Another Music in a Different Kitchen

Album cover

Another Linder Sterling piece, portraying a salad bowl filled with eyes, was originally intended for the front cover; however, guitarist Steve Diggle and drummer John Maher deemed the image too unsettling to use. The sleeve design was by Malcolm Garrett.

The original UK vinyl is issued with a black cardboard inner sleeve, with a colour photo by Jill Furmanovsky on the front cover where Linder's image was intended to appear. Subsequent pressings substituted a black and white photo. The initial few thousand copies shipped in a matching silver plastic shopping bag boldly featuring the word 'PRODUCT' on one side and the catalogue number "UAG 30125" on the other. Displaying the catalogue number prominently in this way was a common feature of Buzzcocks' artwork which was later picked up and taken to logical extremes by Factory Records where everything they produced was catalogued.

Composition

The first pressing inadvertently gave songwriting credit for "Fast Cars" to Shelley/Devoto, when per Steve Diggle he wrote ninety percent of the song, which was a personal song based on a car crash he was involved in.

The album was originally conceived with the track "I Need" on side one, but after a test pressing was made, the group felt the song should appear on the second side. A mix-up occurred at the pressing plant, and, as a consequence, some early copies of the album contained no "I Need" at all.

Release

An undated songbook was published with sheet music from the album, band photos, brief biographical material, and discography which includes the band's second release, Love Bites. As such, it would have been released after 22 September 1978 the release date of Love Bites. In keeping with other releases, the line "Agreed Images", which is a credit for the designer Malcolm Garrett / Assorted iMaGes, appears on the back cover below the stocking number.

A blue vinyl version was re-released around 1986. The corresponding CD was released in March 1994 on the same record label. Rhino Records re-released Another Music in a Different Kitchen in a Limited edition of 6,200 copies on 180-gram translucent orange vinyl for 2015 for Black Friday Record Store Day.

Legacy

The album's second track, "No Reply", was covered by SS Decontrol on their 1983 EP Get It Away. Influential Seattle band The Fastbacks recorded "Whatever Happened To...?" on their 1991 single "My Letters", released by Sub Pop. The track "Autonomy" was covered by the pop punk band The Offspring on the single "Want You Bad".

Another Music in a Different Kitchen was included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. In a retrospective review for BBC Music, critic David Quantick cited it as his favourite album of all-time and wrote, "Everything about it – from its silver, orange-lettered sleeve to Martin Rushent’s aluminium-sheen production – is right."

Track listing

1. "Fast Cars" (Howard Devoto, Steve Diggle, Pete Shelley) – 2:26
2. "No Reply" (Shelley) – 2:16
3. "You Tear Me Up" (Devoto, Shelley) – 2:27
4. "Get on Our Own" (Shelley) – 2:26
5. "Love Battery" (Devoto, Shelley) – 2:09
6. "Sixteen" (Shelley) – 3:38

1. "I Don't Mind" (Shelley) – 2:18
2. "Fiction Romance" (Shelley) – 4:27
3. "Autonomy" (Diggle) – 3:43
4. "I Need" (Diggle, Shelley) – 2:43
5. "Moving Away from the Pulsebeat" (Shelley) – 7:06

1. "Orgasm Addict" (Devoto, Shelley) – 2:01
2. "Whatever Ever Happened To?" (Shelley, Dial) – 2:14
3. "What Do I Get?" (Shelley) – 2:50
4. "Oh Shit" (Shelley) – 1:32

Personnel