No Thanks! The '70s Punk Rebellion (4 CD Box Compilation) 2003

 

RAMONES

No Thanks! The '70s Punk Rebellion is a compilation album chronicling the punk rock movement of the 1970s. Released by Rhino Entertainment on October 28, 2003, the box set of four compact discs includes 100 tracks originally released between 1973 and 1980, performed by 75 artists from the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and Ireland.

X RAY SPEX

In addition to punk rock, the collection touches upon the antecedent style of proto-punk and the related genres of new wave music, power pop, and post-punk.
Many artists are represented multiple times in the collection. The Buzzcocks have the most tracks of any single artist, with three of their songs included in the compilation. Johnny Thunders appears on five tracks: two by the New York Dolls, two by The Heartbreakers, and his 1978 solo song "You Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory".

THE CLASH

Notably absent from the compilation are the Sex Pistols, whose singer John Lydon refused Rhino Entertainment permission to include any of the band's tracks, allegedly because Rhino chose not to release the 2002 Sex Pistols boxed set in the United States.

ULTRAVOX

Like all the great rock revolutions, punk was fueled by singles. Sure, there were a lot of tremendous albums, but all the artists that cut great LPs also had great 7"s -- and in the case of Television and Patti Smith, they had independent singles released prior to their first albums that never appeared on their debuts. Since rock criticism tends to be album-driven, singles tend to get slightly overlooked, and since punk is a rock critic's favorite, some revisionist historians paint the era as fueled by albums, not singles.

TOM ROBINSON BAND

Rhino's excellent four-disc No Thanks! The '70s Punk Rebellion corrects that error by focusing on the singles, winding up with a one-stop introduction and summary of the era that is as good as Loud, Fast & Out of Control, their similar set on early rock & roll. The compilers have bent the rules of punk slightly, deciding to include proto-punkers like New York Dolls, the Stooges, the Dictators, and Jonathan Richman, and then to not present the cuts in a strictly chronological order. This benefits the album, since these artists are in the same spirit of the bands they inspired, and the sequencing plays like a great mixtape.

THE JAM

Rhino has also evenly balanced the set between American and British punk, including both early hardcore punkers the Dead Kennedys and British pub rock renegades like Nick Lowe and Ian Dury in equal measure. Though there's a bit of difference between "California Über Alles" and "Heart of the City," they deserve to be paired on this set because they both were genuinely independent, exciting 45s that crackled with energy and captured the spirit of punk, albeit in different ways.

THE SAINTS

And that's what makes No Thanks! work so well -- it illustrates how diverse punk and new wave were in the late '70s, but it places a premium on adventure and excitement, which means even artier bands like Pere Ubu and Suicide come across as pure rock & roll. If there is any flaw to the box, it's that most record collectors will already own the lion's share of these songs -- in fact, if they own Rhino's previous 1993 multi-disc punk retrospective D.I.Y., they'll own no less than 53 of these songs (an additional 14 songs have appeared on other Rhino titles, making for a grand total of 67 of 100 songs already released by Rhino).

THE POP GROUP

While this is undoubtedly a problem for some collectors, it is also true that it functions more as an overview for fans that don't already own a bunch of this on CD, and on that level it can't be faulted. True, this may contain no tracks from the Sex Pistols, since John Lydon refused them permission (allegedly because Rhino chose not to release the 2002 Sex Pistols box set in the States), but every other major player is here, and the music here is so good they're not missed at all.

THE DICTATORS

Finally, if a collector is wondering whether it's worth the expense to buy this box, there are three rare singles that make their debut here: the aforementioned Television and Patti Smith singles, "Little Johnny Jewel" and "Hey Joe [version]," plus an early single version of the Pretenders' "The Wait." (Note: "Little Johnny Jewel" was released nearly simultaneously on an expanded reissue of Television's Marquee Moon.) For those that can afford it, that's reason enough to pick up the set.

