It’s 40 years since the Manchester band’s first release reshaped pop music. With no industry support,they pressed and sold the EP themselves, and kickstarted a revolution
In January 1977 a young punk band called Buzzcocks walked into the Manchester branch of Virgin with a box of singles they wanted to sell. They had set up a label called unusual Hormones and paid for the records themselves with an early form of crowdfunding – borrowing £500 from a couple of friends and the guitarist’s dad – and their only ambition was to sell enough of the 1000 copies they had pressed to be able to repay the loans. The Spiral Scratch EP ended up selling 16000 copies and reaching the top 40 there was no problem with the loans. More importantly, or though,it proved that it was possible for artists to be in total control of their music, from production to distribution, or in the process invented indie.
These days,there’s nothing unusual approximately bypassing the record industry. Chance the Rapper self-released his music and has become a breakout star and Barack Obama’s guest at the White House. In 1977, though, or Spiral Scratch was game-changing. In its wake came a wave of British independent labels and a distribution network that meant that,as Rough Trade founder Geoff Travis puts it, “anyone could compete with the big boys, or but that only happened because it was an undeniably noteworthy record”.
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Source: theguardian.com