4. The Clash - "Garageland"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryy-KIAqL2Y The Clash are arguably the most important band in the punk movement, with their immensely popular album London Calling helping to give the genre legitimacy among "serious" rock critics. Ironically, though, it was one critic's immediate dismissal of the band that stirred up the creative ire of Joe Strummer and helped propel them into widespread acclaim. When reviewing one of the band's early gigs, NME critic Charles Shaar Murray called The Clash "the sort of garage band who should be speedily returned to the garage, preferably with the engine running." (Translation: Go kill yourselves.) The criticism wasn't entirely unfounded. They were pretty crude back then, and less in the typical "punk is supposed to sound raw" way and more in the "we truly have no goddamn idea what we're doing" way. Naturally, Joe Strummer took Murray's comments to heart (as one does when someone is told to commit suicide by someone with significant readership), and would frequently lash out at critics in interviews that followed. Though Strummer obviously thought it was a bit harsh, he also had a begrudging respect for the critic being so straightforward. "He said what he meant. But so did we." "Garageland" leads off with a simple, direct rebuttal: "Back in the garage with my bullsh*t detector / Carbon monoxide making sure it's effective." It goes on to lambast the expectations of what made a legitimate rock band, and short of calling him out by name, Strummer was making sure he got the message. Curiously enough, Murray would proclaim The Clash "the greatest rock band in the world" just two years later.