10 Perfect Hard Rock Albums Everyone Tried To Copy

When combing through the history of rock, punk might be one of the single greatest things to ever happen to the genre. While the kings of rock like Led Zeppelin may have still been riding high in 1977, the breakout of bands like the Ramones and the Sex Pistols brought rock back to its core, wanting to rely on a good song than how fast you could play a guitar solo. Those bands were all still fairly straightforward rock bands though, and the Clash's debut was when punk started to mean something more than destruction.

Framing their songs almost as musical weapons, every track on the Clash's first record has a particular target in mind, as Joe Strummer lashes out against all the injustices of the world, from the government structures on songs like Remote Control to kids that just want to smash up their neighborhood on White Riot. For all of the anger on here though, you can easily sing along to just about any of these songs, like the backing vocals on Garageland or the infectious groove of Police and Thieves, which was a sign of things to come when the band started to incorporate reggae into their sound later down the line.

Out of all the heavyhitters of the first wave of punk, The Clash still stands as the band that woke a lot of rockers up to what was really going on in the world, with the more political punk scenes getting started after this record came out. Rock and roll always had a certain power behind it, and it took someone like Joe Strummer to ask us where our priorities were: are you taking over or are you taking orders?.