Three Chords and the Truth: 10 Punk Records That Meant It

Punk announced itself in 1976 as a hostile takeover of rock's complacency — fast, loud, cheap to record, and absolutely certain of its own anger. These ten albums span the movement's first wave and the mutations that followed: the confrontational nihilism of the Sex Pistols, the political intelligence of The Clash, the American hardcore of the Dead Kennedys, the art-punk of Television and Joy Division. What they share is the belief that music should cost you something — the listener and the performer alike.