While Johnny Rotten sang about anarchy with all the comprehension of a child playing with a hand-grenade – although not even a child would have considered rhyming the word ‘anarchist’ with ‘antichrist’ – for Crass such matters were far more serious. During a career of infamy and provocation, the Epping collective produced a homemade tape that purported to contain a private conversation between Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan – the Prime Minister was made aware of its existence – and had their music criticised in the House of Commons. With The Feeding Of The 5000, they laid down a marker for hardcore militancy for generations to come. 26. Social Distortion, Somewhere Between Heaven And Hell (1992) It’s a wonder that Millions Of Dead Cops never runs out of steam, let alone targets. As the album ends with the words “and there’s no God in Heaven, so get of your knees”, the sensation is of being beaten bloody by something close to perfection. 6. Refused, the Shape of Punk to Come: A Chimerical Bombination in 12 Bursts (1998)

The Best Punk Album In The WorldEver! 2 by Various Artists The Best Punk Album In The WorldEver! 2 by Various Artists

Propelled by the melodic and mischievous songwriting of Glen Danzig, the Misfits played songs about Martians and zombies with the kind of revelry that Ed Wood Jr. might have brought to The Beach Boys. Silly, yes; a classic, certainly. 13. The Damned, Damned Damned Damned (1977) With the release of Frankenchrist, the third album from the Dead Kennedys, the US authorities decided they’d had just about enough of the country’s most provocative punk band. Aggrieved at the decision to include a poster of H.R. Giger’s painting Penis Landscape in the inner sleeve, the group were charged with violating the Californian penal code. Prior to the release of American Idiot, Rob Cavallo called a meeting at the headquarters of Warner Bros. Records in Burbank, California, for the company’s press officers and sales team. As well producing Green Day’s seventh album, Cavallo was also the president of the label. An exercise in nihilism this is not; the pronounced morality of Los Angeles is drawn from the atonality with which it’s delivered. As the music critic Greil Marcus once wrote, ‘X’s vision isn’t fragmented, it’s not second-hand, and its ambition is to discredit any vision that suggests there’s more to life than X says there is.’ 11. Bad Brains, Attitude: the Roir Sessions (1982) On an LP that can barely contain its own fury, singer Dave Dictor sings about animal rights, transvestite rights, police oppression – “what you gonna do? The mafia in blue, hunting for queers, n_____s, and you” – the craven morality of slumlords, and, even, the idea that John Wayne was a Nazi. The past tense is important, cos he’s “not any more”, not since “life evened the score”, anyway.My tastes run mainly to Wagner, Strauss and Mahler but I agree that American Idiot is an absolute 'must have' album. It's superb from start to finish."

The Best British Punk Albums | GQ The Best British Punk Albums | GQ

Each night before taking to the stage The Interrupters prepare for their show by watching the British film Dance Craze. Featuring music from The Specials, The Selecter and Madness, among others, the documentary from 1981 gives a clue as to the young LA band’s motivation when it comes to finding a groove. Described by Beastie Boy Adam Yauch as “the best hardcore punk album of all time,” the first full-length release by Bad Brains is a creation of such precision and power that its game-changing qualities are revered to this day. A compelling live draw in both New York and Washington DC, the Rastafarian quartet’s home city, Attitude… captured the group’s energies without spilling a drop. It’s fearsome stuff, too; such was the pace of its songs that in 1982 the listener might have been forgiven for believing they were playing them at the wrong speed. Perhaps with this in mind, ROIR Records decided to release the collection only on cassette. 10. The Offspring, Smash (1994) In receipt of GBH of the earhole from the ol’ good-cop-bad-cop routine, Muir was instructed to sign a form giving access to his medical records, to submit a sample of his handwriting, and to provide prior notification if ever he planned to visit Washington DC. “It was a real experience,” he said.While some bands strive for stardom, Fugazi were concerned only with purity. Refusing to issue merchandise and declining to be interviewed by any publication that carried adverts for alcohol, at the time of the release of Repeater, their debut album, the quartet from Washington DC were playing to a thousand people a night without any help from anyone. A screaming generation-chasm put to music, Suicidal Tendencies would have the last laugh when the album’s centerpiece - Institutionalized, a song about an adolescent bound for a mental health facility - appeared not only on late-night MTV but also, bizarrely, on an episode of Miami Vice. A hundred thousand record sales duly followed. 8. Rancid, …And Out Come The Wolves (1995) When Billie Joe Armstrong inserted a chant of “No Trump! No KKK! No fascist USA!” into Green Day’s performance of the song Bang Bang at the American Music Awards in 2016, he introduced a battle-cry that would resound at protest rallies across the United States for years to come. The slogan in its original form, to which Armstrong replaced the word “war” with the name “Trump”, is taken from the song Born To Die from Millions Of Dead Cops, the finest hardcore punk album ever made. Originally released in a – yes – metal box, the band considered separating with sandpaper the three 12” discs onto which their hypnotic and dependably challenging songs were pressed. All fun and games, but the legacy of PiL endured; the dreamscape guitar work of Keith Levene in particular can be heard throughout the 1980s as replicated by REM, The Cult, and even The Smiths. 15. Dead Kennedys, Frankenchrist (1985)