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BUZZCOCKS

Buzzcocks

Attitude Adjustment

Brand new album from punk pioneers Buzzcocks.

It’s punk rock with a Motown vibe! A new album should always have elements of surprise and create its own world, and this does!

It avoids the cliché and expands the Buzzcocks’ magical journey!

Legendary Manchester punk outfit Buzzcocks need little introduction. Back in 1977, they gave birth to a generation of independent labels with their debut EP ‘Spiral Scratch’. Thereafter, their melodic punk-pop proved irresistible, leading to hit singles and three landmark albums. They broke up in 1981 but reunited in 1989 and have been going steady ever since. Sadly, singer Pete Shelley passed away in 2018 but founder member and the band’s other singer/ songwriter Steve Diggle has kept the flag flying.

2026 sees them release their 12th studio album 'Attitude Adjustment' which is bursting with 14 brand new tracks that will delight fans of the iconic and much loved Manchester music institution.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A
1. Queen Of The Scene
2. Games
3.Seeing Daylight
4. Poetic Machine Gun
5. Tear Of A Golden Girl
6. Heavy Streets
7. One Of The Universe (Part One)
8. All Gone To War
9. One Of The Universe (Part Two)
SIDE B
1. Jesus At The Wheel
2. Just A Dream I Followed
3. Feeling Uptight
4. Break That Ball And Chain
5. The Greatest Of Them All

Buzzcocks

Live Alexandra Park Manchester 1978

When Bernie Wilcox and Geoff Brown approached Chris Hewitt in June 1978 about building a stage and providing a PA system for Alexandra Park, Manchester, Chris already had all the hardware booked for the Deeply Vale Festival which was a week later in July 1978 than the date Bernie and Geoff had proposed for the Northern Carnival Against Racism Concert. This then meant that all of the equipment, generators, scaffolding and fencing could simply have the hire period brought forward to cover Alexandra Park and that the costs would be far more reasonable than a completely ‘start from scratch hire’. So it was that about 12 days before Deeply Vale 1978 we started to build a stage and secure compound in Alexandra Park, Manchester. Three days before Buzzcocks were due to play on the Saturday we got a call to ask if Graham Parker and The Rumour could rehearse in the park on the stage on the Thursday night as he was supporting Bob Dylan and Eric Clapton at a festival at Blackbushe Aerodrome on the Saturday and Graham and the Rumour had never played outdoors before. So we finished the stage by Thursday lunchtime for a free concert by Graham Parker in the evening and then Buzzcocks played Alexandra Park Saturday afternoon.

Pete Shelley in 2016 – “I know Chris Hewitt obtained a recording of Buzzcocks at Alexandra Park, it would be great fun if it came out as an album”. Pete Shelley 1978 after playing his set at Alexandra Park –“This wasn’t politics it was fun, but the best kind of fun is with people and being with people is politics”. Paul Morley reviewing the concert – “Buzzcocks placed the emphasis on entertainment – a people’s celebration. Arriving on stage with no fixed set they played some pop music… They were a triumph”. 

TRACK LISTING

Side 1.
1 Spoken Word From People Involved
2 Ever Fallen In Love
3 Sixteen
4 Moving Away From The Pulse Beat
5 Fiction Romance
6 Love You More
Side 2.
1 Spoken Word From People Involved
2 Nothing Left
3 Breakdown
4 Noise Annoys
5 What Do I Get
6 Autonomy
7 Boredom

Buzzcocks

Sonics In The Soul

The legendary Manchester punk band need little introduction. Back in 1977, they gave birth to a generation of independent labels with their debut EP ‘Spiral Scratch’. Thereafter, their melodic punk - pop proved irresistible, leading to hit singles and three landmark albums. They broke up in 1981 but reunited in 1989 and have been going steady ever since. Sadly, singer Pete Shelley passed away in 2018 but founder member and the band’s other singer/songwriter Steve Diggle has kept the flag flying. During the COVID pandemic, Steve and co. (Chris Remington on bass, Danny Farrant on drums) busied themselves with recording ‘Sonics In The Soul’. Recorded at Studio 7in London, the album was co-produced by Steve himself with Laurence Loveless.

TRACK LISTING

1 Senses Out Of Control
2 Manchester Rain
3 You’ve Changed Everything Now
4 Bad Dreams
5 Nothingless World
6 Don't Mess With My Brain
7 Just Got To Let It Go
8 Everything Is Wrong
9 Experimental Farm
10 Can You Hear Tomorrow
11 Venus Eyes

Behind the chocolate box cover, Love Bites is an album of paradoxes if not clashing opposites: real/imaginary, past/future, love/lust, connection/alienation, commerciality/experimentation. It’s to the group’s credit that they walk the high wire with ease: the attack is less punk, more measured and on occasion psychedelic, as befits the perceptual and philosophical nature of Shelley’s lyrics. The glossy pop star photo on the sleeve is matched by stranger photo realist portraits on the inner, by Robin Utracik of the Worst: Shelley in particular looks dishevelled, having just vomited when the source photo was taken.

Love Bites hit its moment. The reviews were good, and so were sales: it reached number 13 in the album charts, Buzzcocks’ best showing. They immediately went out on their fourth tour, Beating Hearts - supported by Subway Sect - which was marked in this year of Sham 69 by skinhead violence and stage invasions, definitely not what Buzzcocks were about. The fifth single of that year had already been recorded: ‘Promises’ and ‘Lipstick’, the latter of which used the same riff as Magazine’s debut ‘Shot by Both Sides’. Buzzcocks had reached their commercial peak, but Pete Shelley was deeply troubled.

Late 1978 was a harsh place, with competing styles and fads and the relentless pressure of rapid fire novelty that punk had set up. The pace was killing and on top of that the impetus of 1976 punk had faded. Shelley also felt that the original sense of community had gone: “Once we were in the music industry, people had become more diversified, there was nothing really to pull people together again.” More importantly, the constant touring was driving him mad: “It was a bit unnerving. When we did the Love Bites tour I was convinced by Richard not to leave the band. It was all getting too much for me.”




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