Legendary punk pioneers Buzzcocks formed in 1976, and along with The Sex Pistols and The Clash and others, were part of the whole punk rock explosion that occurred that year.

January 30, 2026 sees Attitude Adjustment, a brand-new studio album, arrive from the group that showcases them doing what they do best: combining raw punk energy with melodic smarts and lyrical bite, all delivered with their trademark heart and humour.

“When you’re writing an album, you’re not really sure where you’re going to go with it,” group co-founder and long-time guitarist Steve Diggle said about the new album’s creation.

“You get a few ideas and a few songs, and then it’s like painting; the picture slowly starts to come to you.”

With the group having clocked up 50 years in the business, new albums tend to be few and far between.

“We used to be quite prolific in the early days,” Diggle said.

“It's important to do new stuff when we go out in order to keep the band fresh.

“We’ve got a great catalogue, but it’s like, let’s keep things going.”

While groups of Buzzcocks’ vintage tend to live off their nostalgic legacy, for Diggle, it’s important that the band put new material out in order to remain relevant.

“It’s good to keep putting new things out,” he said.

“There’s a lot of punk bands around my age and era where they kind of keep doing the same thing all the time.

“I didn’t want to go around just being a greatest hits band.

“I think a lot of the fans are really into being on their journey and wonder what we’re going to do next.”

With AI slowly making its way into how music will be created moving forward, Diggle believes there’s one thing AI will never be able to replicate.

“A lot of records have loads of mistakes, out of time and out of tune things, so I’m wondering how AI’s going to cope with that aspect?” he said.

“I know it can clone everything, but it’s the accidental things like that, which gives music the human feeling, that AI can never really bring to the music.”

The group hit the road in support of the new album this year with shows in the UK, Europe and the United States.

Any plans for Australia?

“We’re looking into it now, so we’re hoping to get there too this year,” he said.

“We came to Australia a couple of years ago, and we had a great time. It was great to be there again.”

For more information about the band, go to: buzzcocks.com

Music news

The three top-grossing music tours of 2025 have been revealed. Beyonce’s Cowboy Carter Tour came in as the highest grossing tour of the year, earning a cool $407.6 million. Second place was Brit-popsters Oasis, whose tour grossed $405.4 million. In third place was Coldplay, whose Music of the Spheres tour took in $390 million.

Vinnie Vincent, who was guitarist with American rock group KISS from 1982 to 1984, is selling his latest CD single, Ride the Serpent, at a whopping $225. Coming under fire from fans and critics alike, Vincent responded by stating the single was “caviar or fine art”, and that “not everyone can afford it” and the price was “fair market price”.

Coming in 2026 is a reissue of Queen II, the second album by English rockers Queen, which was originally released in 1974. A surprise bonus addition to the reissue will be a previously unheard song entitled For Sale (Polar Bear). The track dates back to 1969 before Freddie Mercury had joined the group and when the group was known as Smile.

According to online database and audio marketplace Discogs, the most collected artists on vinyl for 2025 were The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Queen, Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones and David Bowie. When it came to album reissues, The Smashing Pumpkins’ Siamese Dream, Oasis’ Time Flies ... 1994-2009, Buckingham Nicks’ self-titled release and Black Sabbath’s Paranoid were among the most popular with collectors.

Music innovators — Kraftwerk

Pioneering 1970s German electro outfit Kraftwerk played a major role in defining electronica and synth-pop music, and one that proved influential upon a whole generation of musicians that followed in their wake, such as Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Human League and Depeche Mode to name a few.

While early ’70s prog rockers such as Emerson Lake & Palmer and Yes were already experimenting and using synths in their music, Kraftwerk were the ones that set the template for all to follow via their iconic albums such as 1974’s Autobahn (1974) and 1977’s Trans Europa Express.

“It makes us proud to have had this influence as we did not know this would happen when we had started out,” Wolfgang Flür, former percussionist with Kraftwerk between 1972 to 1987, told me in an interview in 2022

“We were just four friends happy in making some electro music together.

“And it was really difficult in the beginning too, as it was so new because of the synthesisers, yet now it’s such a normal part of music.

“Every musician has a synthesiser on his hard drive or as a stand-alone today, and they are also cheap to buy.

“I bought my first synthesiser, a Moog Minimoog, and it cost me the price of a VW car, 8000 Deutschemarks (about $7000).

“It was a lot of money for a student back then, but I was lucky that I came from a rich family, so was able to afford it.”

Kraftwerk’s influences continue to be heard in today’s music, from hip-hop and dance and through artists as diverse as Coldplay, Miley Cyrus and Radiohead.

Kraftwerk remain active today through co-founder Ralf Hütter, the only original member in the group.

This week’s Global Music Chart No.1s

Australia: Man I Need — Olivia Dean

US: All I Want For Christmas Is You — Mariah Carey

UK: Last Christmas — Wham

Fun fact

The Monkees sold more records than The Beatles and The Rolling Stones combined in 1967 in the US alone, and had more US number one albums in that year too, with four, compared to The Beatles, who only achieved a number one with Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Yarrawonga Chronicle Google News Panels

Wednesday, 3rd June 2026

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