THE DEAD BOYS

"At its best new wave/punk represents a fundamental and age-old Utopian dream: that if you give people the license to be as outrageous as they want in absolutely any fashion they can dream up, they'll be creative about it, and do something good besides."
Lester Bangs, NME, Dec. 1977

THE DAMNED

"It was obvious at Winterland-- everyone knew how to behave, everyone knew how to spit, how to dress-- everyone knew how to pack the place. But it was just sensationalism, a spectacle." Danny Furious of The Avengers, on opening for the Sex Pistols at the Winterland Ballroom, San Francisco, Jan. 14, 1978. It was the best of punk, it was the worst of punk; it was December 1977, the winter of nearly everyone's discontent, but it had been a banner year for angry young men on a handful of continents.

THE CRAMPS

All you disenfranchised modern malcontents, you grew up too damn late. Even Lester Bangs, the most vociferously jerky of all knee-jerk misanthropes, was predicting great things; he'd just published a three-part treatise on egalitarianism, the new democracy of music, and the frailties of human nature in NME masquerading humbly as an observer's tour diary with the Clash.

THE BOOMTOWN RATS

The Ramones were finally bringing the Bowery to Britain, and the few, nascent battle-cries of the MC5, The Stooges, and the New York Dolls from a few years back were now being echoed by thousands of new voices. None, of course, screamed louder than the Sex Pistols, though; with some careful management, in just over a year, the Pistols had enjoyed more controversy and notoriety than most other punk acts combined.

THE ADVERTS

Fortunately, Rhino's overwhelmingly comprehensive four-disc love letter to the heart and soul of punk music isn't particularly conventional. While punk remained a mostly well-kept (and easily documented) secret prior to the Sex Pistols' spectacular collapse, the aftermath of the punk explosion was a shambles.

TELEVISION

That the Pistols are conspicuously absent on No Thanks! might be the doing of a petulant Lydon (presumably irked that Rhino pulled a stateside release of a Sex Pistols box a few years back), but fitting nonetheless. Fine. Fuck 'em. Of all the admirable successes of No Thanks!, the finest is surely the deliberateness with which it unearths so many of the also-rans long-since buried in the Pistols' wake.

SUICIDE

With barely a track to spare for The Clash, The Ramones, or The Fall, they're barely an afterthought here. No Thanks! isn't about "essential"; it's "scope," pure magnitude. Deadbeats and dilettantes, glammed progenitors and goth poseurs, the revered and the reviled. This isn't just "punk," this is everything that was boiling beneath the surface, the whole of the late-70s underground brought to light.

STIFF LITTLE FINGERS

The Motors will never, ever be spoken of in the same regard as Richard Hell. Or The Damned. Or even Generation X (Billy Idol was the Diamond Dave of punk rock, after all). Ditto for the Glen Matlock's Rich Kids, 999, The Vibrators, Subway Sect, and half of the other bands that grace this stage, and that's the collection's charm; every Englishman or Yankee to ever hold a guitar, let alone learn to play one (how else can you explain The Adverts?) gets at least an act, maybe two.

SIOUXSIE AND THE BANSHEES

The diversity contained here is staggering, but the disparity of sound is nullified by the unity of motivations; whether out of sincerity or fashionability, everyone's got a grudge to bear. No matter what form it takes, the underlying theme is simple dissatisfaction; no one was playing because he or she was happy (except maybe Devo-- who knows what they wanted?). Something, anything, needed to change, but all any of these people were empowered to do was play music.

REZILLOS

Punk was fundamentally unfocused rage, a loaded gun aimed at any institution-- politics, clothing, loneliness, provinciality, music itself-- too societally entrenched to get out of the way. The tactics aren't always smart, and rarely pretty, but the execution is brilliant, and Rhino has released the ultimate document.

PERE UBU

Large-scale entropy demands order, though, if only to maintain the physical form of the discs themselves. To that end, Rhino offers two minimal criteria: Every track included must come from label-distributed singles released during the 70s. The 70s was a singles-driven decade, for certain; some pulse-stopping LPs emerged from bands that went on to dominate the canon, but many of the other bands had the half-life of a mayfly-- they were lucky to even make it through a 45 before splintering.

