Inspired by the Sex Pistols, Manchester (England) natives Howard Devoto and Pete Shelley formed the Buzzcocks in 1976, specializing in high-energy, staccato delivery of stripped-down pop songs. With John Maher (drums) and Steve Diggle (bass), the Buzzcocks cut Spiral Scratch, the UK's first self-released punk record. Though ragged and rudimentary, the 7-inch features the frantic, minimalistic pop stylings that would characterize the group's work and, with songs like "Breakdown" and "Boredom," remains a seminal artifact of '70s DIY.

Devoto departed shortly thereafter to form Magazine. Garth Smith joined, taking over bass while Shelley switched to vocals (in addition to guitar) and Diggle to lead guitar. The band signed to United Artists and, after one frenetic and controversial single ("Orgasm Addict"), sacked Smith; the arrival of Steve Garvey fixed the lineup that would remain unchanged throughout the band's original existence.

Another Music in a Different Kitchen expands on the stark three-minute pop song and themes of confusion, alienation and betrayal, adding a new emphasis on harmony and humor and a growing coordination of the players in contrast to the earlier inspired chaos. "Fast Cars," the jagged waltz "Sixteen" and the tom-tom pounder "(Moving Away From the) Pulsebeat" are all mini mindblowers.

Love Bites demonstrates both the Buzzcocks' perfection of their particular brand of pop and their disillusionment with its restrictions. Producer Martin Rushent clarifies the elements of the sound even further, and Shelley's songwriting continues to improve, including the band's highest-charting UK single, "Ever Fallen in Love" (later covered badly by Fine Young Cannibals). Other cuts, like "Sixteen Again" and "Real World," would have made great pop singles as well, but much of the album (which includes two instrumentals) finds the Buzzcocks mired in repetitive structures.

A Different Kind of Tension makes tentative maneuvers into the new, as the Buzzcocks attempt to throw off the yoke of pop music. It boasts some of Shelley's finest songs, notably "You Say You Don't Love Me" and "I Believe." With Diggle providing some of the material, the band reaches a zenith of effortless craft, especially on Side Two (subtitled "The thorn beneath the rose"), where Shelley dives into the challenging waters of paranoia, selfconscious despair and harrowing uncertainty, climaxing on the title track. That's followed by "I Believe," a seven-minute summation of reasons to be cheerful continually undercut by a chorus of "There is no love in this world any more." Powerful stuff.

After three more singles in '80 and '81 (later compiled as the Parts One, Two, Three EP), Shelley decided to go solo and the Buzzcocks came to an end. Maher and Diggle went off to form Flag of Convenience; following a brief stint on Shelley's '81 solo tour, Garvey moved to New York and quit the music business.

Singles Going Steady is a stunning compilation of the band's eight classic UA 45s, proving conclusively that the Buzzcocks were an amazing singles band, perhaps one of the best ever. From the teen angst of the Devoto/Shelley "Orgasm Addict" to the 20th-century malaise of "Something's Gone Wrong Again," the songs are across-the-board great, and the album is a non-stop hit parade.

The six tracks (written half-and-half by Shelley and Diggle) on Parts One, Two, Three are a postscript to Singles Going Steady, a transition away from big-pop structures into a more elusive, subversive form that still possesses plenty of octane and odd hooks. "What Do You Know?" introduces horns; the relaxed pace of "Running Free" and the odd "Are Everything" (later covered by Heaven 17) are equally novel. (IRS later issued a CD combining Parts One, Two, Three and A Different Kind of Tension.)

Total Pop, an offbeat German collection, draws from Singles Going Steady, One, Two, Three, Love Bites and Tension, adding the band's two live tracks ("Breakdown" and "Love Battery") from The Roxy London WC2, a classic 1977 scene document. (The CD and cassette have three bonus cuts.)

The Peel Sessions EP, which dates from September '77, contains only three songs: "Fast Cars," "(Moving Away From the) Pulsebeat" and the absolutely peerless "What Do I Get." The long-delayed Lest We Forget is a fine-sounding live compilation tape recorded at — with one Mancunian exception — various US gigs in 1979 and 1980.

Live at the Roxy Club April '77, the first in an archival series of releases of recordings made at the legendary London venue, is eminently skippable. Unlike Lest We Forget's maturity, this documents the Buzzcocks at a weak point, playing one of the first gigs without Devoto. The band is an engaging shambles — sloppy, out of tune, sometimes downright awful.

Released as a teaser for the Product boxed set, The Fab Four EP consists of four consecutive A-sides (all included on Singles Going Steady), from "Ever Fallen in Love" to Diggle's "Harmony in My Head."

