(The) Buzzcocks: The BBC Sessions

This out-of-print Buzzcocks compilation contains all their their non-John Peel sessions for the BBC from from 1978 through to 1997.

The fact that this collection focuses so much on their nineties reformation makes it a fine sampler of their newer (uh... maybe later or mid-period is the word I'm looking for) work, much of which is excellent.



The BBC Sessions link is in the comments


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(The) Buzcocks: Lest We Forget

Okay, so there's no shortage of Buzzcocks live albums (I lost track years ago) but it's still strange that this compilation of material from their North American tour of 1979/1980 recorded and curated by Joan McNulty (then Pete Shelly's girlfriend) has fallen out-of-print as it's an early and crucial document of the band's furious live work.

Lest We Forget link is in the comments.


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(The) Buzzcocks: The Peel Sessions

Spot The Buzzcocks lie:

1. The Buzzcocks invented pop-punk.

2. The Buzzcocks were punk's first deliberately D.I.Y. band.

3. The Buzzcocks influenced almost every band from Manchester since 1976.

4. The Buzzcocks re-defined the love song forever.

5. The Buzzcocks were the greatest singles band ever.

They're all lies

Or at least they're the sort of contentious statements music journos (and lowly bloggers) proffer to try and dress up our ragged subjectivity in the straight-cut objectivity of rankings and chart placing and peer-reviewed twaddle.We all know that no band or man (even Bill Monroe) invents a genre single-handedly, that Doing It Yourself is long-established rock n' roll tradition (like Elvis making that record for his mom), that Manchester's musical traditions is greater than any one band, that the love song is both static and ever-changing and that what makes a 'singles band' is fairly nebulous.

They're also all a bit true.

It's hard to just deny that The Buzzcocks brought an immaculate pop sense to a British punk scene that eyed melodies suspiciously or that by putting out Spiral Scratch'on their own New Hormones label that they indelibly linked punk to the D.I.Y. philosophy, that lots of Manchester bands from The Smiths to the Stone Roses to some NME Indie Landfill band du jour learned their trade partly from The Buzzcocks, that songs like"Ever Fallen In Love" brought a certain cynical sharpness to the love song tradition and that Singles Going Steady is, totally sub-fucking-jectively the greatest collection of singles (A's and B's together) ever!

This collection of Peel Sessions that The Buzzcocks did between 1977-1979 are out-of-print and if you want to hear them re-mastered and added to demos and singles (i.e. the way a re-issue should be done!) then go get the new double-album re-issues of the band's first three albums.


The Peel Sessions link is in the comments - REALLY!.

Speaking of comments, What is the truth about the Buzzcocks?


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