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A Different Kind of Tension (Reissue)

The Buzzcocks

A Different Kind of Tension (Reissue)

Mute U.S.
Rolling Stone: star rating
5 4
Community: star rating
May 11, 2010

The Buzzcocks were the Seventies U.K. punk band that sang about all the corny teenage fixations the other Seventies U.K. punks rejected: love, lust, orgasm addiction, cars, being 16. But they did it with just as much brutish intensity as anyone. Their first three albums — all reissued now — are underrated gems, setting Pete Shelley's overheated whine to the catchiest blurt this side of the Ramones. Tension, from 1979, is the best of these three: This reissue adds demos, live stuff and many of those great singles, including masterworks like the pop fan's anthem 'Harmony in My Head' and the throbbing 'Why Can't I Touch It,' a perfect summation of the 'Cocks worldview.

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