Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Blitzkrieg Bop - Ramones
2. White Riot - The Clash
3. Heart Of The City - Nick Lowe
4. Boredom - Buzzcocks featuring Howard Devoto
5. (I'm) Stranded - The Saints
6. Neat Neat Neat - The Damned
7. In The City - The Jam
8. Final Solution - Pere Ubu
9. Roadrunner - The Modern Lovers
10. Little Johnny Jewel - Television
11. One Chord Wonders - The Adverts
12. Born To Lose - The Heartbreakers
13. Search And Destroy - Iggy & The Stooges
14. Let Me Dream If I Want To (Amphetamine Blues) - Mink DeVille
15. Oh Bondage Up Yours! - X-Ray Spex
16. 1 2 X U - Wire
17. Blank Generation - Richard Hell & The Voidoids
18. (Get A) Grip (On Yourself) - The Stranglers
19. Cherry Bomb - The Runaways
20. Personality Crisis - New York Dolls
21. Teenage Depression - Eddie & The Hot Rods
22. Two Tub Man - The Dictators
23. Hey Joe (Version) - Patti Smith
24. Your Generation - Generation X

Disc 2:

1. Lust For Life - Iggy Pop
2. Gary Gilmore's Eyes - The Adverts
3. Satday Night In The City Of The Dead - Ultravox!
4. What Do I Get? - Buzzcocks
5. X Offender - Blondie
6. Lookin' After No. 1 - The Boomtown Rats
7. Don't Dictate - Penetration
8. Bingo Master - The Fall
9. Free Money - Patti Smith
10. The Modern World - The Jam
11. Chinese Rocks - The Heartbreakers
12. New Rose - The Damned
13. Ambition - Subway Sect
14. See No Evil - Television
15. Suspect Device - Stiff Little Fingers
16. Mannequin - Wire
17. Baby Baby - The Vibrators
18. Love Comes In Spurts - Richard Hell & The Voidoids
19. First Time - The Boys
20. Sonic Reducer - Dead Boys
21. Shot By Both Sides - Magazine
22. Mystery Dance - Elvis Costello
23. Trash - New York Dolls
24. The Day The World Turned Day-Glo - X-Ray Spex
25. Do Anything You Wanna Do - Eddie & The Hot Rods

Disc 3:

1. Ready Steady Go - Generation X
2. Teenage Kicks - The Undertones
3. Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll - Ian Dury
4. Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've?) - Buzzcocks
5. Rocket U.S.A. - Suicide
6. Mongoloid - Devo
7. Homicide - 999
8. Mr. Big - The Dils
9. Warsaw - Joy Division
10. Where Were You? - The Mekons
11. Lexicon Devil - The Germs
12. (My Baby Does) Good Sculptures - The Rezillos
13. The Wait - The Pretenders
14. We Got The Neutron Bomb - The Weirdos
15. Pablo Picasso - The Modern Lovers
16. Action Time Vision - Alternative TV
17. 2-4-6-8 Motorway - Tom Robinson Band
18. We Are The One - The Avengers
19. Borstal Breakout - Sham 69
20. Wasted - Black Flag
21. Sheena Is A Punk Rocker - Ramones
22. I Love Livin In The City - Fear
23. She's So Modern - The Boomtown Rats
24. Ghosts Of Princes In Towers - Rich Kids
25. We're Desperate - X
26. You Drive Me Ape (You Big Gorilla) - The Dickies
27. Dancing The Night Away - The Motors

Disc 4:

1. Hong Kong Garden - Siouxsie & The Banshees
2. Hanging On The Telephone - Blondie
3. Top Of The Pops - The Rezillos
4. Adult Books - X
5. The Sound Of The Suburbs - The Members
6. California =DCber Alles - Dead Kennedys
7. Another Girl, Another Planet - The Only Ones
8. (I Want To Be An) Anglepoise Lamp - The Soft Boys
9. Radio, Radio - Elvis Costello & The Attractions
10. Typical Girls - The Slits
11. Human Fly - The Cramps
12. Psycho Killer - Talking Heads
13. Babylon's Burning - The Ruts
14. If The Kids Are United - Sham 69
15. Alternative Ulster - Stiff Little Fingers
16. Boys Don't Cry - The Cure
17. She Is Beyond Good And Evil - The Pop Group
18. Is She Really Going Out With Him? - Joe Jackson
19. Get Over You - The Undertones
20. Love Like Anthrax - Gang Of Four
21. Peaches - The Stranglers
22. Into The Valley - Skids
23. You Can't Put Your Arms Round A Memory - Johnny Thunders
24. Love Will Tear Us Apart - Joy Division

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #21461 in Music
• Released on: 2003-10-28
• Number of discs: 4
• Format: Box set

Customer Reviews

Never Mind the Pistols
This set contains much of the stuff that brought about the major turning point in my own taste for music, back in the late `70s. I was listening to a lot of monster groups: The Who, Santana, The Stones, etc., when-mostly because I liked the design of the LP jacket-I picked up Tom Robinson Band's "Power in the Darkness." When TRB's "Up Against the Wall" tore out of my speakers, I can't describe the feeling that went through me. It was just raw energy. Even though I'm now a 40-something with a house and wife and kid, this stuff can still evoke the same feeling in me.

