10 Greatest Punk Bands Of All Time

When The Clash were first starting, the punk movement was already firmly underway. With the Ramones delivering the first clarion call and the Sex Pistols defining the aesthetic, everyone from England to California was strapping on Doc Martins and picking up guitars of their own. These guys may have defined what the punk fashion looked like, but The Clash were the ones who turned it into a legitimate art form.

No matter what you wanted to say about The Clash's music as a whole, every individual part of the band was indestructible from the skin to core. Sure, the guitars were probably not as complex as a band like Zeppelin, but they still had something to offer beyond just typical power chords. Apart from the music, this is where the punk lyrics got brought up a notch, with songs that rallied against any sort of injustice from racism to fascism.

The Clash were also responsible for spreading out the punk palette, with songs that included everything from dub influences to reggae to even rockabilly sounds. Rather than being defined by limitations, The Clash took in each and every genre known to man and brought it down to its punk foundation. It might seem cheeky for a band like The Clash to be christened The Only Band That Matters, but given how much they brought to the genre, they are more than worthy of that title.