Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Real World (1996 Digital Remaster)
2. Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've)? (1996 Digital Remaster)
3. Operators Manual (1996 Digital Remaster)
4. Nostalgia (1996 Digital Remaster)
5. Just Lust (1996 Digital Remaster)
6. Sixteen Again (1996 Digital Remaster)
7. Walking Distance (1996 Digital Remaster)
8. Love Is Lies (1996 Digital Remaster)
9. Nothing Left (1996 Digital Remaster)
10. E.S.P. (1996 Digital Remaster)
11. Late For The Train (1996 Digital Remaster)
12. Love You More (1996 Digital Remaster)
13. Noise Annoys (1996 Digital Remaster)
14. Promises (1996 Digital Remaster)
15. Lipstick (1996 Digital Remaster)
16. Noise Annoys (John Peel Show 17/4/78)
17. Walking Distance (John Peel Show 17/4/78)
18. Late For The Train (John Peel Show 17/04/78)
19. Promises (John Peel Show 23/10/78)
20. Lipstick (John Peel Show 23/10/78)
21. Sixteen Again (John Peel Show 23/10/78)
22. E.S.P (John Peel Show 28/5/79)

Disc 2:

1. Love Is Life (Lies) (Demo)
2. Just Lust (Demo)
3. Operators Manual (Demo)
4. Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've) (Demo)
5. Nothing Left (Demo)
6. Sixteen Again (Demo)
7. Raison D'etre (Demo)
8. Real World
9. Nostalgia (Demo)
10. E.S.P. (Demo)
11. Lipstick (Demo)
12. Children (Promises) (Demo)
13. Mother Of Turds (Demo)
14. Breakdown (Live)
15. What Do I Get (Live)
16. I Don't Mind (Live)
17. Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn't 've) (Live)
18. Noise Annoys (Live)
19. Nothing Left (Live)
20. Get On Our Own (Live)
21. Love You More (Live)
22. Fiction Romance (Live)
23. Autonomy (Live)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #25705 in Music
• Released on: 2008-10-27
• Number of discs: 2
• Formats: Special Edition, Original recording remastered, Extra tracks
• Dimensions: .24 pounds

CD Description
On the Buzzcocks' sophomore effort, LOVE BITES, the band, and lead singer/songwriter Pete Shelley in particular, go beyond the bratty punk provocations of songs such as "Orgasm Addict", becoming masters of perfectly crafted punk-pop. The presence of "Ever Fallen in Love", one of the Buzzcocks' finest moments, is enough to testify to this fact. The tune's wonderfully sculpted major/minor-key shifting, bouncing verses, and unforgettable chorus, not to mention Shelley's vulnerable vocals, raise the aggressive pop song to an art form.
LOVE BITES is full of other gems, too, including "Real World", the lead-off track, which builds from a beautifully chugging rhythm into a fully fleshed rock attack, and "Nostalgia", a classic minor-key progression imbued with propulsive energy. "Just Lust" and "Sixteen Again" flirt with simple songstructures, but the tunes are so smartly put together that their surfaces can be misleading. The 2001 reissue of LOVE BITES adds four bonus singles (including two more examples ofpeerless punk-pop perfection in "Love You More" and "Promises", as well as the delightfully cheeky "Noise Annoys"), enhancing this already-classic punk-pop album.

Customer Reviews

Surfing On An Wave Of Nostalgia
"Love Bites" probably falls into that "difficult second album" category of releases that have sent many bands on a one-way trip to oblivion. It's an easy forgotten album, being sandwiched between the pure energy of "Another Music" and the self-imploding, ecstasy adrenalin-rush of their final album "A Different Kind Of Tension". That's odd as the album contains their most successful single, "Ever Fallen in Love", which has deservedly moved into Classic Single Mansion.

The first thing you'll notice is the cover and lack of any design element. It's very, er...white. There's none of Malcolm Garretts' usual design flare seen on the bands singles and one album up to that point. If you're new to the band, have a search on the Internet for their sleeves and you'll see that their beautiful pieces of artwork in themselves, from the cut-and-paste ideal of their controversial debut "Orgasm Addict", right through to their swansong "Are Everything".

It's remarkable to think that this album was released barely six months after their debut. In a time where you'll get an album every four years (if you're lucky) from your heroes, this is quite a feat. Still, everyone was doing it back in them there days. From pop-punk to pop in 24 weeks; brilliant!

"Real World" kicks the whole shebang off with Pete again wishing somebody would love him; "I'm in love with somebody/I wish somebody loved me too", a recurring theme we'd seen many times, "What Do I Get?", for example. The whole sound is, I hesitate to use the word `polished', less rough (?) maybe. Next-up is the aforementioned classic "Ever Fallen in Love". The rest of Side One (I'm old fashioned like that) is made up of the rather odd "Operators Manual" and "Just Lust", the b-side to the hit. There are two absolute crackers though in "Nostalgia" where Pete is telling us how he's surfing on a wave of nostalgia for an age yet to come and "Sixteen Again" which includes some of their best backing vocals ever; you just listen to the boys singing `and then'. Wonderful.

The rest of Love Bites (side two!) starts off with a great little instrumental written by Steve Garvey called walking distance. The other Steve had obviously had a bang on the head around this time as he contributed "Love Is Lies", an acoustic singer/songwriter type tune, which is so un-Diggle like to be untrue. That's not to say it's not a good track, it certainly is, just well, just not Steve Diggle. Pete then treats us to "Nothing Left" and "ESP", two tracks which really show us the direction he'd take on "A Different Kind Of Tension" a year later. The albums closure is a band-written tour-de-force instrumental called "Late For the Train", it's no Trans Europe Express, but it's a really interesting piece, that would have baffled their contemporaries, I could never imagine The Clash or Gen X doing something similar. This is why, for me, the `Cocks are head and shoulders above the other bands around at the time.

This expanded release gives us an astonishing 34 extra tracks. These range from associated singles and b-sides from the period, the beautiful "Love You More", "Promises" and a raft of Peel sessions and demos, which are always interesting to hear.

I bought this album on release in 1978, I was 13 at the time, and no other record since has had the same impact, it's not my favourite album of all time or anything, but it does have a special place. I've bought this album a few times now at different times and have no hesitation of buying it again. I once read that Paul McCartney bought all his kids copies of "Pet Sounds" to show them how beautiful music can be, he should've given them a copy of this too.

Love bites, you know.

Powerpunk performance
The music is fast and energetic with great guitar work, and there are some real gems here. Unlike the punk of its time, Buzzcocks embraced the love song with gusto, as on the classic Ever Fallen In Love. Just Lust is quite a tour de force, and Sixteen Again is a catchy little number with intelligent lyrics. I love Walking Distance’s chiming guitars, while Love Is Lies with its prominent acoustic guitar is an engaging bittersweet love song. Late For The Train with its strong guitar onslaught sees tham going heavy for a rousing instrumental conclusion. This a brilliant album of melodic powerpop that impresses also with its literate and poetic lyrics.