Never occurred to me to do this until I was driving home from my sister’s this morning and my mind was lost in wandering driving thoughts: a list of my favourite punk albums, prompted by Rolling Stone’s list of their Top 100 punk albums last week. Forty years ago, I would have been all over that the same day—not really; there was no internet—and with great certitude I would have complained about all the albums they left out or ranked too low. Today, not just their list but also my own generate about the same level of detachment. I’m not saying that’s a good thing.
I do think it’s still very possible to make a great punk album, something I wouldn’t say of doo-wop or garage or rockabilly, three other genres I found myself immersed in at various points in my life. As Greil Marcus has written more than once, people who make great punk albums long after the fact usually sound like they’re inventing punk rock for the first time, or at least like they believe they’re inventing punk rock—and chances are they won’t sound anything like the Ramones or the Damned or even the Raincoats. Whereas with contemporary attempts at doo-wop or garage or rockabilly, the goal always seems to be to sound as true to the form as possible. If someone pulls it off really well, they'll end up with a replica almost (but not quite) as good as the Flamingos or the Seeds or Johnny Burnette; if they don’t, they're closer to Richie and Potsie and Ralph Malph’s Happy Days band.
I think these are all punk rock, or at least they started out as somebody’s idea of what that means—that’s something else I don’t have enough interest to argue about anymore. (Beat Happening are probably the most specious pick here.) I’ve arranged them alphabetically because I haven’t done any relistening, a necessity for ranking them, and I’ve included 21, because that’s when I ran out of ideas. If I could make up my own Sonic Youth compilation of a dozen or so songs, that’d be here for sure. But I just don’t like any of their regular-issue albums quite enough; like Jethro Tull and the Archies, they’re a greatest-hits-type band.
Angry Samoans: Back from
Samoa (1982; #89 on Rolling Stone’s list)
Beat Happening: Jamboree
(1988)
Flipper: Album Generic
(1982; #60 on Rolling Stone’s list)
Hole: Live Through This
(1994)
Husker Du: Flip Your Wig
(1985)
Jesus & Mary Chain:
Psychocandy (1985)
Kleenex/LiLiPUT (1983; #58
on Rolling Stone’s list)
Knight School: The Poor
and Needy Need to Party (2009)
Meat Puppets: II (1984;
#73 on Rolling Stone’s list)
New York Dolls (1973; #15 on
Rolling Stone’s list)
The Raincoats (1979; #25 on
Rolling Stone’s list)
Ramones: Leave Home (1977)
Replacements: Don't You
Know Who I Think I Was? (2006)
Scrawl: Smallmouth (1990)
Shop Assistants (1986)
Stooges: Funhouse (1970;
#8 on Rolling Stone’s list)
The Way of the Vaselines:
A Complete History (1992)
Vivian Girls (2008)
Wire: Pink Flag (1977; #6 on
Rolling Stone’s list)
X: Los Angeles (1980; #14 on
Rolling Stone’s list)
X-Ray Spex: Germfree
Adolescents (1978; #2 on Rolling Stone’s list)
