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Buzzcocks: Sonics In The Soul
CD/DL/LP
Out now
Buzzcocks co-founder and primary songwriter Pete Shelley passed away in 2018 but the band’s other singer/songwriter Steve Diggle made the controversial decision to keep the band going, under the same name. Sonics In the Soul is the first full album of new material from Diggle, Chris Remington and Danny Farrant.
When the man-in-the-street hears the word ‘Buzzcocks’ they immediately think of the TV comedy music quiz show first.
Secondly, they recall Ever Fallen In Love – a slice of punk-pop perfection, sung by a camp, new wave version of George Formby backed by an amped-up Herman’s Hermits.
Only ‘the secret public’ know Buzzcocks as the band that kicked started the UK Independent revolution with their New Hormones label.
When Joy Division lost Ian Curtis they became New Order. When The Ruts lost Malcolm Owen they renamed themselves Ruts DC. Bruce Foxton plays in a band called From The Jam.
On the other hand, the Stranglers are still recording and touring as the Stranglers, despite being down to one ‘original’ member.
It boils down to:
‘Without Pete Shelley, this should not really be called Buzzcocks’
Versus
‘Steve Diggle was there from the start, he has a perfect right to carry on…’
Consequently, any reviewer has got to take this into consideration.
The original Buzzcocks, to me, were about Shelley and his modern romanticism, Devoto and his intelligence, the astounding drummer John Maher, Richard Boon and his pioneering independence: a Mondrian style, a sly humour, suit jackets, button badges and most of all ‘another music from a different kitchen’ – meaning, not rock’n’roll, nor pop, nor punk, something different and set apart, something new – ordinary yet extraordinary. Simple, but informed by krautrock … punk rock for smart, shy and coy boys and girls.
Diggle did write key songs and played an invaluable role in the United Artists-era Buzzcocks more as a sideman, guitarist and occasional songwriter: a role he just couldn’t accept it seems. He wanted to be an equal partner. The McCartney to Shelley’s Lennon… or vice versa.
It was only at the tail-end of their original run (the last three double A-side Hannett-produced singles) and when the band reformed in 1989 that Diggle started writing more and more: until eventually it was roughly half of the band’s material on the six albums from 1993’s Trade Test Transmissions through to 2014’s The Way.
A wise man & Diggle supporter said to me, He was a vital part of the band from the start. His mod-ish look and wired energy. He wrote more Buzzcocks classics than people realise. As well as Autonomy and Harmony In My Head, he co-wrote Promises, one of the biggest chart hits. His Jack the Lad style weirdly obscures his pop art background – his stage persona is vastly different from his real-life one.
So, to Sonics In The Soul – a Buzzcocks album with no direct Shelley input or content.
By any standards, it’s not a great album. It sounds like a Manchester guitar band going thru the motions. The lyrics are pretty nonsensical in a Gallagher brothers pile-on-the-cliches kinda style. The tunes are ‘OK’ at best and the playing pretty pedestrian for pacey pop/rock.
But it’s Diggle’s vocals on some of the tracks which are the biggest hindrance to getting any enjoyment out of Sonics in The Soul. What he presumably imagines to be a Bob Dylan meets Liam Gallagher nasal twang actually sounds like Frank Sidebottom.
As soon as someone puts the ‘Sidebottom’ thought into your head, it is really difficult to not think it.
Diggle didn’t use to sound like that – Harmony In My Head and Autonomy are still peerless songs (and so good that they made Love Is Lies and You Know You Can’t Help It excusable.)
On You Changed Everything Now Steve tries his best to sing like Shelley to give the song a convincingly Buzzcocks vibe. Yet his guitar-playing veers song-to-song from Chuck Berry/Johnny Thunders type solo’s to Neil Young style discordant battering to Marr-lite sustain and shimmer. It’s as if he is clutching at straws and trying out ideas to see what works.
There are familiar and enjoyable bits on Sonics in the Soul and they are the Buzzcock trademarks: the first three seconds of stuttering guitar opening the album sound like Breakdown: the unrelenting chugging of Bad Dreams is similar to Fiction Romance and Nothing Left. The beautifully discordant solo an echo of Shelley’s guitar on Friends Of Mine: Everything Is Wrong re-purposes the riff from ESP: The backing vocal interjections of ‘Oh No’ in Senses Out of Control sound like the ghost-of-Pete popping up like a spectral jack in the box.
Manchester Rain though, really is the pits. Just horrible. (I am trying to be objective… really I am.)
The very odd Experimental Farm is built on a would-be Led Zep riff and lyrically wanders into conspiroloon territory.
Venus Eyes has a decent vocal and is a reasonable bit of Ray Davies-influenced pop. It sounds more like (From) The Jam than (being by the) Buzzcocks though.
How does Sonics In The Soul stand up against Buzzcocks back catalogue? I’m afraid it’s not really on a par with The Way or the eponymous 2003 album or Flat-Pack Philosophy which all seem far more cohesive albums.
There’s not a song that matches up to Diggles best latterday work, Sick City Sometimes or Alive Tonight: the balancing act of Shelley song/ Diggle song that has been Reformed Buzzcocks is no longer there.
It is stating the bleedin’ obvious that this is now a one-songwriter band rather than having two – and that is why it’s a weak(er) album. The weight of Buzzcocks Legacy is on Diggle’s shoulders and it is a heavy load to carry, despite Farrant and Remington’s best efforts.