Product is brilliant. Except for the Spiral Scratch EP, this three-CD (or three-cassette or four-LP) extravaganza, complete with a detailed historical booklet, contains the Buzzcocks' complete studio works: every track of the band's three albums and twelve singles. The boxed set also includes "I Look Alone," a fantastic basher that was an outtake from the Parts One, Two, Three series, and eight songs from a 1978 gig at London's Lyceum. All better than Lest We Forget, these tracks offer the best released evidence of the band's wall-of-guitar concert power.

That release was one of the factors that contributed to the Buzzcocks' 1989 reunion, which answered the question they once posed in song ("Whatever Happened To?") and fulfilling the dream of "Nostalgia": "I look up at the sky and I wonder what it'll be like in days gone by / I'm surfing on a wave of nostalgia for an age yet to come." Sparked in part by the attention attending the classy Product, Shelley, Diggle, Garvey and (briefly) Maher mounted a reunion tour in 1989, and kept going from there. (Maher soon returned to his Volkswagen repair business, replaced for a time by ex-Smith Mike Joyce.)

Inspired by that unexpected turn of events, the group's old label put out Operators Manual, a concise 25-track career condensation, and Entertaining Friends, a great 1979 concert document. (Time's Up is a long- bootlegged collection of Devoto-era live-in-the-studio efforts which finally saw the legit light of day in 1991.) For their part, Shelley and Diggle weathered the departure of Maher and then Garvey, drafting a new rhythm section of bassist Tony Barber and drummer Phil Barker. They began (individually) writing new songs for the band. The first result of their renewed labors was Alive Tonight, an encouraging but diffident four-song 12-inch that doesn't resemble the old Buzzcocks much beyond Shelley's inimitable giddy vocals and flashback melody on "Last to Know," a catchy case of romantic nerves.

"Last to Know" and Diggle's "Alive Tonight" wound up being redone for the full-length Trade Test Transmissions, the first new Buzzcocks studio album in 14 years. With a bigger, more distorted guitar backdrop and forceful production as the only notable evidence of time's arrow, whatever went into the Buzzcocks' mixmaster way back when seems to have been relocated and recharged: Shelley shelves the stylistic alter ego of his intervening solo career to bang out rushing pop joys like "Innocent," "Never Gonna Give It Up," "Who'll Help Me to Forget?" and "Palm of Your Hand" (a song about masturbation that nicely bookends 1977's "Orgasm Addict"), stamping them all with the unmistakable sound that launched a thousand pogos. A more equitable division of labor — Diggle wrote and sings nearly a third of the augmented American edition — may have been necessary to maintain peace, but Diggle, whose singing is much improved from the old days and who has developed into a fine pop craftsman, sounds (as he did then) like he's fronting a different band. For all his sexual enthusiasm, Shelley still comes from another plane as his bandmate, decrying fascism ("Crystal Night") and irony ("369") while Diggle doesn't raise his sights much higher than basic survival ("Alive Tonight") and ideas ("Energy," "Isolation"). Rather than attempt to establish some working dynamic that integrates their concerns, the once and future 'Cocks simply present themselves as a two-headed monster and leave it at that. A different kind of tension...

French is a live album recorded in Paris in April 1995; the 23-song set runs the discographical gamut from "Orgasm Addict," "Noise Annoys" and "Why She's a Girl From the Chainstore" through "Energy," "Isolation" and "Innocent."

All Set is another new studio record of memorable originals with familiar virtues. The highlights include "Totally From the Heart," "Hold Me Close," "Point of No Return" and "Back With You."

The Peel Sessions Album (which subsumes the previously issued Peel EP) offers four different looks at the band between 1977 and 1979. While the regular studio recordings are generally better than these radio broadcasts, there is a searing "E.S.P." that is more gripping than the version on Love Bites, while two instrumentals from the same LP and Tension's "Mad Mad Judy" are all notably — and nicely — dissimilar to their subsequent renderings.

Among the punks having a go at 14 Buzzcocks classics on Something's Gone Wrong Again are the Fluid, Didjits, Alice Donut and Naked Raygun. But Coffin Break barely follows the melody of "What Do I Get?," Lunachicks make a joke of "Noise Annoys" before jumping into "Promises" and Porn Orchard insert an inane rap and prank phone call into "Why Can't I Touch It?" Doing fair frontier justice to, respectively, "I Don't Mind" and "Everybody's Happy Nowadays," Big Drill Car and Dose are the only bands here that seem genuinely interested in paying tribute to the group.