Greatest Punk Songs Ever List - Have You Made One?

[lewdd]

Has anyone ever tried making their own greatest punk songs list? I may be about to give it a try. I have about 50 or so box sets or genre spanning compilations that I think I am going to sort thru to pull my favorite tracks from and see how it ends up. The problem I think I am going to run into with that approach is that there are not many genre spanning compilations of USA punk as there are of UK punk. And, most of these box sets I have are only from the late 70s thru early 80s so the last 35 or so years may not be represented very well. Maybe I am just having a severe case of COVID boredom today and I haven't even had any beers yet.

Whatcha say? Do you have a list? Anyone interested in helping make a list? Any ideas on how to go about making a list? Or, you don't give a fuck about no list?

[Dinko]

I used to make mixtapes to get laid. They were carefully constructed. Some worked, some didn't. "Greatest" wasn't an important attribute. "Individual" was. So yeah, no. I don't give a fuck.

[patient_ot]

It would be a huge undertaking.

Especially when you start venturing outside of U.S., Canadian, and U.K. bands.

There are so many bands from outside these areas that I'm still discovering all the time.

I suppose you could start categorizing by year of release, but then you'd have to decide what you want your scope to be. Does it start in '76 or '77, or with 60s garage rock bands?

[lewdd]

Part of my logic is to pick a bunch of songs from the FLAC rips of CDs that I have to be able to stream them thru the CXN v2 via playlists or a folder with all of the songs in it.

[target]

Lewd— you lost me there

Question for you music Uber consumers: how many albums can you get in one year and still develop a relationship with the LP? If I got > 15 albums a year they’d all kind of run together and get lost in my tiny brain. I only learned this after spending thousands of dollars on music


As for top 50 punk songs.... who the fuck knows

[jaybird]

I rarely use spotify, but I started making a playlist awhile ago kinda along these lines... 34 songs... I think the newest/most recent song is a Hot Snakes tune... I think maybe a third of them would be legit contenders for an all-time greatest 50 punk songs list

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1H6uh ... Dp4UDBvTjw

Nervous Breakdown
I Don't Wanna Hear It
Borstal Breakout
Bloodstains
Personality Crisis
Ex-Lion Tamer
Disorder
Identity
Kids of the Black Hole
Can't Tell No One
That's When I Reach for my Revolver



Rate My Mix for my Cousin/Rape My Mixed Cousin* etc.


(old offensive allboard in-joke rhyming thread that precipitated Bill pulling the plug one of the many times that our particular conglomeration of racists, pedophiles and unregenerate shit-talkers has had the plug pulled on us over the years ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

[jaybird]

Also, +1 on the whole "making mix tapes to try to get laid" angle that Dinko mentioned... truly a lost/dying art. I made lots of mix tapes (and CDRs) complete with liner notes and artwork for many girls when I was young and single. Pretty pathetic and obvious in retrospect, but a few girls actually did agree to have sex with me at some point and one of them eventually even married me, so... success?

[lewdd]

I found a site that has rankings of top songs, albums, etc. Spent some time this weekend going through 70's decade and have over 200 songs already that I put on a list and I am about halfway thru that decade's list. This is going to be a long project, but I am sure I will listen to some things I never heard before and actually like them. Found a handful already. Interested to get to other decades to see what shows up on the lists on that site.

[FlexMyHead]

how many albums can you get in one year and still develop a relationship with the LP? If I got > 15 albums a year they’d all kind of run together and get lost in my tiny brain. I only learned this after spending thousands of dollars on music

I found myself asking...myself(?) this question as I think I bought close to 200 records this year during my COVID work from home break, which consisted of me pretty much buying everything I vaguely remember reading a review in MRR from 89-94 on Discogs that was $10 and under. Until Trump fucked the mail, I was getting like 4 packages a week, I was listening to stuff once or twice and then filing it away. I was trying to make stacks of them depending on how connected I was with the music after one listen, there were a handful that kinda fucking sucked which I filed away backwards, but I fear there are many that at one point I would have listened to over and over again, but just due to the mass volume I got, I just will never have the chance. I mean, it's not like conspicuous consumption or something as I do not know a single person in the county I live that even likes punk, but it is an odd affliction that I have with buying music. I enjoy it and I don't drink or smoke, so if it's my "vice" at least it's not fucking shit (or myself) up.

