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The Punk Hundred by rockaction - The Countdown Of My Favorite Hundred Punk Songs By A Hundred Different Bands (2 Viewers)

Now everybody wants to talk punk rock and countdowns. I'll be here all the week, save tonight from 7-10 PST, when I take the class that partially railroaded this countdown due to its difficulty. Argh. 

 
As far as "The Jam" entry goes, I personally prefer "Going Underground".

Consider a slot for the Vapors... no, not their big hit... New Clear Days had a string of good tunes, News at Ten, Trains, Spring Collection...  on the power pop side of the genre.  Should have had more success.

Need some comic diversity? check out the French ditty "Ca plane pour moi" by Plastic Bertrand.

Dead Kennedys... Holiday in Cambodia

Ramones... Blitzkrieg Bop

 
DropKick said:
Consider a slot for the Vapors... no, not their big hit... New Clear Days had a string of good tunes, News at Ten, Trains, Spring Collection...  on the power pop side of the genre.  Should have had more success.
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Yep. Just no power pop in this countdown per the rules. That's a countdown all of its own. 

 
rockaction said:
MDC and Crass were considered and dumped, probably because they're so far left and the countdown guy isn't. 
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Huh. I guess that makes sense. 

Its your list. I just came across it when I was doing a search on ISM for some reason.

Just thought I would list some favorites of mine to contribute. DRI is another one. I did like that you listed the zero boys, not a lot of people know about them.

 
rockaction said:
So why don’t you particularly like or respect The Sex Pistols? 
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Rough, raw, can't play, Sid Vicious was a pretty boy, Johnny Rotten to this day sounds like nails on chalkboard.  They were basically Old Skull with body hair.

Otherwise.. love 'em.  Punk rock!

 
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Mad respect for the list though of course, will toss out some more things I like that didn't make the cut..

The Modern Life is War track you posted reminded me of this old fave

 
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rockaction said:
15) Stiff Little Fingers – Suspect Device
 
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Properly ranked, but may be my favorite of the whole lot.

They take away our freedom
In the name of liberty
Why can't they all just clear off
Why can't they let us be
They make us feel indebted
For saving us from hell
And then they put us through it
It's time the bastards fell

 
plinko said:
Rough, raw, can't play, Sid Vicious was a pretty boy
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Getting rid of Glen Matlock and bringing in SV because of their looks was a terrible move. Can’t agree about Steve Jones  ability . On the album he played bass on almost all the tracks as well as his guitar 

 
plinko said:
Rough, raw, can't play, Sid Vicious was a pretty boy, Johnny Rotten to this day sounds like nails on chalkboard.  They were basically Old Skull with body hair.

Otherwise.. love 'em.  Punk rock!
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Oh, the album Never Mind The Bollocks... sees some utter craftsmanship at heavy metal guitar. Jones has riffs for days. The guitar work is exquisite. He's been a legend for many moons because of his playing, not because of any anti-playing. As HT points out, he also lays down the bass tracks. They made a huge mistake kicking Matlock out of the band for Rotten's friend and useless appendage Vicious. That first album utterly seethes with competence on their instruments. Best album maybe of all time. 

Hoo boy! Don't know what else to say. 

 
Thanks for reading or continuing to read and listen, folks. I put a lot of thought into the ever-changing list. Nice to see it draw comments. Enjoy if you like punk, want a deep dive, or are plinko’ing and hoping for entertainment in a heretofore unappreciated (?) genre. 

 
rockaction said:
Oh, the album Never Mind The Bollocks... sees some utter craftsmanship at heavy metal guitar. Jones has riffs for days. The guitar work is exquisite. He's been a legend for many moons because of his playing, not because of any anti-playing. As HT points out, he also lays down the bass tracks. They made a huge mistake kicking Matlock out of the band for Rotten's friend and useless appendage Vicious. That first album utterly seethes with competence on their instruments. Best album maybe of all time. 

Hoo boy! Don't know what else to say. 
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imo there isn't a weak song on the album.  

 
rockaction said:
Oh, the album Never Mind The Bollocks... sees some utter craftsmanship at heavy metal guitar. Jones has riffs for days. The guitar work is exquisite. He's been a legend for many moons because of his playing, not because of any anti-playing.
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Lydon has always had great taste (or luck) with guitarists.  PiL's three main guitarists Keith Levene, Lu Edmonds and John McGeoch are all outstanding players.

 
Binky The Doormat said:
@rockaction any Stranglers songs in contention for the top 100?  I noticed none made it in. 
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I considered The Stranglers too all over the map for an inclusion into the countdown. It would help if they considered themselves punk, but they don't. 

That and I'm not too familiar with their output, frankly. I think there are definitely some gaps in my knowledge, and that band is one of them. I did indeed research them and listen to them. It's not for lack of talent that they're not here. 

And that goes for a bunch of bands. They either got caught up in the What is punk? debate, or I'm just a touch too young to have been there and a touch too old -- I came of age before the internet dominated distribution and made it much easier to acquire and listen to music -- to judge appropriately. I'm actually, for this board, not in the demographic sweet spot of punk, I just have an inkling and former love of it. 

