Magazine - Real Life (1978)

When Howerd Devoto left The Buzzcocks following their Spiral Scratch EP – and before they found fame – he set about forming a band that, whilst retaining some of the acerbic observations and attitude of punk, were a considerable distance from the genre, offering a more mature and refined New Wave sound that sat somewhere in the no-man’s land between mainstream and punk itself. Whilst never achieving mass-appeal, Magazine had a significant following and Real Life, their debut album is one of their strongest recordings.

The musicians Devoto assembled would all later go-on to make names for themselves with other groups – John McGeoch with Souisie and the Banshees, Dave Formula with Visage, Barry Admason with Nick Cave and Martin Jackson with Swing Out Sister – but here they combine to produce a highly original post-punk sound that influenced many musicians in the years to come.

The album opens with Definitive Gaze, a dissonant bass-melody driven number with a shrill Vox Continental overlay and Devoto’s perpetually sneering vocals. The track has heavy keyboard overtones and provides for the distinctive, and I would argue original, sound of Magazine. My Tulpa follows which is a fairly upbeat track with a sweeping, heavily phased/flanged keyboard and guitar melody underpinned by a strong, crunching guitart track from McGeoch.

Next-up is Shot By Both Sides, a real tour de force from the band and a single off the album that reached 41 in the UK chart and was co-written with Devoto’s ex-bandmate Pete Shelley and is a fast paced guitar-driven track with a catchy hook – but don’t think that means it is a commercial number in the traditional pop sense, it’s still very much Magazine, including a cacophonous, wailing solo from McGeogh.

Recoil opens with a 16th-note snare roll from Jackson leading into a furiously-paced number that comes as close to punk as the band got. The pace is then dropped dramatically for Burst, based around a melancholy chord pattern from McGeogh that is probably the weakest track on the album.

Just as you think that maybe the album is losing it’s way, the immense Motorcade opens with its eerie keyboard melody and doom-laden bass/drums intro. The track is medium tempo and incredibly atmospheric with an ominous overtone and sparse but effective instrumentation as Devoto paints an evocative picture of a presidential motorcade, in particular of more of a despotic dictatorship, and various observations of the ideological effect such a spectacle has on the populous. Lyrically this is a very cleverly woven piece and the instrumentation is spot-on, including a double-time mid-section which suddenly slides back into the main riff only to break-off into an equally atmospheric solo from McGeogh.

It’s hard to follow Motorcade and Magazine slip a little with the quasi-vaudevillian feel of The Great Beautician In The Sky but The Light Pours Out Of Me gets things back on track before the album’s finale, Parade which is constructed around a pleasant piano piece and is a good sign-off.

This is a good album, a really good album, and if punk wasn’t your bag – don’t be put off giving Magazine a listen by Howerd Devoto’s early flirtation with The Buzzcocks: Magazine were a highly original new wave band that created their own style, ploughing a lonely furrow that didn’t win them mass appeal but certainly the acclaim and respect of the music industry itself with the Smith’s Jonny Marr, among others, citing them as a major influence.

• Howard Devoto – vocals
• John McGeoch – guitar, saxophone
• Barry Adamson – bass
• Dave Formula – keyboards
• Martin Jackson – drums