The Buzzcocks – Another Music in a Different Kitchen (Reissue)

“Well I don’t want just a girl to fool around with/ Well I don’t want just a girl to ball /What I want is a girl that I care about/ Or nothing at all.” -The Modern Lovers, “Someone I Care About,” 1972

Personally, I think The Buzzcocks had little to do with The Ramones aside from superficial traits like speed and pop melody. Ditto for The Sex Pistols, though Peter Shelley and comrades certainly began life similarly nasty-minded with Johnny Rotten knock-off Howard Devoto at the helm. Purists will still hold the 1976 Spiral Scratch EP as the end-all, be-all to The Buzzcocks, but the group didn’t fully become itself until they made the transition that culminated in their 1977 debut, Another Music in a Different Kitchen. The sneer and crudity remained, but now apparent was an idealist, almost masochistic romanticism.

The early singles were well-thought out exercises in that balance; “Orgasm Addict” poked fun at nymphomaniacs, but its B-side, the exuberant “Whatever Happened To” is a bittersweet lamentation of lost love disguised as cheek. The follow-up “What Do I Get” (which proved their biggest success thus far by actually charting and not being banned from the airwaves) pokes sly fun at teen angst and self-centered mopes, but yet again, the B-side is the counterpoint; the less melodic and radio friendly “Oh Shit!” is a rather pointed rebuff of a false friend. Think The Beatles’ “Getting Better” sharing vinyl space with Bob Dylan’s “Positively 4th Street” and you’ll get any idea of the breadth of emotion these early singles had.

Another Music in a Different Kitchen was the group’s first attempt at a full-length recording. Like their singles, it begins with a joke, but leaves the more heartfelt material as the meat. As a refutation of rock and roll clichés like “live fast, die young,” the incredibly Modern Lovers-esque “Fast Cars” cuts fairly quick and establishes that The Buzzcocks aren’t really a band for tough guys; Shelley openly admits in the first minute that driving too fast makes him dizzy. From there, the songs can be generally divided between the hormonal angst-ridden and the heartbroken. The former tend to dominate the album’s first half, possibly for the sake of a more energized experience.

“No Reply” updates The Beatles classic of the same name, providing a new anthem for all those stone walled from romantic bliss. “You Tear Me Up” is perhaps the most feral song Shelley ever wrote, it moves at a blistering pace and relates his total disgust with wet kisses, with oral sex, and with his lover (whom he labels a swine) all before he collapses into his hatred by the song’s crash/burn ending. “Get On Our Own” has a yodeling call and response, akin to Bob Dylan’s “All I Want To Do” as if recorded by the early Beatles, whilst “Love Battery” is clearly just a guy talking about his scrotum.

As for the heartbroken songs, the mid-tempo “Sixteen” swoons for post-adolescent nostalgia, the single “I Don’t Mind” is an anthem for relationship doormats everywhere, and the world weary “Fiction Romance” pledges to keep up the search for that idealized love story even if it’s possibly a lie. Ever the breath of air, guitarist Steve Diggle pens the tough rocking “Autonomy” as a yearn for independence and Shelley combines his two approaches on the frantic “I Need,” yet another cry of vulnerability laced with crudities and a tongue firmly placed in cheek. The only false step is the last. The concluding “Moving to the Pulsebeat,” whilst a respectable attempt to let the album simmer down after 30 minutes of pure adrenaline, amounts to little more than two boring chords droning on for far too long. The Buzzcocks would perfect slower, headier material, but here they only hint at those heights.

Much has been made of The Buzzcocks’ influence on subsequent punk acts, leading to the genre’s mainstreaming via Nirvana and Green Day in the ’90s, but Another Music in a Different Kitchen still sounds alien today. Shelley’s voice is closer to a hyperactive Robert Smith possessed by a pixie (the mischievous fictional being, not Dave Lovering), far removed from the usual nasal California whine. Furthermore, he doesn’t come off as a the tough tattooed lover that girlies would want to date. Instead he sounds as screwed up and antisocial as Jonathan Richman and Gordon Gano from The Violent Femmes, albeit saved somewhat by the inherent charm of an English accent. The guitars are loud and thrash toughly, anticipating American hardcore a year later and Seattle grunge after that.

So too does the band escape the pitfall of preciousness that much modern indie rock succumbs to. Though perhaps not the group’s best album (A Different Kind of Tension) or most essential recording (Singles Going Steady), Another Music in a Different Kitchen showcases the group at their youngest, loudest and snottiest with their heart and wits already firmly in place. Not just classic punk, but classic rock and roll.

Included in this reissue are the aforementioned “Orgasm Addict”/”What Do I Get” singles, as well as rough demos (not terribly different from their studio counterparts) and a cracking live set from 1977.

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Tagged as: college rock, English punk, pop punk

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