Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Buzzcocks: Parts 1-3 (1981)


I wish I had discovered this band earlier. I've liked every track I have ever heard from this band. Tis one is collection of seven tracks. Here is some background from Allmusic:

The final Buzzcocks release, Parts 1, 2, 3, is an EP collecting both sides of the band's last three singles, the results of the band's chaotic final sessions with producer Martin Hannett. Pete Shelley later admitted that most of the band, as well as the producer, were heavily involved with cocaine and heroin during this period, and the songs sound like the work of a group in the process of fragmenting, both as an entity and as individuals. Evenly divided between principal songwriters Shelley and Steve Diggle, Diggle clearly comes out ahead, with three strong tracks ("Why She's a Girl From the Chainstore," the only track with the fire and verve of the old Buzzcocks; the anthemic "Airwaves Dream"; and "Running Free") to Shelley's one, the paranoid "Strange Thing." Shelley's other two efforts, "Are Everything" and "What Do You Know," are uncharacteristically weak songs unhelped by Hannett's murky, muddled production. A poor end for a once-great band, Parts 1, 2, 3 is uneven and often frustrating, with even the best tracks in some way damaged by the overall sense of anomie. [source]

I don't think it's as bad a that. 



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