Buzzcocks

Never Mind the Buzzcocks

by Claudio Fabretti

The saga of the Buzzcocks at the centre of the new episode of Rock in Onda, the show hosted by Claudio Fabretti every Wednesday from 12 to 2pm on the web-frequencies of Radio Città Aperta (www.radiocittaperta.it).

Born from the genius of the Shelley-Devoto duo, the Manchester band effectively invented punk-pop, with their explosive mix of hyper-fast guitars, powerful basslines, catchy melodies and sharp-witted lyrics, all steeped in a contrarian romanticism and a genuine bewilderment at the modern world.

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Buzzcocks

Few bands like the Buzzcocks managed to fully embody their genre while simultaneously dismantling almost all of its stereotypes. That's one more reason they rank among the most original protagonists of an entire era. Punk at heart, in their insolent approach, in their ability to condense rage and feeling into freeze-dried 2-3 minute song fragments, these Mancunians were nevertheless also something quite different. Starting with their look of fresh-faced, geeky students, devoid of the vandalistic attitude of their punk peers. "We're four nice lads, the kind you could bring home and introduce to your parents," Pete Shelley joked in one of his earliest interviews. After all, he and Howard Devoto, the group's other brilliant co-founder, didn't fit the cliché of the bored working-class kid looking for a fight or nihilistic (self-)destruction. The former, born Peter McNeish, was an engineering student with a passion for the Romantic poets – not by chance, he'd taken as his stage name that of his favourite: Percy Bysshe Shelley. The latter, meanwhile, had cast off the thoroughly English surname Trafford to adopt the more mysterious Devoto, in keeping with his passion for literature and philosophy, which he studied while compulsively listening to that American-bred proto-punk born somewhere between the Detroit of the Stooges and the New York of the Velvet Underground and CBGB.

What really shattered punk's conventions, though, was above all their music. It was pop, thanks to the crystalline melodies and killer choruses they churned out with casual ease, almost like modern-day Beatles or Kinks. It was post for its art-rock attitude (which Devoto would later develop more fully in Magazine) and for its witty lyrics, which, instead of the nihilism of the Sex Pistols or the political broadsides of the Clash, dealt with teenage frustration, sex and - believe it or not - love, including the bisexual kind, openly celebrated by Shelley. But it was also an early embryo of indie: the debut EP "Spiral Scratch" (1977), released on their own label New Hormones, is regarded as the prototype of DIY (do it yourself). Finally, some have gone even further, imagining fanciful connections to jazz, like Paul Morley, NME's Manchester correspondent, who was blown away by their early shows: "They sounded like Ornette Coleman! The guitar and bass darted about, the drums were entirely polyrhythmic, the voice was a whip. If you stepped back five centimetres you'd think: this is free jazz."

Less celebrated than some of their peers, the Buzzcocks are nonetheless among the artists of that era who managed to leave a deeper, more lasting mark. Their punk-pop has withstood the test of time: from the age of the Ramones (perhaps their only true putative mentors) to that of Nirvana (who would adopt them as godfathers, bringing them on stage during their final tour in 1994), all the way to Green Day, who simplified their lesson and ferried it into the 2000s, and the punk-garage revival of the Strokes that would sweep through the noughties. After all, it was Shelley himself who ambitiously revealed to NME: "Before I write a song, I have to make sure it can stand the test of time." Paradoxical, at the time of rock'n'roll's greatest swindle and the rapid self-destruction of the Sex Pistols and co.

Don't forget to follow the Facebook page of Rock in Onda, where you can always find the podcasts to download, along with the full setlists and all the news about the show.

Feel free to send us comments, suggestions and ideas for future episodes, via Facebook or by email at: rockinonda@ondarock.it We'd be glad to build future tracklists with your input too.

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13/01/2026

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This article is an English translation of the original Italian text by Claudio Fabretti, published on OndaRock.it. It was translated with the help of artificial intelligence, under the editorial responsibility of OndaRock's editor-in-chief, Claudio Fabretti.

Read the original in Italian · About the English edition