NICK LOWE

With a fraction of the media saturation we have today, bands fought for recognition on the radio waves, or Top of the Pops, or with the pocketbooks of the working poor-- three minutes were all they had to make a name for themselves. And surely, chronology must factor in, so, sure, why not draw the line at the close of the 70s?

PATTI SMITH

Here's why. Arbitrary guidelines made out of necessity are for sissies; reap your bastard rewards: No Crass-- ridiculously, sincerely radical, no one epitomized agit-punk better. No Anti-Nowhere League-- they drove around in a van spray-painted with "We're the Anti-Nowhere League and you're not"; a completely laughable bunch of buffoons, but for sheer, mindless disposability, "We Are the League" isn't so far removed from The Vibrators' "Baby Baby".

NEW YORK DOLLS

Plus, Elvis Costello liked them. No Angelic Upstarts-- see Crass; skinheads against racism. No Misfits-- for the 28 minutes of Static Age, The Misfits were as perfectly hopeless as the best the West Coast had to offer, schlock horror and all.

GERMS

No Birthday Party-- same reason, but Nick the Stripper & Co. are Aussies. No Rocket From the Tombs-- sure, why include the first voice of Cleveland punk, the group that spawned both The Dead Boys and Pere Ubu (who are naturally present)? No MC5!-- "Rock & roll, drugs, and fucking in the streets" was printed on their freakin' business cards.

DEVO

No Lou Reed-- I heard he shot anti-freeze and lived, dudes. There's more. And yet we're left with Devo. That doesn't even touch on multiple questionable song choices; "Final Solution" is a poor man's alternative to "30 Seconds Over Tokyo" (and that was a single!), but I'm about to get carried away. Let common sense dictate some choices, guys; this compilation is so close.

DEAD KENNEDYS

But even if not absolutely perfect (and could any compilation really be?), compilations don't come more essential than this; it is required listening for anyone new to punk, and unquestionably the best primer on this music in existence. Rhino does away with any pretense of chronology to great effect; vital, fiery sermons spar with tense, calculated cool, and with one-hits back-to-back with the classics, virtually every track commands attention.
 

RICHARD HELL & THE VOIDOIDS

Middleman-ing between Richard Hell's perversely jubilant "Love Comes in Spurts" and the primally willful, snot-nosed ignorance of The Dead Boys' classic "Sonic Reducer", even the (still living) Boys' "First Time" sounds like a hit.

BUZZCOCKS

Each disc is an untouchable mix, varied enough that five consecutive hours of listening isn't out of reach, but Rhino have outdone themselves even here, in case you can't afford that time commitment. Subtle as it is, disc one flirts precariously with becoming a full-fledged classics compilation, between opening with "Blitzkrieg Bop" and "White Riot", followed in short order by The Damned's blistering "Neat Neat Neat", The Jam, Pere Ubu, and Jonathan Richman's hypnotic ode to midnight radio at a thousand miles an hour, "Roadrunner".

BLONDIE

The proud, preening showcase taken by disc one is welcome as a one-shot primer, but in the end, nothing but old news, and just as compelling as the less-well-traveled discs two and three. Disc four, however, is the true masterpiece; coming close to exposing the splintered force of punk near the end of the decade, frail and faltering against the ropes before succumbing fully to new wave and post-punk, it takes an angle not often seen.

BLACK FLAG

With early idealism and bravado stripped aside, bands were slowly falling out of step. Talking Heads and Elvis Costello's "Radio, Radio" carefully tread the path to commercial success that Blondie recklessly followed before them; "Boys Don't Cry" famously hints at The Cure's forthcoming, beautiful pop romanticism.

