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- The Clash. Tagged as “the only band that matters,” the Clash became one of the most influential punk bands as the genre started gaining popularity in the United Kingdom.
- The Sex Pistols. If there’s one band responsible for jumpstarting the phenomenon of British punk, despite their short career, it’s the Sex Pistols, formed in London in 1975.
- Buzzcocks. Pete Shelley and Howard Devoto formed the Buzzcocks in Bolton, England, in 1976. The band’s lineup changed throughout the years, but guitarist Steve Diggle continued as a contributing member since its inception.
- Vice Squad. Next up on our list is the Bristol band Vice Squad, formed in 1979. Although they released several punk rock singles, they also experimented with street punk, a subgenre driven by hardcore punk and Oi!
- The Pink Fairies – “City Kids”
- The Damned – “New Rose”
- Sex Pistols – “Anarchy in The UK”
- The Clash – “Complete Control”
- The Adverts – “One Chord Wonders”
- X-Ray Spex – “Oh Bondage! Up Yours!”
- The Slits – “Number One Enemy”
- Generation X – “Your Generation”
- Buzzcocks – “Ever Fallen in Love (with Someone You Shouldn’T’Ve?)”
- Siouxsie and The Banshees – “Love in A Void”
Punk is the eternal spirit of rebellion, independence and iconoclasticism that permeates every revolution, be it artistic, musical or social/political. Mid-’60s English rock produced plenty of angry, noisy, high-energy combos who are direct punk forebears — the Who, the Kinksand the Pretty Thingsall immediately come to mind. But in the early ‘70s, ...
“Is she really going out with him?” You can hear Dave Vanian’s eyebrow arch as he introduces England’s first proper punk single, issued Oct. 22, 1976 on Stiff Records. (For their BBC John Peel Sessions debut, Vanian altered it to, “Are we really 65 on the charts?”) Once Rat Scabies detonates his Gene Krupa-esque drum intro, ramrodding into Brian Ja...
Then you hear this. “Anarchy In The UK,”the Pistols’ introduction to the world, wasn’t suffused with the shock of the new a la “New Rose.” But it was the sound of a young English rock band stripping down the Who’s vintage hard-rock blueprint and plugging it directly into Battersea Power Station. Despite what their peers did, the Pistols didn’t play...
By the time the Clash released their third proper single in 1977, “Complete Control,”they’d already established themselves as punk’s great political conscience. CBS Records, their American-run label, completely undermined their contractually stipulated creative control by releasing a single they hadn’t approved from their debut album, “Remote Contr...
Fronted by TV Smithand featuring the darkly brooding bass guitar of Gaye Advert, London’s Adverts were among the first signifiers that the Pistols were having an effect. Smith, one of first-wave Britpunk’s most advanced songwriters, displayed his skills with debut single “One Chord Wonders,”a Stiff Records one-off. Over a deliberately crude racket ...
Punk was liberating — anyone could do it. Race and gender no longer precluded people from climbing a stage or entering a recording studio and having a bash, especially if you had something to say. X-Ray Spex’s Poly Styrene, being part Somalian and completely unconcerned with pop music beauty standards, was feminism and anti-racism in action. She sh...
Styrene was one woman fronting an otherwise all-male band. The Slitswere a girl gang of the highest, most vicious order. Fronted by German teenager Ari Up, this quartet didn’t give one fuck about propriety or musical ability. Irreverent in all they did, they took punk’s DIY ethos to heart by literally learning to play their instruments onstage. The...
For the debut single by future ‘80s MTVstar Billy Idol’s punk band, Generation X turned the rebel rock anthem of one generation into a weapon against itself: the Who’s “My Generation.”Revving Pete Townshend’s two-chord riff into a Ramones-speed glam racket, bassist Tony James’ inversion of the lyric proved equally ingenious: “Your generation don’t ...
Manchester’s Buzzcockscompletely reinvented the love song. This is mostly due to singer/guitarist/songwriter Pete Shelley’s state-of-the-art compositional skills. He took two key left-turns: One, never identifying his songs’ protagonists’ genders and two, denying the object of love/lust to the one who pines. He may have peaked with July 1978’s “Eve...
Proto-goths Siouxsie And The Bansheesemerged from the “Bromley Contingent,” the clique of original Pistols fans arising from the clientele of Sex, the Kings Road haberdashery owned by Pistols manager Malcolm McLarenand designer Vivienne Westwood. Some charter members followed their favorite band’s example and formed their own angry ‘70s rock bands....
- Tim Stegall
- Sex Pistols – Anarchy In The UK. Of course, the Sex Pistols! Where the hell else would we start? Admittedly, so much nonsense has been written about them over the years that it's hard to look at their legacy with any true objectivity, but there is no denying the band's impact both musically and culturally.
- The Damned – New Rose. The first UK punks to release a single (this one!) , the first to release an album (the brilliant Damned Damned Damned), the first to tour the west coast of America (having an influence on the punk scene there that can still be heard to this day), the first to split up and reform… Let's just say that The Damned got there first with almost everything.
- The Clash – White Riot. Another band about which a great deal of nonsense has been written. Contrary to the epithet of the time, The Clash were not 'the only band that matters', and iconic title-track aside, their third (double) album London Calling is not, as suggested by many critics, 'one of the greatest rock albums of all time', but a tedious collision of styles that is slightly less interesting then watching paint dry (please send hate mail to the usual address).
- Siouxsie And The Banshees – Love In A Void. Queen of goth, you say? Well, yes, but that's not to say the Siouxsie's punk credentials aren't second to none.
British punk rejected contemporary mainstream rock, the broader culture it represented, and their musical predecessors: "No Elvis, Beatles or the Rolling Stones in 1977", declared the Clash song "1977".
Top 10 British Punk Bands Some say punk music was born in the UK. From the Sex Pistols to the Clash, Britain boasts some of the greatest punk bands ever to grace the stage. For this list...
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Find British Punk Albums, Artists and Songs, and Hand-Picked Top British Punk Music on AllMusic
Aug 13, 2018 · Punk music's evolved into many shapes and sub-genres over the years. From its snarling, wide-eyed British inception in the late 70s, we've witnessed the advent of everything from peace punk to punk pathetique, street punk, Taqwacore and beyond.
