The sad news broke last night that Pete Shelley, legendary singer-songwriter, innovator and Buzzcocks frontman, has died. His impact on the music scene was such that I honestly believe that a lot of the bands I love would not have existed without him.
A skill for creating spiky, catchy, indie songs that were more than punk, with raw emotion writ large in lyrics, was second to none. With the Buzzcocks he was responsible both for the raw and insistent Ever Fallen In Love [With Someone You Shouldn't've] and for bringing the Sex Pistols to Manchester (an action which is now seen as lighting the blue touch paper of the city's vibrant music scene). He also forayed into electronica, had one of his tunes banned by the Beeb and, bizarrely, was one of the few artists I can think of who released a proto-karaoke version of one of his albums for the ZX Spectrum.
RIP Pete Shelley.
A skill for creating spiky, catchy, indie songs that were more than punk, with raw emotion writ large in lyrics, was second to none. With the Buzzcocks he was responsible both for the raw and insistent Ever Fallen In Love [With Someone You Shouldn't've] and for bringing the Sex Pistols to Manchester (an action which is now seen as lighting the blue touch paper of the city's vibrant music scene). He also forayed into electronica, had one of his tunes banned by the Beeb and, bizarrely, was one of the few artists I can think of who released a proto-karaoke version of one of his albums for the ZX Spectrum.
RIP Pete Shelley.
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