GANG OF FOUR

Gang of Four ride Andy Gill's shattered guitar lines all the way to name-drop superstardom; "Adult Books" is X's impression of Talking Heads before they leave the limitations of West Coast punk behind for the Dead Kennedys to flog. These are the epilogues to a story stretched out over the three prior discs, and provides easily the most memorable individual moments of this compilation.
The last notes heard as No Thanks! closes out the decade are Joy Division's, with an air of obvious finality, but Johnny Thunders' "You Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory" is more poignant.

JOHHNY THUNDERS

Thunders' life mirrors the larger story of punk as presented here in a way the Sex Pistols never can. From his untouchable beginnings with the New York Dolls, he was a catalyst of the breaking New York scene, but he was helpless, naïve and vain-- he fractured the Dolls because he wanted the spotlight.
Although he went on to headline with The Heartbreakers, he toiled only to mixed success in a sea of bands he helped inspire. A growing heroin habit eventually dissolved any vestige of stability, and The Heartbreakers, too, buckled under the pressure.

ALTERNATIVE TV

For his remaining years, Johnny solo was a joke; not falling off the stage marked a successful performance. Shooting up in his hands and feet because other veins had collapsed, playing for cash in hand to get smack after the show-- he tried to clean up, but like so many tragic figures, it seems, he was too late. Johnny Thunders died in 1991, long after the punk rock he fostered had disappeared, but he wrote "Memory" in 1978; like him, its greatness had passed, but it would be a long time fading away.

X

"It doesn't pay to try/ All the smart boys know why," and when he sings it with his innocent, put-upon inflection, one thing is certain: He was too dumb not to give it his best shot, and smart enough to realize it. We're better off that he-- and the rest of them-- did try, at least; I can't think of a more appropriate conclusion.
                                                                  

Various – No Thanks! The '70s Punk Rebellion
Label: Rhino Entertainment Company – R2 73926
Format:    4 x CD, Box Set Compilation, Remastered
Country: US
Released: 2003
Genre: Rock
Style: Punk, New Wave

DISC ONE

                                     

01. Ramones – Blitzkrieg Bop    2:12
02. The Clash –  White Riot    1:59
03. Nick Lowe –  Heart Of The City    2:03
04. Buzzcocks –  Boredom    2:53
05. The Saints – (I'm) Stranded    3:33
06. The Damned – Neat Neat Neat    2:42
07. The Jam – In The City    2:19
08. Pere Ubu – Final Solution    5:00
09. The Modern Lovers – Roadrunner    4:06
10. Television – Little Johnny Jewel    7:06
11. The Adverts – One Chord Wonders    2:36
12. The Heartbreakers – Born To Lose    3:02
13. The Stooges – Search And Destroy    3:29
14. Mink DeVille – Let Me Dream If I Want To (Amphetamine Blues)    2:54
15. X-Ray Spex – Oh Bondage Up Yours!    2:50
16. Wire – 1 2 X U    1:57
17. Richard Hell & The Voidoids – Blank Generation    2:44
18. The Stranglers – (Get A) Grip (On Yourself)    4:03
19. The Runaways – Cherry Bomb    2:19
20. New York Dolls – Personality Crisis    3:42
21. Eddie And The Hot Rods – Teenage Depression    2:58
22. The Dictators – Two Tub Man    3:33
23. Patti Smith – Hey Joe (Version)    5:08
24. Generation X – Your Generation    3:17

MP3 @ 320 Size: 183 MB
Flac  Size: 514 MB

DISC TWO

                                                    

