AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM : #400 : BUZZCOCKS

This will be the 30th TVV post in which Buzzcocks have been specifically added to the index, while there have been quite a few more where they have featured within posts that have been logged as ‘Various’.  But I have no idea why none of us have ever thought to come up with an ICA, other than perhaps believing the job was done for us via the Singles Going Steady album.

I’ve made a few draft starts at different times over the years, always looking to incorporate songs the band recorded and released in the latter and less well-documented part of their career, namely the seven albums that have been issued since 1993, including Sonics In The Soul, a 2022 release that was their first after the death of Pete Shelley in December 2018.  But, no matter how hard I tried to include any of the reunion years material, I just couldn’t put any of it into what I consider to be the top ten songs.  In the end, noticing that I was about to hit the landmark 400th Imaginary Compilation Album, I bit the bullet and accepted it would need to consist solely of tunes from their halcyon days back in the late 70s.  But I’ve one perhaps surprising inclusion, given some of the words I’ve typed in previous postings.

SIDE A

1. Breakdown

Where else to start but at the very beginning with the Spiral Scratch EP of January 1977?  Four songs much discussed over the decades, and most recently on this blog last October thanks to Fraser Pettigrew‘s loving look at the EP.  It’s nigh on impossible to disagree with Fraser’s assessment that just about everything that can possibly be written about Spiral Scratch has already been said, so let’s just do the imaginary pogo in our minds and get ready for the next tune.

2. Why Can’t I Touch It?

The idea that Buzzcocks were a one-dimensional punk-pop band capable only of short, fast and energetic tunes gets blown away by this near seven-minutes of groove that was originally tucked away as a b-side, probably in fear of the punk purists being shocked and horrified.

Confession time.  I first heard this when I was 15 years old when I turned over my newly bought copy of Everybody’s Happy Nowadays.  I didn’t like it, as I wasn’t prepared for it. I wasn’t a punk purist who was shocked and horrified, just a bit confused by it all.  I rarely listened to it afterwards and indeed as recently as 2016 I was scathing about it in a blog post, only to be shot down by quite a number of folk via the comments section, all of which made me go back and try again.

The fact it has made it onto the ICA shows that I am willing to admit I got it badly wrong.  Looking at the song solely via the prism of early 1979 was a huge error.  I’m grateful to those of you who pointed out the error of my ways.

3. What Do I Get?

The second successive song on the ICA to ask a question…..I don’t think that’s happened across any of the previous 399.  The band’s second single after they signed to United Artists, it was the first to crack the pop charts when it reached #37 in February 1978.  A hugely underrated song, one that was left off the debut album which hit the shops a few weeks later on the basis that punk bands never put old 45s onto albums.  Pah!

4. I Don’t Mind

The thing is….as The Clash had already found out to their disgust….bands are quite helpless when record labels then choose to issue songs on albums as later singles, even when it is against a band’s wishes.  Another Music In A Different Kitchen had peaked at #15, and United Artists insisted on giving it a second wind two months later, choosing what many believed to be its most instant song to be the next 7″ release, backed with another track, Autonomy, that was also taken from the album.  The ploy sort of worked, as the album did actually go back up the charts for a week, but the single was a relative flop in that it stalled outside the Top 50.

5. You Say You Don’t Love Me

The passing mention of flop singles leads nicely to this. 1979 can be looked upon as the year the band began to run out of steam.  I reckon they had tried to do too much in 77/78, and coming up with the same high quality of songs for what was to be a third album proved to be just beyond them.  That’s not to say that A Different Kind of Tension is a poor record, but it didn’t have the same fizz or energy as the previous albums.  By now, the band had accepted the idea that new albums should be promoted by an advance single, but for some reason or other, radio stations ignored You Say You Don’t Love Me and with next to no airplay, it became the first single not to at least make the Top 75.  It deserved a far better fate.

SIDE B

1. Fast Cars

Tempting as it was to open Side B up with another track from Spiral Scratch, I’ve bottled out by using the song whose opening 20-odd seconds replicates Boredom prior to turning into possibly the most new wave of all Buzzcocks songs in that you imagine it being written by many of their contemporaries.

2. Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve)

Which is not something you can say about this song, as only Pete Shelley of the class of ’78 could have come up with something as majestic and timeless as their biggest hit (#12).  As with Spiral Scratch, everything that can possibly be written about Ever Fallen In Love…..has already been said. Dirk included it in his 111 singles series, and I had it as part of the 45 45s @ 45 rundown back in 2008 (#23).  I would imagine many thousands of others who have a great love of post-punk/new wave music would list this as one of the greatest of them all.

3. Sixteen Again

Ever Fallen In Love was the advance single for Love Bites, the band’s second album which in due course would become their biggest selling, peaking at #13.  It would be fair to say that much of that success was propelled by the hit single, but it mustn’t be overlooked that it’s an album with more than a smattering of great tunes, albeit it perhaps suffers from being recorded so quickly (just two-and-a-half weeks) and there are a couple of instrumentals whose lack of lyrics perhaps betray the rush to get it out of the door a mere six months after the debut.  Sixteen Again would have made for a very fine follow-up single, but the band had other ideas.

4. Promises

This proved to be the follow-up to Ever Fallen In Love.  A stand-alone, non-album single whose release in came at the end of November 1978.  It would go on to spend 10 weeks in the charts, yo-yoing up and down a bit, and eventually reaching its peak of #20 in the last chart of that calendar year, which surely indicates that there were a fair few copies given to folk as Christmas presents.  Given the time of year it was released, and that it didn’t leave the charts until the last week of January 1979, there’s every chance this was actually the band’s best-selling 45 of them all.

5. I Believe

The closing track on A Different Kind Of Tension comes in at a tad over seven minutes and is one of the band’s most overlooked and underappreciated songs. As with Spiral Scratch, and as with Ever Fallen In Love….everything that can possibly be written about Buzzcocks has already been put to paper, and nobody has done it better than Paul Hanley whose 2024 book, Sixteen Again, is an essential read.

 

JC