40 Greatest Punk Albums of All Time
The riot-starters and two-chord wonders that blew rock wide open
BY JON DOLAN, JASON FINE, DAVID FRICKE, ELISABETH GARBER-PAUL, ANDY GREENE, WILL HERMES, ROB SHEFFIELD, DOUGLAS WOLK
April 6, 2016
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists ... e-20160406
Punk rock started in 1976 on New York's Bowery, when four cretins from Queens came up with a mutant strain of blitzkrieg bubblegum. The revolution they inspired split the history of rock & roll in half. But even if punk rock began as a kind of negation — a call to stark, brutal simplicity — its musical variety and transforming emotional power was immediate and remains staggering. To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Ramones' toweringly influential self-titled debut, we've compiled a list of the 40 Greatest Punk Albums of All Time.
If Ramones was Year Zero for punk rock, it didn't come without precedent, so we included essential forebears like the Stooges, the New York Dolls, Pere Ubu and Patti Smith, artists who were punk in spirit (if not always entirely in sound) before the style really had a name. We didn't get too fussy about all the old "but really, what is punk?" debates either. Along with the Pistols and the Clash, Black Flag and the Descendents, Minor Threat and Hüsker Dü and the Bad Brains, and on and on, you'll find the slashing Marxist disco of Gang of Four, the ice-storm goth of Joy Division, the warped rust-and-rubber new wave of Devo, the Mod revivalism of the Jam, the riot-born reggae of the Slits, the art-guitar revelations of Television and Sonic Youth and the 21st-century dervish-noise assault of White Lung. Anarcho-collectivists Crass spent their entire unimpeachably admirable existence trying to defend an ethical barricade against a corpo-goofball atrocity like Blink-182. But they're both great, and they're both here.
Because this is a list of albums and not bands, a lot of great punk acts didn't make the cut. The Circle Jerks, Adolescents, Fear, the Big Boys, the Dickies, the Dicks and even the mighty Damned just didn't have that one perfect LP statement that could inspire consensus among our editors. Ultimately, we found ourselves pulled toward records that embodied punk's spirit, and even stretched it a little. "Punk rock should mean freedom," said Kurt Cobain in 1991, just as Nevermind was exploding punk values across the middle American mainstream. Here's a map to where that freedom has gone.
40 Dead Kennedys, 'Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables' (1980)
39 Devo, 'Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!' (1978)
38 White Lung, 'Deep Fantasy' (2014)
37 Blink-182, 'Enema of the State' (1999)
36 Crass, 'Penis Envy' (1981)
35 Fugazi, '13 Songs' (1989)
34 Joy Division, 'Unknown Pleasures' (1979)
33 The Slits, 'Cut' (1979)
32 The Misfits, 'Walk Among Us' (1982)
31 Yeah Yeah Yeahs, 'Fever to Tell' (2003)
30 Sonic Youth, 'Evol' (1986)
29 The Replacements, 'Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash' (1981)
28 The Germs, '(GI)' (1979)
27 Minor Threat, 'Complete Discography' (1989)
26 Flipper, 'Generic' (1982)
25 Mission of Burma, 'Vs.' (1982)
24 The Jam, 'All Mod Cons' (1978)
23 Pere Ubu, 'Terminal Tower' (1985)
22 Bikini Kill, 'The Singles' (1998)
21 Richard Hell and the Voidoids, 'Blank Generation' (1977)
20 X-Ray Spex, 'Germfree Adolescents' (1978)
19 Bad Brains, 'Bad Brains' (1982)
18 Green Day, 'Dookie' (1994)
17 Television, 'Marquee Moon' (1977)
16 Descendents, 'Milo Goes to College' (1982)
15 New York Dolls, 'New York Dolls' (1973)
14 Sleater-Kinney, 'Dig Me Out' (1997)
13 Hüsker Dü, 'Zen Arcade' (1984)
12 Patti Smith, 'Horses' (1975)
11 The Buzzcocks, 'Singles Going Steady' (1979)
10 Nirvana, 'Nevermind' (1991)
9 X, 'Los Angeles' (1980)
8 Black Flag, 'Damaged' (1981)
7 Minutemen, 'Double Nickels on the Dime' (1984)
6 Wire, 'Pink Flag' (1977)
5 Gang of Four, 'Entertainment!' (1979)
4 The Stooges, 'Funhouse' (1970)
3 The Sex Pistols, 'Never Mind the Bollocks Here's the Sex Pistols' (1977)
2 The Clash, 'The Clash' (1977)
1 Ramones, 'Ramones' (1976)
comments: lots of headscratchers here for the punk purists but the big three are right where they should be (the one album per artist limit is bollocks!) though the lack of entries from recent bands is probably representative of the state the music of today. We need, at least the spirit of, punk injected back into the mainstream.
Rolling Stone's 40 Greatest Punk Albums of All Time
Re: Rolling Stone's 40 Greatest Punk Albums of All Time
Limiting one album per artist is doing a real disservice to some great punk albums. I find it hard to take a top 40 punk albums list without London Calling very seriously, and American Idiot definitely deserves a spot as well, in my opinion. Also, what on earth is Blink-182 doing on this list?!
Re: Rolling Stone's 40 Greatest Punk Albums of All Time
I agree. Yep, I'd rather have The Offspring's "Smash" than "Enema". Also noticeably absent are the early works of Blondie, Elvis Costello, Siouxsie and the Banshees. If they really had to narrow it down to 40 albums they should have limited the list to punk both in spirit and style, away with Nirvana, Patti Smith, New York Dolls and the other questionable artists.Daniel wrote:Limiting one album per artist is doing a real disservice to some great punk albums. I find it hard to take a top 40 punk albums list without London Calling very seriously, and American Idiot definitely deserves a spot as well, in my opinion. Also, what on earth is Blink-182 doing on this list?!
Re: Rolling Stone's 40 Greatest Punk Albums of All Time
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