A friend put it to me this way:
Bands aren’t like football teams – you can follow a football team for 40 years and of course it’s a succession of different players – it’s not like that with a proper, classic band. One original member left and they shouldn’t use the name, it’s a completely different dynamic to the original band.
The band are now Another Buzzcocks in a Different Time-frame and a Different Kind of Buzzcocks… followers and fans of the band will make their own minds up whether Sonics lives up to the name and legacy.
Personally, I think Steve is using it as a Flag of Convenience. (I’ll get me coat..)
Buy on Vinyl from Cherry Red
Buy on CD from Cherry Red
Download from various outlets
Buzzcocks Official website
All words Ged Babey
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This is, in all but name, a Steve Diggle solo album, and having listened to it I can confirm that it’s every bit as shite as those poxy Flag of Convenience records he kept curling out in the late 80s. Sticking the word ‘Buzzcocks’ on the front does not make it so, however much Diggle would wish it to be.
Buzzcocks was over the minute Pete passed away; it’s just a shame Diggle lacks the self-respect and diginity to recognise this.
Very well said to Ged & the above post. If pop music has cops, Diggle would be in jail now.
I read that Shelley had retired somewhere shortly after The Way so I suppose that would have been their last album anyway. Sad for us.
Give respect to Diggle he was on par with Pete when it came to song writing which is what made them so great, they each had their own style. Listen to Trade Test Transmissions it’s the album where Steve really shines and you can argue he had the better songs. Listening to the new album right now and its quite good much better than The Way which was dismal. Of course it’s not the same with out Pete but I’d say check out the album anyway!
“he was on par with Pete when it came to song writing”
Riiiiiight. Find your copy of the third album and compare ‘Mad Mad Judy’ with ‘I Believe’ if you dare. Then try the same trick with ‘You know you can’t help it’ and ‘Paradise’. If you’re seriously telling me that either of Diggle’s contributions to that album were anywhere even close to Pete’s then you, my friend, have a serious case of the cloth ears. Even two of his songs per album were a luxury that even Buzzcocks couldn’t afford.
My head says you’re right; having seen Buzzcocks twice since Pete died (and I only saw them twice while he was alive, and one of those was a recording for a TV show), my heart says different. I’m sure it’s psychological: I don’t want to let go.
At the same time, I’ve only recently started listening to Pete’s solo stuff (and, probably not coincidentally, Magazine) and it’s in an entirely different league: the same league as David Bowie. Pete was a genius, who displayed range (from the extreme economy of “Noise Annoys” to the epic “I Believe”) and remarkable consistency and – most importantly of all – he had something to say even if he was, in Steve’s words, Mills and Boon to Steve’s James Joyce.
If still loving Buzzcocks is middle-aged man nostalgia, I’ll take that.
No Pete Shelley, no Buzzcocks.
No Cornwall, Greenfield and Black, no Stranglers.
No Mickey Fitz, no Business.
It’s as simple as that, stop becoming tribute acts to yourselves, it’s pretty grim.
Track 7 is Just Got to Let It Go. Sound advice (pun intended).
Everybody is horrible to Steve – it’s as if he was an annoying younger brother who just tagged along. Everybody kisses Devoto and Pete’s shoes – they weren’t oiks, why they even liked Kraftwerk! Goodness, how intellectual. Seriously though, Howard and Pete deserve the lavish praise, but Manchester Rain is perfectly ‘alright’. It’s quite the ‘toe-tapper’, as I believe the young folk say, Oil give it Five (out of eight). It does, it makes my leg shake, Strummer-style (though that could be due to any number of neurological conditions). Those of us not in the flush of Youth are made more forgiving, such is the pity. Why should the last man standing not remain erect for as long as he is able. For the infinity of death beckons … I for one will be ‘headbanging’ at the next Buzzcock gig nearby! I cherish them even their misses – sounds like slavish uncritical mush-headedness and it is. I also loved Steve’s story about his first twang – accompanying the sight of a groovy chick utilising her sci-fi hairdryer, with Beatles and Dylan in the immediate vicinity, and memories of Sputnik still fresh. God Bless Yer Steve. That said – bless you LTW and Ged for having the nous to publish an honest review. The regurgitated press releases from other outlets are so much sewage. PS There should be a Pete solo anthology (Whats the betting he becomes the focus of hideously expensive vinyl reiisues via Superior Viaduct or similar. Farewell, forever, ‘Pay No More Than two Quid’).
*I fancy I have a solution to the continuation/naming dilemma which my satisfy all parties. Steve ought to trademark the Buzzcocks name, and brand the band as Buzzcocks (TM) – therefore establishing this era as a ‘phase2’ of the band, a new wotsit, and simultaneously making a knowing ‘pop-art’ commentary on the commodified status of music and bands in our corporate consumer culture. It’s the dirty water we swim in so embrace it. DEVO.02 was a step in this direction, NO orig members, and you know what? It was GREAT. Tear down your idols poster. Sex Pistols should’ve made a subversive version of Pops Idols in which they auditioned replacements to perform in a ‘New!’ Sex Pistols – it could’ve been a great bit of chaos and better, more alive advert for the group than Channel 5’s Pistop Pissedhole.
Diggle should have got another singer , much younger , maybe even a girl. I can’t say I really care about him using the name Buzzcocks. Doesn’t seem that important in the scheme of things. Let’s face it the music us in our 50s and 60s love is just another part of the nostalgia industry now. The tribute band BuzzKoks are wonderful by the way.
I suggested to Steve on Twitter that Buzzcocks get a female singer. He blocked me.
(He did unblock me later, and we are friends on Facebook.)