The 9 best Punk tracks of all time
Punk
Two years in which rock was stripped back to speed, volume and refusal, and the barrier to making a record collapsed. Musically narrow on purpose; its consequences are the widest of anything on this map.
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Sex Pistols / Anarchy in the U.K.
A rolled R, a guitar sound like sheet metal, and a record its own label withdrew within weeks. Whatever was manufactured about the band, this is not a manufactured performance.
Ramones / Blitzkrieg Bop
Four downstrokes, a count-in and a chant. The Ramones removed everything that was not essential and discovered that what remained was enough for a career and a genre.
The Clash / White Riot
Ninety-nine seconds, written after Strummer and Simonon were at Notting Hill Carnival. A song about wanting to be as serious as somebody else's politics, which is a stranger idea than it first sounds.
Richard Hell & The Voidoids / Blank Generation
Hell wrote the look and half the attitude, and Robert Quine plays a solo that has no business on a punk record. The most musically interesting thing here by a distance.
X-Ray Spex / Oh Bondage! Up Yours!
Poly Styrene opens by saying little girls are supposed to be seen and not heard, then a saxophone arrives. Funnier, smarter and angrier than most of its neighbours.
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Buzzcocks / Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've)
Manchester works out that the speed and the distortion also suit a pop song about humiliation. Pete Shelley's melodies are the reason punk had anywhere to go afterwards.
The Stooges / Search and Destroy
Three years early, mixed by Bowie into a thin, trebly mess that turned out to be exactly right. Everyone on this list heard it and most of them admitted it.
Patti Smith / Piss Factory
Self-released, spoken rather than sung, about a summer job. Proof that the form was a permission structure before it was a sound.
Stiff Little Fingers / Alternative Ulster
Belfast, where the boredom being complained about had rather higher stakes. The most convincing anger on this list, and the least stylised.