Magazine
Real Life
(Virgin)
Magazine are a group that exist on the margins of rock history - and one suspects that's fine with former band leader Howard Devoto. The inventive British New Wave band deliberately cultivated an outsider image, and their melodic, edgy music is still difficult to categorise.
Devoto (second from right), who began his career singing for power-pop combo the Buzzcocks, formed Magazine in late 1977, at the height of the punk era. But the swooping synthesisers, pulsing bass and angular guitar sounds couldn't have been more different to the in-your-face guitar rock of the Sex Pistols or the Damned. Real Life, the band's 1978 debut, remains a lesser-known masterpiece, praised for its delicate musicality and pointed, somewhat obscure lyrics.
Devoto, born Howard Trafford in 1952, was inspired to become a musician after seeing the Sex Pistols perform in 1976. He quickly formed the Manchester-based Buzzcocks with college friend Pete Shelley and released the four-track EP Spiral Scratch. The standout track, Boredom, quickly established Devoto as a key figure in British punk. But instead of capitalising on the Buzzcocks' success, Devoto decided it was time to do something new, and briefly disappeared from the scene to put together Magazine. Expectations were high - and Real Life delivered.