But to answer your question, I honestly don't know. When I was first getting into punk, I'd play the same 8-10 tapes over and over until I knew every drum fill, pick slide, background vocal etc. I think part of that was just that it was all new to my ears. And early punk bands were better. Hahaha. Now I can't even remember the names of songs, it's all a blur.

[version sound]

I could make a list of my favorite punk songs, but that’s about it. Any list of “All Time Greatest” would have to have gone through several filters to even get to a pool of songs to consider. No one has the breadth of knowledge of all punk to create a truly objective and inclusive list.

As for target’s question, age and attention span probably play a huge part. When I was a youngling, I bought, on average, a record a week. I gave that record a week’s attention to make an impression. That week included many repeat listens, because what else did I have to do? These days, most of my listening is digital, so even when I buy a record, the majority of listens are through one streaming service or another, usually while I’m working, so it’s not really a focused listen. I don’t have nearly the time or focus I did when I was a kid, so a record has to really get its hooks into me to become a regular listen. In the end, I doubt I hear even 15 new records in a year that i truly digest and process fully.

[creature]

For the last three months, since I'm working from home, I'll take a long walk at the end of each day and listen to international bands on YouTube that I just knew the name or heard just a bit of back in the early 80s. I started with stuff like Flux of Pink Indians, Icons of Filth, etc ... moved onto GISM, Stalin, Execute, Gauze, etc... Negazione, Declino, Indigesti, etc ... Rattus, SS Tampere, Lama, etc.... it's quite a ride.

[lewdd]

So, I used this site to find a list of punk related releases for each decade from the 1970s thru 2010s. Probably not the most punk related site, but good enough to get a list of songs to get me started.

https://rateyourmusic.com/customchart?p ... countries=

These are the total song counts that I picked from each decade just to get a list of songs that I wouldn't mind coming up on whatever player I decide to listen to them on.

1970s - 293
1980s - 207
1990s - 99
2000s - 54
2010s - 14

I have another list that I had started in Google Sheets that was curated from songs played in XM Radio's Faction and Marky Ramone's channel. I am sure there is some crossover. Probably getting up over 1000 songs from both of these lists. At some point, I need to start finding the actual files in my archive and cataloging them in a folder. I also have a bunch of playlists that I developed digitally from mix tapes and CDs that I have made over the years. I will probably be adding those songs to this folder which should put me well over 5000 songs. After that, I may jump into the catalogs of bands on that make up those 5000 songs and pull other songs that I like by those bands. This should give me something to do over the Winter Lockdown.

[Knutsen]

New Rose
Pay to come
Revenge
Fuck You
Blocked Out
Death time

[lewdd]

OK, so I found 12 lists of greatest punk songs mostly from music magazines. These 32 songs showed up on 4 or more of the lists. Get out your bullets to start shooting holes in the list.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1u07b ... 7CcsJtC8Sw

8 Damned - New Rose
8 Sex Pistols - Anarchy in the UK
7 Clash - White Riot
7 Ramones - Blitzkrieg Bop
7 Sex Pistols - God Save the Queen
6 Clash - Complete Control
6 Siouxsie and the Banshees - Hong Kong Garden
5 Clash - White Man in Hammersmith Palais
5 Dead Kennedys - California Uber Alles
5 Germs - Forming
5 Heartbreakers - Chinese Rocks
5 Patti Smith - Gloria
5 Public Image Ltd - Public Image
5 Richard Hell - Blank Generation
5 Talking Heads - Psycho Killer
5 X-Ray Spex - Oh Bondage Up Yours!
4 Adverts - Gary Gilmore's Eyes
4 Buzzcocks - Boredom
4 Buzzcocks - Orgasm Addict
4 Chelsea - Right to Work
4 Damned - Neat Neat Neat
4 Dils - I Hate the Rich
4 Generation X - Your Generation
4 Jam - In the City
4 Penetration - Don't Dictate
4 Ramones - Sheena Is a Punk Rocker
4 Ruts - Babylon's Burning
4 Saints - (I'm) Stranded
4 Sex Pistols - Holidays in the Sun
4 Sex Pistols - Pretty Vacant
4 Sham 69 - Borstal Breakout
4 Sid Vicious - My Way

[version sound]

There are no bad songs on that list. Any list I made would have a lot more American hardcore on it, but that’s how my taste skews (and what I grew up with).

[Markonomicon]

If I had to pick just ONE song...you know...for aliens or some shit, it would be "Complete Control" by the Clash.

It's got the snarl, melody, chops, and meaning.