As for the track selection, everyone has an opinion. Overall I think it's great. I personally would have substituted TRB's "Glad to Be Gay" or "Power in the Darkness" for "2-4-6-8 Motorway," which, in comparison, is a toe-tapping ditty (albeit a great one).

I'd also exclude The Pretenders, The Motors (although it's great to see The Motors included anywhere), Joe Jackson, and Devo. I mean, if you're gonna include Joe Jackson, you might as well add a tune from the early Police or Tom Petty albums. That stuff should be collected on a New Wave 4-disc set, along with Squeeze, XTC, The Cars, B-52s, Graham Parker, etc., to let people know there was something out there in the early `80s besides Duran Duran. I look forward to that set, Rhino. And while I'm at it, if you're gonna include the New York Dolls, why not stick The Tubes on there as well? But I digress...

For me, this is a great way to get good recordings of a lot of the punk I liked/like, but don't want to collect album-by-album. Rhino is just about the best label out there for old farts like me who, though turning gray, like to maintain a certain punk sensibility.

I mean it, maaaaaannnn! Oh, wait; that one's not on there...

What are box sets for?
The point of box set compilations, like this one, is to provide the listener with an overview of a particular era or type of music. It's impossible to include everything everyone, especially completists would want or even expect. The questions to answer then are "Does this set provide you with a insightful look into 70's punk?" and "When I'm finished listening, have I learned something useful?" The answer is yes, resoundingly. If you were around in the 70's, you will hear and remember some old stuff that you have probably forgotten, and if you weren't around then, you can see how punk morphed into new wave and then devolved into the pop music that often passes as "punk" today. (Devo was right!)

If you like to show off your knowledge of obscure punk bands, or if you think hair gel and a trip to Hot Topic to get a Blink 182 shirt makes you a punker, then this box set isn't for you. It's for people who are interested in, not obsessed with the music and who at least know the difference between punk and "punk." Enough said.

Amazing, Then And Now
It should be obvious to those looking here that punk is not about the style or being bratty just to get on your parent's nerves. That would be "punk rock," aka Good Charlotte/Yellowcard/any other generic pop-punk today. Punk was a position, a radical position at the time. New wave, while there were redeeming moments, corrupted this ideal and made it safe. Early grunge and underground music made it wild again, until the former became mainstream and redundant, leaving the latter to gradually rise up in opposition. But this was where it started. And thank God.

This collection is for anyone who wants to be reassured, or potentially taught, that punk did not just mean simple, generic, almost alike songs. There may be those that say punk was the "return to the great two-and-a-half minute singles," and while this was true to a great extent, there were those exceptions that made the classification special and exciting. All of this is represented in just the right amounts, just enough simple British punk, just enough art-punk, just enough hardcore, etc. It's also a way to show anyone who writes off punk as interminal skronk as people who were seriously engulfed in their work, even if their work wasn't entirely serious. It's catchy as hell, even the artsy stuff, and even with those that "couldn't play," there are still those that can truly play their instruments. This box set shows every side of things related to the genre.

Most importantly, there are the songs themselves. Every song has a right to be on here, as they all represent something similarly primal in its spirit but different in its execution. It's incredibly difficult to pick out the best songs, as practically all amaze me; still, the ones that most amaze me are the things I had not heard before, potentially for that reason. I knew the Ramones, the Clash, Television, Suicide, Dead Kennedys, Richard Hell, X, etc. When I finally heard work of bands I had heard of but never listened to, the true revelations began: the Buzzcocks (especially "Ever Fallen In Love..."), the Germs ("Lexicon Devil" is now in my top five favorite songs), the Only Ones ("Another Girl, Another Planet" is the best power-pop song ever), the Cramps ("Human Fly" is one of the weirdest catchy songs I know), the Rich Kids (the melody of "Ghosts of Princes in Towers" is irresistable), Subway Sect (I love the synth effects on "Ambition"), X-Ray Spex ("Oh Bondage Up Yours!" is just plain fun), etc.

You could argue that the absence of the Sex Pistols is a big detriment to the credibility of these discs. And yes, sure, the Sex Pistols were the greatest punk band of them all. But if you don't own their "Never Mind The Bollocks..." then you should buy it immediately. Every song on there is indispensable, making it the first necessary punk purchase (a fact confirmed in the liner notes to this box set, actually). Once you own that, there's arguably little need for the rest of the Sex Pistols material, and then their appearance on this set would be pointless. After that, one could argue bands like the Au Pairs, the Raincoats, and the no-wave movement are inexplicably missing. And one of my personal favorite bands I didn't expect to find here but I was really hoping: Simply Saucer (their album "Cyborgs Revisited" is a true unknown noisy masterpiece that only gets better with each repeated listen). Still, this box set distills the best of the rest with their best songs, and places them together in a totally cohesive manner, that allows for repeated, continuous listening, something uncommon for box sets. This is both a testament to Rhino for being able to put together such a comprehensive collection and to the musicians present for their truly timeless music, in all its rage and joy.