I will say this. In compiling the list, I realized just how anti-social and how much full of alienation the punks were. I'd always thought of it as more of a musical phenomenon, and younger me was fine with the alienation and disgust. Older me backs off that a bit. 

 
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rockaction said:
I considered The Stranglers too all over the map for an inclusion into the countdown. It would help if they considered themselves punk, but they don't
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I suspected that it might be something like that - and their big hits were not punk.  

I think you might like the "No More Heroes" album 

 
Eephus said:
Lydon has always had great taste (or luck) with guitarists.  PiL's three main guitarists Keith Levene, Lu Edmonds and John McGeoch are all outstanding players.
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I think Steve Jones might have been more of an accident and luck, but after that you'd have to consider it taste and great musicians desiring to play with Lydon because of his talents. Lord knows it's probably not his personality that endeared him to his guitarists. The old mate was a little too domineering in his temperament to be a good-time buddy or chum. Talent seems to breed talent, and the Pistols had loads of it (besides Sid, of course, who was more of a story and nihilist truther than the rest of the band). 

 
This would have been my write-up for the Pistols. 

1. Sex Pistols - God Save The Queen 

Why not the Ramones? Why the Sex Pistols, talentless louts, sitting here in first place over the band that is responsible for them? Because of three things. Chops, outlook, and attitude. All three of these conspire to make the perfect punk rock song. Aimed at the most ossified of traditions and the most egregious of public families, Lydon cribs the traditional song in reverence of the Queen of England and skewers politics, society, and celebrity all in one fell swoop at the behest of the down and out. Steve Jones, mastermind of the hook and riff, solos and hooks his way into the intro, upon which a monster riff happens, beginning the song. Rotten pulls no punches:

God save the queen 
The fascist regime
They made you a moron
Potential H-bomb 

But it's not just raw anger. Rotten looks around, surveys the zeitgeist and sees so many inessential people living inessential lives in a republic with nowhere to go and nothing of meaning. He asks a question and shoves the point home with his own response: 

When there's no future how can there be sin?
We're the flowers in the dustbin
We're the poison in your human machine
We're the future, your future

This capture's punk's bleak outlook and its nihilism in one fell swoop. If we are inessential, and there is no God, then nothing has meaning, and if nothing has meaning, there is no right and no wrong, no sin and no savior, merely action and reaction, chemical deposits in the nitrogen cycle. 

And the song rips from there. With the conviction only young down-and-outers can muster, youngsters naive enough to think that a band and a plan and an ethos will change anything -- or more precisely, be so wrong that all that talent and drive will change nothing -- Rotten digs down, gets off beat and snarls over the lockstep riffage. 

No future
No future
No future for you 

And it's the pauses Rotten takes before the "no" in the dangerously sing-a-long nature of "no future" that establishes Rotten, as not just a great lyricist, but (if Eephus will pardon me) as a great phraser of lyrics, something in the mold of a traditional singer, but done atonally and arrhythmically. It menaces the entire last part of the song. When you thought there'd be an easy climax to it and a rousing send-off, there's Johnny, just a beat too slow and a beat too menacing not to notice. 

And that is the Sex Pistols in a nutshell. Monster riffs with a cockney accent and an atonal twist, for you to dance the night away while fires blaze in the background. Enjoy. Punk 101. 

 
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plinko said:
rockaction said:
47) Adolescents – Kids Of The Black Hole   

54) The Rezillos – Top Of The Pops 
 
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New to me and I like!  Traveling again.. working my way through
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I remember in the punk draft that @rockaction told me he had never listened to the Adolescents when I drafted that song. I was pretty proud of that since rock has probably forgotten more punk than I’ve listened to. Glad to see it making the top 100. I absolutely love that song and it’s an awesome album from start to finish. 

 
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Dickies said:
I remember in the punk draft that @rockaction told me he had never listened to the Adolescents when I drafted that song.
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I would have definitely said that. The Adolescents were a standard punk band I'd just never gotten around to listening to. I think it was because they took a metal turn in the mid-80s or something. As it stands, they cut some pretty good songs on their eponymous that were good enough to include in the end for this countdown. My friend from home that I showed the original list to argued for them on it, and they got in and placed rather decently. 

 
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Kinda bummed to see a big drop to finish this out, but I also haven’t participated as much as I would have liked since the start of the thread so I can’t exactly blame you. Haven’t been all that active here at FBG in the last few weeks due to RL issues

 
Dickies said:
Kinda bummed to see a big drop to finish this out, but I also haven’t participated as much as I would have liked since the start of the thread so I can’t exactly blame you. Haven’t been all that active here at FBG in the last few weeks due to RL issues
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Hope you're okay, GB. 

Dickies said:
I’ll be honest. I haven’t heard of half of the #### on your list. It’s making for some good listening though. 
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Good to hear that it makes for good listening. The playlist was the ultimate consideration, really. There's only one song on there where I went with consensus and kind of regret including. It shall go unnamed. 

 
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