I recently listened to an episode of Desert Island Discs with Kathy Burke and she mentioned punk and how the movement saved her. She said it gave her a feeling of empowerment and a sense of belonging. Did Punk have that effect for anyone?

She also picked a Sex Pistols track as a representation of the genre. Are they the ultimate punk band?

I say The Clash were the ultimate punk band, given that they could play (and had better songs), but the PIstols are (and were) the face of punk.

I also have a soft spot for Siouxsie

Sex Pistols and The Clash.

Of course The Buzzcocks stuck out the odd classic aswell.




Green Day... well, they just ruined it.

I prefer The Clash to The Sex Pistols, but I think my favourites would be New York Dolls. Or maybe The Ramones.

That's a good shout

I've never got the appeal of Green Day though.

Neither did I, I was just saying how they ruined it... it felt more "Rock" but towards the late 80s when Green Day walked onto the scene, they turned into more pop/punk.

I loved Punk Pistols,Clash and The Skidz,Stiff Little Fingers and The Buzzcocks american bands like New York Dolls Romones and The Velvet Underground.The Jam as well in there early days and Black Flag,Fugazi but I don't like new punk like people say Green Day Blink 182 and those EMO kids,basicaly they stoll punk for a munfactured look and fashion.As what John Lydon would call pop punk it's not punk it's plonk in his interviews radio friendly music like Sir Cliff.The Problem with new day punk is it more manufactord and radio friendly and that not what punk is about Pretty Why For White Guy,you know what I mean how did Offspring come of sounding like real raw Punk band.Too becoming and pop band with that song what sell outs and that's what wrong with new day punks all about media and fashion.They act tuff but do they have the lyrics and do they make people like it NO.

Iggy Pop and The Stogges.

One of my favourite bands ever.

Yes, I think punk allowed more younger people to get involved in bands and feel connected to the music business. Before that, bands were more about progressive rock where you had to practice for years and years and become a virtuoso and only older people could really start bands. With punk, you only had to know a few chords and you could get out on stage and express yourself.

Sex Pistols for me, and they could play, it was only Sid that couldn't really.
+ The Stranglers, Crass and Dead Kennedys.

Oh of course The Stranglers, can't believe I forgot about them. Quite like X-Ray Spex as well.

I would say that the Sex Pistols are very symbolic and represent punk well as an image.
But I wouldn't say that they are the ultimate Punk band.

I think The Damned are also genre defining.
I really rate The Damned highly.

I also liked Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Stranglers, PIL, and The Clash.

But Punk wasn't really a genre you could strictly define musically.
There were different styles and so many bands who came to be known as New Wave.
But it was all about the ethic of do it yourself.

I think Rave had a lot of similarities with Punk. The music was different for a new generation but the essence of it was very similar to punk.

Probably more like post-punk, somewhere between Punk and Goth before Goth existed, but does anybody remember Bauhaus and their single Bela Lugosi's Dead?

I like The Damned too, my dad was a massive fan so I grew up on them. Thinking of punk/new wave I've always enjoyed Adam and the Ants.

For me, the Sex Pistols were the best, and remain so, punk band of all time, with The Clash, for me, being more punk-rock. No band represented the era more than the Pistols and, while The Clash had some great numbers, nothing sounds like England in the mid-to-late seventies, with IRA bombs, strikes, 3-day weeks, recession and no future for the young, than 'Anarchy in the UK' and 'God Save The Queen'. Truly era-defining numbers.

Plus, of course, if there hadn't been any Sex Pistols, there would've been no Clash. When Joe Strummer stood in the wings, waiting to follow the Pistols on stage with The 101'erss, and saw the place descend into a mass punch-up (deliberately started by Viv W), he saw something he wanted to be part of.

So, for 'ultimate' punk band, that would have to the Pistols. Era-defining songs, voted the most inflential band of all time by the NME, and still the most closely associated band in the world with the word 'punk'. A close-run thing, but I think the Pistols just nick it from The Clash.

punk never got going until around 1980.

GBH, Discharge, Anti-nowhere league, The Exploited real Punk bands.

