BUZZCOCKS: TRADE TEST TRANSMISSIONS (1993)
1) Do It; 2) Innocent; 3) T T
T; 4) Isolation; 5) Smile; 6) Last To Know; 7) When Love Turns Around; 8) Never
Gonna Give It Up; 9) Energy; 10) Palm Of Your Hand; 11) Alive Tonight; 12)
Who'll Help Me Forget; 13) Unthinkable; 14) Crystal Night; 15) 369; 16*) All
Over You; 17*) Inside.
That the Buzzcocks split up in 1981 is totally
appropriate — this way, they did not have to smear their name with ten years'
worth of (most likely) subpar material. That they reappeared with another
album in 1993, soon after the «grunge revolution» once again changed the face
of popular music and removed some of the Eighties' excess, was, consequently,
quite appropriate as well. However, as usual, this 2.0 version of the band is
yet another example of how, when something gets broken, the cracks and seams
will show even if you try very hard
to repair it.
These new «Buzzcocks» are really just Shelley
and Diggle, with a couple extra new guys named Barber and Barker (no, really,
that's their names) in the rhythm section — but it's not as if it was Barber
and Barker's fault that the sound of the album is... not all that satisfactory.
Namely, the guitar melodies are almost always reduced to the same gray, sludgy,
grumbly tone that is heavier and more aggressive than the old «chainsaw buzz»
of the Seventies, and tends to lump all the melodies together. I mean, from a
certain dialectical point of view «all Buzzcocks sound the same», but when you
get down to earth, their early classic albums don't — the individual melodies
are rising out resplendently from the surface. Trade Test Transmissions just speed before your eyes and ears
without bothering to shift tempo, tonality, mood, or perspective.
It's not particularly annoying, and we've all
heard much worse: at least this guitar sound «makes sense» — fast, furious, but
pop-styled songs about sex, love, and more sex, dominated by catchy choruses,
go along better with this style than if they tried to go all heavy metal on
their listeners (like some of the hardcore punk people did). Listen to any one of these songs at random and there
will be no reason to get mad. But there's fifteen of them here, and they all sound alike — a far, far cry from
those times when, if you still remember, Shelley and Diggle tried out various
approaches. You could complain about ʽLate For The Trainʼ being overlong, but
you couldn't say that it sounded just like all those other songs. Those guys
were actually bringing ideas, plural,
into the studio, not just one basic Idea of how you're supposed to plug in,
take off, race through, sign out, and then repeat procedure 15 times in a row.
Unfortunately, I cannot recommend even a single
song; unless you begin to pick them apart by paying attention to the lyrics
(and you shouldn't, because ʽPalm Of Your Handʼ is, indeed, exactly about what
you're probably thinking about at the moment), it's all just one punk-pop song
with fifteen variations. A happy song, with a thick distorted buzzing rhythm
track and melodic lead lines, but that does not excuse it from taking such a
large chunk of time out of your life. ʽT T Tʼ (the abbreviated title track,
actually) is a bit grimmer than the rest, with a tough-guy AC/DC-style chord
change, but you might not even notice without special warning (I certainly did
not before I caught note of Mark Prindle's observation on how the song stands
out a bit, and I agree).
So, was this reunion a complete waste of time?
Well... at least it's not like they really plopped the Buzzcocks' brand into
the dirt here or anything. If you are a big fan, even if you too happen to be
disappointed, with time you will begin to trace the little nuances between different
songs and get happier. They're silly songs, much of the time, but the Buzzcocks
never took themselves too seriously anyway, so if Shelley sings about himself
as a sexual giant on ʽDo Itʼ, you can be sure he is still being quite the tongue-in-cheek hoochie coochie man about it.
I can see where time could help warm up to the songs — unfortunately, I don't
have that time, and much as I like and respect the early Buzzcocks, this is not
because I feel some sort of psychic connection with Shelley and Diggle, but
just because those hooks jump out at me so effectively. It's an entirely
different thing when you have to go hunting for the hooks yourself, and Trade Test Transmissions
wants you to do all its dirty work on your own — no, thank you very much.
No comments:
Post a Comment