Bill Carson wrote: Almost all of the acts formed by the punk revolution are worthless and almost all of the music has not held up at all.
The term Punk Rock is a term I try and be very careful about using when referring to "genre" as it includes SOOOOO many subgenres and the people on that scene (at least when I was coming up) were SOOOOOO sensitive about the whole thing, that again, I try never to overuse it, however, for all intents and purposes, with regard to recordings that may or may not hold up over time, here are some bands/singles which MORE than hold up from my early 80's tween angst days..
I don't expect todays youth to be as into these tunes as I was/am.
If the are, cool...if not, that's cool too. It doesn't bother me either way.
I'm just as happy for them to listen to their own record collections and reference their own faves as classics.
Cool by me. None of my Beezwax really.
It's up to them.
In no particular order..
The Stranglers-
Golden Brown
I love this song so much that it hurts. Seriously. It makes me weep with Joy.
If I listen to it once, consider it listened to at least 50 times in a row.
It's like eating one Lays potato chip. Impossible. 1 = the whole bag.
1 listen to
Golden Brown = 50 listens to
Golden Brown.
No Shit.
Richard Hell and The Voidoids-
Blank Generation
It's like my ears ultimate exercise in exhilaration. For real.
1 listen=50 listens. Easy.
My
Specials-
Singles collection
Which includes 15 tunes. Rarely skip around, although wait with bated breath for the 12" version of
Ghost Town to come on, which happens to be number 11, and I know this as sometimes I will immediately skip ahead to number 11 and then go back to number 1 (which is the tune
Gangsters) and listen straight through.
Then other times I'll just press play and enjoy my singles collection in the order it was intended.
BEYOND holds up, at least for my ears. I can't get enough of the entire collection, but
Ghost Town, well, it's another 50 times in a rower fer sure.
Some not exactly 50 times in a rowers, but "Holding Up" (again, to my ears) is still an understatement to the max, would be:
Buzzcocks-
What do I get and
Orgasm Addict
Gang Of Four-
Damaged Goods and
I love a man in a uniform
There are many many more and I'm not even including bands like Siouxsie and Echo as I was a self proclaimed Super Fan #1 back in the day, so ya know..it wouldn't even be fair, but the above are just random tunes I LOOOOOOVED as an angst ridden tween which never ever seem to loose their appeal on me all these years later.
I reach for them out of my collection with the same level of enthusiasm I did back then.
Sometimes even more...Like
Golden Brown, as that song seriously makes me weep. I shit you not.
Edit: I know myself and ALREADY ramdom tunes are popping into my head which are compelling me to sign back on to this post and update my list, something I REAALLLY didn't want to get into doing, however, one more tune I'm seriously aching to add at the moment would be:
X-Ray Spex-
Oh Bondage!-Up Yours!
I really don't want to leave that one out, so there ya have it..