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Buzzcocks [2003]
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Buzzcocks [2003] Image
Metascore
70

Generally favorable reviews - based on 16 Critic Reviews What's this?

User Score
5.8

Mixed or average reviews- based on 4 Ratings

  • Summary: Does the world really need another Buzzcocks album? Well, this new LP from Pete Shelley and Steve Diggle (which includes two tracks co-written by fellow original Buzzcock Howard Devoto), the band's fourth since re-forming in 1989, may be their best in many years.

Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 11 out of 16
  2. Mixed: 4 out of 16
  3. Negative: 1 out of 16
  1. Billboard
    90
    Seamless without being monotonous, "Buzzcocks" is punk rock for grownups, teenagers, and everyone in between, without pandering or becoming a caricature of itself.
  2. Entertainment Weekly
    83
    It's nice to hear that middle-age hasn't diminished [their] songwriting skills. [28 Mar 2003, p.69]
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  3. Magnet
    80
    Even at their most obvious, the Buzzcocks can smoke the young guns. [#58, p.83]
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  4. Q Magazine
    70
    Back to basics. [May 2003, p.100]
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  5. Pitchfork
    67
    They've still got angst to spare, but their wit has been ground down by 'maturity,' or whatever you want to call it, into a bitter thing that saps a lot of that reckless energy.
  6. PopMatters
    60
    The album is good -- remarkably so considering how late it comes in a group's life span -- but it's still a late-era release and suffers from many of the same problems so common to that milieu.
  7. Stylus Magazine
    32
    This album is flat boring musically and sonically.

See all 16 Critic Reviews

User Reviews

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Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2 out of 2
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 2
  3. Negative: 0 out of 2
  1. Thekeith
    Sep 15, 2014
    10
    My review is the brand new 2014 release of the NEW Buzzcocks album "The Way" since this metacritic site is too lame to actually keep up withMy review is the brand new 2014 release of the NEW Buzzcocks album "The Way" since this metacritic site is too lame to actually keep up with anything that isn't force fed music, and most of it isn't written by the people who appear on the covers and titles of the music. So lame. So, anyway. The Buzzcocks ( Yes , The Beatles of Punk Rock) just put out another album. It's A BLAST ! It's fun, fun, fun, fun, stuff. Being you are reading this review, you might actually get it, where most here are brainwashed into thinking arcade fire, or U2, or coldplay deserve any attention. That stuff is what I like to refer to as musical diarrhea. Back to the Buzzcocks 2014 release of "The Way" Each song contains a tasty bit of the original sound the Buzzcocks discharged into the minds of so many unsuspecting people three decades ago, and it continues today. It's a blast. My cravings for pop/punk goodness were fulfilled. It's a well written, great sounding CD with a lot of driving melodic songs that should be shared on many radio stations, but will never get any attention there. How sad, here we have this wonderful brand new CD from one of the best bands in recent history, and no one knows its here. But, lucky for you, you now do. I am going to see The Buzzcocks this week, and this time around, I actually hope they play a few from this new album. You know how it is when you go to see a band you love, and they kind of punish you with some of their new songs, that's not the case here. These new songs are great. More fun stuff from "The Beatles of Punk Rock, The Buzzcocks. Yes, coldplay, and U2 and Arcade Fire are just musical Diarrhea, so there.… Expand
  2. MilesD
    Mar 24, 2006
    8
    Dense and loud!