Release Date: 28 October, 2003
Audio CD
Tracks
- Blitzkrieg Bop - Ramones
- White Riot - The Clash
- Heart Of The City - Nick Lowe
- Boredom - Buzzcocks featuring Howard Devoto
- (I'm) Stranded - The Saints
- Neat Neat Neat - The Damned
- In The City - The Jam
- Final Solution - Pere Ubu
- Roadrunner - The Modern Lovers
- Little Johnny Jewel - Television
- One Chord Wonders - The Adverts
- Born To Lose - The Heartbreakers
- Search And Destroy - Iggy & The Stooges
- Let Me Dream If I Want To (Amphetamine Blues) - Mink DeVille
- Oh Bondage Up Yours! - X-Ray Spex
- 1 2 X U - Wire
- Blank Generation - Richard Hell & The Voidoids
- (Get A) Grip (On Yourself) - The Stranglers
- Cherry Bomb - The Runaways
- Personality Crisis - New York Dolls
- Teenage Depression - Eddie & The Hot Rods
- Two Tub Man - The Dictators
- Hey Joe (Version) - Patti Smith
- Your Generation - Generation X
- Lust For Life - Iggy Pop
- Gary Gilmore's Eyes - The Adverts
- Satday Night In The City Of The Dead - Ultravox!
- What Do I Get? - Buzzcocks
- X Offender - Blondie
- Lookin' After No. 1 - The Boomtown Rats
- Don't Dictate - Penetration
- Bingo Master - The Fall
- Free Money - Patti Smith
- The Modern World - The Jam
- Chinese Rocks - The Heartbreakers
- New Rose - The Damned
- Ambition - Subway Sect
- See No Evil - Television
- Suspect Device - Stiff Little Fingers
- Mannequin - Wire
- Baby Baby - The Vibrators
- Love Comes In Spurts - Richard Hell & The Voidoids
- First Time - The Boys
- Sonic Reducer - Dead Boys
- Shot By Both Sides - Magazine
- Mystery Dance - Elvis Costello
- Trash - New York Dolls
- The Day The World Turned Day-Glo - X-Ray Spex
- Do Anything You Wanna Do - Eddie & The Hot Rods
- Ready Steady Go - Generation X
- Teenage Kicks - The Undertones
- Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll - Ian Dury
- Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've?) - Buzzcocks
- Rocket U.S.A. - Suicide
- Mongoloid - Devo
- Homicide - 999
- Mr. Big - The Dils
- Warsaw - Joy Division
- Where Were You? - The Mekons
- Lexicon Devil - The Germs
- (My Baby Does) Good Sculptures - The Rezillos
- The Wait - The Pretenders
- We Got The Neutron Bomb - The Weirdos
- Pablo Picasso - The Modern Lovers
- Action Time Vision - Alternative TV
- 2-4-6-8 Motorway - Tom Robinson Band
- We Are The One - The Avengers
- Borstal Breakout - Sham 69
- Wasted - Black Flag
- Sheena Is A Punk Rocker - Ramones
- I Love Livin In The City - Fear
- She's So Modern - The Boomtown Rats
- Ghosts Of Princes In Towers - Rich Kids
- We're Desperate - X
- You Drive Me Ape (You Big Gorilla) - The Dickies
- Dancing The Night Away - The Motors
- Hong Kong Garden - Siouxsie & The Banshees
- Hanging On The Telephone - Blondie
- Top Of The Pops - The Rezillos
- Adult Books - X
- The Sound Of The Suburbs - The Members
- California =DCber Alles - Dead Kennedys
- Another Girl, Another Planet - The Only Ones
- (I Want To Be An) Anglepoise Lamp - The Soft Boys
- Radio, Radio - Elvis Costello & The Attractions
- Typical Girls - The Slits
- Human Fly - The Cramps
- Psycho Killer - Talking Heads
- Babylon's Burning - The Ruts
- If The Kids Are United - Sham 69
- Alternative Ulster - Stiff Little Fingers
- Boys Don't Cry - The Cure
- She Is Beyond Good And Evil - The Pop Group
- Is She Really Going Out With Him? - Joe Jackson
- Get Over You - The Undertones
- Love Like Anthrax - Gang Of Four
- Peaches - The Stranglers
- Into The Valley - Skids
- You Can't Put Your Arms Round A Memory - Johnny Thunders
- Love Will Tear Us Apart - Joy Division
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Rating 4.5
A must buy for purists.If you are into Nuggets, Pebbles...Boulders.
Comps of an era, when done well, like this one, are out of this world, vinyl.
(Thank you, Debbie.)
Some gems, yes, but barely represents the era.It was a real gas to see some of the selections on this set. Rare bits like Alternative TV and Richard Hell and the Voidoids are enough to recommend including this set in any serious rocker's collection. That said, with limited disc real estate available, I was dissappointed by the amount of artists that appear two or more times each. I also feel it was off base to include some of the New Wave and pop artists like Elvis Costello and Joe Jackson (don't get me wrong; I love those two, but they don't belong here). I lived through those days, and there were more indie bands putting out great punk than you could shake a stick at. I think it would have been simple to fill all four discs without repeating any artist, as well as excluding the more main-stream ones. All-in-all great fun, but "No Thanks" only skims the surface.the perfect punk box set for nostalgic new york burnoutsI have to assume that those giving this box set five star reviews are punk-rock burnouts, pining away for the glory days of CBGBs and subway grafitti. Honestly, giving this set five stars just because it reminds you of your mispent youth is no better than a bunch of stoner hippies toking up to the Grateful Dead and getting all weepy over Jerry Garcia. In fact, let's just re-classify all geriatric punk rockers and hippies under a new collective noun: "homeless."
I got this box set AFTER hearing Rhino's superlative 80s underground collection "Left of the Dial." That collection spanned 81 songs over a wide range of genres: new wave, goth, hardcore, punk, pop, and in doing so, it didn't repeat a single artist.
"No Thanks!", on the other hand, gives you 100 songs, but repeats almost all of its artists: 2 songs from Patti Smith, 2 songs from Wire, 2 song from Elvis Costello, etc.. And by virtue of limiting itself to only one genre, punk, it ends up picking a lot of godawful songs to fill out 4 discs.
And even more problematically, only about half of these songs even qualify as the sound we'd call "punk." Was Blondie punk? Was Ultravox? Was Joy Division? Was Joe Jackson? And sure, Iggy Pop is on here, but is "Lust for Life" a punk song? I mean, they use it in CRUISE SHIP commercials, for crying out loud!
Now, on the other hand, if you've never heard of the Buzzcocks or Wire or the Slits, this might be a great introduction, and you can use that as a spring board to purchase full length collections from these bands. But if you've even remotely heard of most of these bands, you can save yourself a lot of trouble by just picking up a few essential punk rock albums: Wire's "Pink Flag", Clash "London Calling", Joy Division "Substance" and almost anything Elvis Costello recorded prior to 1979.
Lowlight: Patti Smith's embarrassing cover of "Hey Joe." She invokes 1970s heiress/radical Patty Hearst in her breathless introduction to the song and talks about black revolutionaries. Honestly, in the year 2005, who cares about Patty Hearst anymore? It's, like, so 30 years ago.
Also both of Rhino's sets (70s punk and 80s underground) include the Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart." Now, I ADORE this song, but honestly, can't Rhino decide what decade spawned this song or were they just trying to fill out the box set?
Save your money. This box set calicifies punk as an embarrassing artifact that your dad might groove to in the background of a Burger King commercial. And yes, final whiny note, there is NO Sex Pistols on this set. And for that sin of omission alone, it's a 3 star box set. |
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