Best Punk Album in World Ever V.2

Product Information

I don’t give a shit that Raw Power didn’t make our top spot: If punk is about spewing bile at musical norms, than this album is more punk than any release, by any band, will ever be. Raw Power is eight songs of the filthiest guitar-based music made by American musicians, in any genre. Christ, even “Gimme Danger,” a pop song in many ways, sounds menacing and eventually lapses into chaos.

Why it was so influential: Parquet Courts’ breakthrough moment was so distinctive that it accidentally spawned an entire genre of bands who ‘sound a bit like Parquet Courts’. Savages, ‘Silence Yourself’ (2013) It’s true that Idol couldn’t keep his predilection for pop under wraps for long – a fact adeptly displayed by Generation X becoming one of the first UK punk bands to appear on Top Of The Pops in late ‘77. Not long after, the band’s descent into obscurity began. Idol fixed his eyes on the bright lights and departed for the charts in 1979. The Clash articulated the frustrations of working class kids in a way that the chin-stroking protest pop of previous generations couldn’t hope to, in a way that was more inclusive than the fury of the Pistols or the Damned’s goth theatre. (And, yeah genius, we know the irony: Joe Strummer went to a private boarding school and his father was a top diplomat. Hate to break it to you but David Bowie wasn’t really a spaceman, Tom Waits wasn’t a hobo and Ice-T didn’t really kill cops.) In spite of a co-frontman stint with the original line-up of The Heartbreakers, bass-toting, mannered vocalist Hell’s incarnation of the ‘punk’ sound had way more in common with Television – the band he’d formed with Tom Verlaine in ‘73 – than with the Dolls. Voidoids’ guitarist Robert Quine matched an edgy Verlaine precision with a brink-dwelling Velvets aggression.One of the greatest things about post-punk is the way that it makes intense bleakness danceable despite itself; and Leeds outfit Gang of Four were one of the earliest pioneers with their debut album ‘Entertainment!’. Sarcastic in title and biting by nature, it’s a record that sets out an urgent agenda with thumping drums: spanning from political violence in Northern Ireland to rampant consumerism. And Gang of Four’s politics often veer towards the personal: the likes of ‘5.45’ and ‘Contract’ nail the lingering sense of anxiety and dread that comes with a constant numbing bombardment of terrible news. “ Our bodies make us worry,” frontman Andy Gill sings cheerfully on the latter, atop spiking and uneasy dub-punk. Despair and disenfranchisement colliding with gold-standard pop writing – it doesn’t get much better than this. The series was very successful. It offered a third alternative to the Now Dance series, with the other alternative being The Best Dance Album series.

Unusual for compilation albums, the "Brimful of Asha" featured on disc two is the original version, not the Norman Cook remix which reached #1 in the UK charts. If The Clash never really disavowed White Riot, they also never recorded anything like it again. It split the audience and ultimately split the band too. Despite the first volume only entering at #5, it achieved at least Gold status, whilst the second volume received Platinum status. This Virgin double CD compilation album released in 1995 contains JCC reading Kung Fu International.

Release

The concept of the album is similar to the Harmless collections and to BMG Global TV's Blaxplotation album series.

This is a double CD album of various Christmas music, originally released in 1996. In 2000, a new edition was released, The Best Christmas Album in the World... Ever! (new edition).Why it was so influential: Without Elastica’s Justine Frischmann we might not have M.I.A – they lived together post-Elastica and the vocalist became something of a mentor, earning co-writing credit’s on M.I.A’s 2003 debut album ‘Arular’. Interpol, ‘Turn On The Bright Lights’ (2002) Volume 3 was released November 2003. Intended to be "the last Air guitar album in the world... ever!" according to the liner notes, there was later a "best of the best" album. Volume 3 featured a rare recording of the Pink Floyd song " Have a Cigar" by the Foo Fighters with Brian May. Queen's " Now I'm Here" also featured. The liner notes feature small quotes about each song/artist by May. Volumes 1 & 2 also did this, but focused mainly on the guitarist, rather than the song. They didn’t know it at the time, but the Misfits would be the bridge between the US punk scene and its younger, gnarlier brother, hardcore. They muscled onto bills at CBGBs, the ground zero of New York punk; they’d take the stage at 3am to a roomful of strung-out scenesters.