Buzzcocks - Love Bites
Consider it an answer to the doo-wop generation. It’s about those kids from the late-70’s that didn’t really have any answers—the kids that learned about love from a piece of vinyl. They’re stuck with the backwash of the more pure past. They’re sitting at the gates of that whole “punk” gig, trying to figure out why it’s not quite adding up. It has the awkwardness of a teen boy struck by a proto-love with no other means of expressing it. It’s heartfelt, it’s calculated, it’s unbearably nostalgic.
The album has that almost nauseating flow and turn like the doo-wops did, but there’s an edge to it—a pure and unfocused angst that takes us back to young adulthood. The benefit of such a combination is most notably in how goddamn catchy the songs are. Pete Shelley’s voice strains in a very early-punk British way, and it’s set to little riffs of clean distortion and nearly surgical drumming (John Maher is right on time). At times the album justifies its patch real estate on the backs of young punks, at times it sounds like a Kinks album, and at times it’s downright orchestral for their setup.
So swirls and swoops take us through the brain of a young male romantic—and the essential emotional range there within. We’ve explored the desperation and innocence of youth and its downs and ups and everything in-between. It’s the principal “what about me?” notion behind an entire limb of 80’s music, and it reminds us exactly how little we’ve progressed from being jilted and unrequited teens. Maybe it’s about us.
-Drew
No comments:
Post a Comment