10 Greatest Punk Bands Of All Time
7. The Stooges
Long before punk crashed against your eardrums, hard rock was slowly finding its feet. Instead of having fast and simple tunes in the '60s, bands were offering up layers of distorted guitars and a harsher delivery than the Rolling Stones of the world. These groups may have felt like they were coming from another world, but the Stooges were so feral they almost didn't seem human.
Coming to prominence alongside bands like the MC5, The Stooges presented rock music at its most raw and unhinged, with Iggy Pop creating absolute chaos onstage. From one song to the next, you weren't sure whether he would throw himself into the crowd or take all of his aggression out on his own body. While anyone could call Iggy a madman making a spectacle, that raw emotion always came from what the music brought out of him.
Throughout the band's 3 main studio records, every song is an absolute powerhouse with guitars that sound like they could reach through the speakers and assault you personally if they wanted to. The Stooges were definitely an oddity in their time, but once the punk wave broke, Iggy was quickly adopted as the genre's reigning king. At a time when rock and roll started to become lazy, these dejected punks from Detroit gave the entire world a kick in the ass.