01. Iggy Pop – Lust For Life    5:13
02. The Adverts – Gary Gilmore's Eyes    2:14
03. Ultravox – Saturday Night In The City Of The Dead    2:34
04. Buzzcocks – What Do I Get?    2:55
05. Blondie – X Offender    3:12
06. The Boomtown Rats – Lookin' After No. 1    3:10
07. Penetration – Don't Dictate    2:55
08. The Fall – Bingo Master    2:24
09. Patti Smith – Free Money    3:51
10. The Jam – The Modern World    2:32
11. The Heartbreakers – Chinese Rocks    2:55
12. The Damned – New Rose    2:43
13. Subway Sect – Ambition    3:04
14. Television – See No Evil    4:04
15. Stiff Little Fingers – Suspect Device    2:43
16. Wire – Mannequin    2:37
17. The Vibrators – Baby Baby    3:42
18. Richard Hell & The Voidoids – Love Comes In Spurts    2:01
19. The Boys – First Time    2:22
20. The Dead Boys – Sonic Reducer    3:06
21. Magazine – Shot By Both Sides    4:01
22. Elvis Costello – Mystery Dance    1:37
23. New York Dolls – Trash    3:09
24. X-Ray Spex – The Day The World Turned Day-glo    2:51
25. Eddie And The Hot Rods – Do Anything You Wanna Do    4:04

MP3 @ 320 Size: 178 MB
Flac  Size: 519 MB

DISC THREE

                                       

01. Generation X – Ready Steady Go    2:58
02. The Undertones – Teenage Kicks    2:26
03. Ian Dury – Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll    3:04
04. Buzzcocks – Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've?)    2:42
05. Suicide – Rocket U.S.A.    4:17
06. Devo – Mongoloid    3:34
07. 999 – Homicide    3:42
08. The Dils – Mr. Big    1:43
09. Joy Division – Warsaw    2:26
10. The Mekons – Where Were You?    2:43
11. Germs – Lexicon Devil    2:05
12. Rezillos – (My Baby Does) Good Sculptures    2:53
13. The Pretenders – The Wait    3:11
14. The Weirdos – We Got Neutron Bomb    3:00
15. The Modern Lovers – Pablo Picasso    4:22
16. Alternative TV – Action Time Vision    2:31
17. Tom Robinson Band – 2-4-6-8 Motorway    3:18
18. Avengers – We Are The One    2:41
19. Sham 69 – Borstal Breakout    2:06
20. Black Flag – Wasted    0:51
21. Ramones – Sheena Is A Punk Rocker    2:48
22. Fear – I Love Livin In The City    2:11
23. The Boomtown Rats – She's So Modern    2:58
24. Rich Kids – Ghosts Of Princes In Towers    3:34
25. X – We're Desperate    2:01
26. The Dickies – You Drive Me Ape (You Big Gorilla)    1:53
27. The Motors – Dancing The Night Away    3:14

MP3 @ 320 Size: 176 MB
Flac  Size: 524 MB

DISC FOUR

                                 

01. Siouxsie & The Banshees – Hong Kong Garden    2:56
02. Blondie – Hanging On The Telephone    2:21
03. Rezillos – Top Of The Pops    3:22
04. X – Adult Books    3:15
05. The Members – The Sound Of The Suburbs    3:55
06. Dead Kennedys – California Über Alles    3:28
07. The Only Ones – Another Girl, Another Planet    3:03
08. The Soft Boys – (I Want To Be An) Anglepoise Lamp    3:00
09. Elvis Costello & The Attractions – Radio, Radio    3:07
10. The Slits – Typical Girls    3:55
11. The Cramps – Human Fly    2:15
12. Talking Heads – Psycho Killer    4:20
13. The Ruts – Babylon's Burning    2:32
14. Sham 69 – If The Kids Are United    3:48
15. Stiff Little Fingers – Alternative Ulster    2:44
16. The Cure – Boys Don't Cry    2:41
17. The Pop Group – She Is Beyond Good And Evil    3:23
18. Joe Jackson – Is She Really Going Out With Him?    3:36
19. The Undertones – Get Over You    2:43
20. Gang Of Four – Love Like Anthrax    3:19
21. The Stranglers – Peaches    4:07
22. Skids – Into The Valley    3:17
23. Johnny Thunders – You Can't Put Your Arms Round A Memory    3:04
24. Joy Division – Love Will Tear Us Apart    3:25

MP3 @ 320 Size: 180 MB
Flac  Size: 532 MB