The Buzzcocks were fantastic. I've always thought of them as more punk/pop.
Their 'Singles Going Steady' album is one of the best albums I've got because it's not only full of great songs but it's one of those rare albums that you never get bored of. It's also got all of their B sides on it as well. Some of them are better than the A sides for eg. Whatever Happened To? or Autonomy. I'd recommend it to EVERYBODY who likes punk. Unlike a lot of punk bands their music was very listenable. Although I like The Buzzcocks I'd have to say the Sex Pistols really were the kings of punk.

I don't think that punk itself really achieved as much as it likes to think it did. The only thing it achieved was to show that to make it in the music industry you really need to know how to play an instrument or write songs or have some talent in that area. Round about 1976/77 there was a whole host of bands that suddenly appeared on the scene. I should think about 90% of them couldn't sing or play a damn note. Their music was unlistenable shite. They were just 2 minute wonders. Out of all those bands it was only the ones who COULD play an instrument or write songs that went on to make it big like The Jam, Buzzcocks, Undertones, XTC etc. Punk basically gave us New Wave which was like radio friendly punk.

The Pistols were the embodiment of punk because they had the right mix of music, attitude, style etc. and, of course, all the negative publicity which made punk so shocking for the Daily Mail readers at the time. It really felt like a youth revolution.

But did the Pistols make the best songs? Not really. Too few to really judge. The Clash wrote tighter songs but I found their sound monotonous after a while.

For me the best band of the punk / post-punk era were Wire, who evolved from the two minute thrash of punk to a more challenging, experimental sound. Over the course of three remarkable albums (Pink Flag, Chairs Missing and 154) they just blew most other bands out of the water. Criminally overlooked at the time, though.

When you think of punk, you think Sex Pistols, though my faves at the time were The Stranglers, Boomtown Rats, The Adverts, The Rezillos, Eddie & The Hotrods, Magazine and The Ruts. Most of these only had 1 or 2 hits but they were mostly brilliant energetic, frantic songs that were great at parties or discos at the time.

I would've been a skin

Here's a dozen of my favourites:

Dead Kennedys - California Uber Alles
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlvUz6phquo

Ruts - West One (Shine On Me)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cs6ZnmdhiLE

Sex Pistols - Bodies
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z25QTM1ARtk

Stiff Little Fingers - Wasted Life
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeG5Pl-5e1Q

The Outcasts - You're A Disease
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EEkHKJyj7w

X-Ray Spex - The Day the World Turned Day-Glo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjVVhJ-INWQ

Siouxsie & The Banshees - Suburban Relapse
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CjNl4rBFTQ

Crass - Big A Little A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIdcDL64KCE

The Slits - Instant Hit
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgXnkXhnGvc

PIL - Public Image
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylOCIP54PIQ

The Damned - New Rose
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QPPFs4uktk

Eh! That's when it basically ended, unless you mean Hardcore (punk) , Post-punk (after Punk) or the more pop based New Wave.Which are seperate movement's as far as I'm concerned.There is the Mod revival movement (The Jam etc.) which also overlapped with the Ska punk / 2 Tone fusion music movements as well.
Critic Stephen Blush stated "The Sex Pistols were still rock'n'roll...like the craziest version of Chuck Berry. Hardcore was a radical departure from that. It wasn't verse-chorus rock. It dispelled any notion of what songwriting is supposed to be. It's its own form."

It all got more dissipated after the early 80's.The catch all term of Alternative rock which commonly began to be used in the early '80's was very divergent http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_rock
Alternative rock (early on interchangeable with Indie rock) historical links to Punk have seemed to have weakened as years have gone on.Mainly due to many of the artists admitting the primary influences.Punk was a highly devisive tag to be used in the early '80's.It became more tongue in cheek to be associated with it moving into the '90's - many rock or even pop fans haven't understood aspect's of irony when band's have claimed association to punk

There was the second wave of British punk in the early 80s with bands like The Business, The Anti-Nowhere League, Peter and the Test Tube Babies, Cock Sparrer etc., largely keeping the ethos of rough and ready working class angry lads thrashing out three minute songs.

Sadly there were associations with the racist end of the skinhead movement as well which most sensible bands did their best to distance themselves from.