nader"--but even more so a shattering of traditional rock and roll imagery. The Beatles sang "Baby you can drive my car", The Beach Boys sang "Fun fun fun 'til her daddy takes the T-Bird away", The Buzzcocks sang "Fast cars, fast cars, fast cars, I hate fast cars!" "Sixteen" is a waltz (!) that begins "You know I don't like dancing!" and features a complete breakdown in the middle of the song before getting brought back from the depths...a good six years before Sonic Youth would start to pull that same trick over and over and over again."Love Battery" and "You Tear Me Up" are both Shelley/Devoto tunes, i.e. aggressive but tuneful punk songs with bitter but brilliant lyrics about lust (just like "Orgasm Addict"). "There's something about the way you drool when you kiss that makes love, makes love, feel nothing like this." Pete Shelley would reprise the formula on "No Reply", but moved away from Devoto's downright nihilism to attach a more pop lyric about not getting his phone calls to girls returned. And he found his own voice altogether on "I Need" and "Get On Our Own": classic harmony-laden pop/punk in the vein of "I Don't Mind".The remaining songs showcase a more experimental side to the band. The Steve Diggle-penned "Autonomy" is at once both the harshest and most tuneful early Buzzcocks song, and it's a punk epic, lasting over 3:30 with a lengthy instrumental coda, just refusing to die. "Fiction Romance" is (relatively) downtempo and uses Can-inspired repetition to get the point across, all the while Pete Shelley singing about what he sang about best: frustrated romance. "Moving Away from the Pulsebeat", the album closer, repeats this idea, but moves away from the popsong almost totally, with hypnotic guitar leads and the brilliant John Maher's jungle tom toms pounding away for over 5 minutes...over 7 if you count the dead silence and brief "Boredom" reprise at the end.OK, nothing but unmitigated praise...why only four stars then? Well, because nowadays you can get "Another Music in a Different Kitchen" packaged together with their second LP, "Love Bites"...still in print! While "Love Bites" IS decidedly inferior, it does have its great moments. Instead of "Love Bites", here we get four bonus tracks from their single releases. All classics, to be sure, but the first Buzzcocks purchase you make MUST BE "Singles Going Steady", so you should have them already! A bit of a rip...get "Another Music" packaged with "Love Bites", or if you can track it down, their "Product" box set, which has all their singles, even the (mediocre) post-"Singles Going Steady" ones, all three albums, a live set and the token rare track to boot."
Track Listings (15) - Disc #1