Track Listing

1. Into the Future....
2. Yeah Yeah Yeah
3. Sweet Sweet Heart
4. Keep It Clean
5. Baby Baby
6. No Heart
7. She's Bringing You Down
8. Petrol
9. London Girls
10. You Broke My Heart
11. Whips and Furs
12. Stiff Little Fingers
13. Wrecked on You
14. I Need a Slave
15. Bad Time

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #49137 in Music
• Released on: 2007-05-07
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .23 pounds

From Amazon.com
Pure Mania is a terrific relic of the punk era by a London band that owes much more to the Ramones than the Sex Pistols. Light on anger and nihilism but heavy on humor and fun, it's a blitz of twisted love songs ("Sweet Sweet Heart," Wrecked on You," etc.) with an ode to bondage thrown in for good measure. Label it music to shake your brains to. The Vibrators apparently thought they were playing pop music for the end of the decade (the '70s, that is), oblivious to the fact that the masses (especially in America) could never have been expected to catch on. That doesn't mean you shouldn't. --Mike Corrigan

Customer Reviews

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO RIFFS?
If you've stumbled on this don't touch that BACK key. This is not just one of the great punk records, but one of the great knock out rock'n'roll records. 15 single strength tracks with only one that drops down the power pace (but not the quality).

Whilst the punk credentials of the Vibrators are not in doubt, it's now clear they also look back to the tradition of magically crafted pop song writing of England in the late sixties. Think the Spencer Davis Group's Give Me Some Loving, or the Small Faces's All Or Nothing. You know the formula - lay down a great original riff, follow with strong song line, then explosive chorus, and back to the great riff. If we're lucky pump it up with a surprise middle eight. Can a throw away punk outfit do this over a whole LP? You bet.

I bought this on vinyl when it came out in 1978. It got deleted. Mine got nicked. And I was Vibratorless for 20 years until the mercy of reissue CD's arrived. As soon as I put it on it in 2002 it jumped right back out off the grooves.

If the Vibrators haven't passed too strongly into the annals of punk mythology, it is maybe because they go beyond that cultural corner. Whilst they have punk attitood by the spadeful it's kinda twisted into a delicious misogyny and frustrated aggression. But don't worry, it's all in good taste - in fact, perfectly immaculate taste. What really corrupts their punk purity is what does the same thing for the early Ramones - musicianship, song quality, and by a great stroke of luck for rock posterity, great production.

Somehow, (here I go musical buff) Pure Mania got mixed in the USA. There are keyboard add-ins (we know how punks normally hate keyboards) which pump up the drive not soften it and I suspect other stuff but it all WORKS. And the balance is got right so every note counts. If the Vibes have been badly served by history they were blessed in the recording studio.

And the production shows off the all round musicianship, and when you play at this speed you gotta be as tight as stretch denim. The lead singer geezer is a natural to the role and he hasta to be with lines like

The way you carry on it just ain't fair
You really freak me out in your black underwear
Tell you man I'm gonna blow a fuse
I gotta rock'n'roll lady who's really bad news

OK, I see how he gets to the misogyny of

Gonna give you a
Bad time honey
Treat you any way I choose
Bad time honey
To make up for the days of school

All this, and then riffs the size of counties to put the Hives in the shade. If the ad or idem creators ever get hold of this like the other swarm they will have a field day.

You need this record now like never before. Keep to hand in case you accidentally catch Cold Play on the radio. Play immediately to put your head back together and know there are (or were) other hoomans out there just like you.