10 Punk Rock Bands That Never Sold Out
9. The MC5
The biggest temptation that comes with selling out is how long you've been in the game. If you look at any mainstream act that started in the '70s, you can probably see more than a few embarrassing moments between then and now where they tried to cash in. For the MC5, they seemed to go way too fast to even try to cash in on their sound.
Being one of the first instances of garage rock in the world, the entire concept of the band seemed to be on the verge of collapsing when they first started. After dominating the rock landscape with their live album Kick Out the Jams, every one of the band's next albums almost felt like window dressing by comparison, always trying to capture the sound of the live show and never quite getting there.
As time went on, there was no reason to think that a band like this going for the ballad heavy material, leading to Wayne Kramer dissolving the project in the next few years and moving onto the next phase of his career. In the wake of that one magic album though, the MC5 are still in the conversation of being the progenitors of metal and punk in one go. That might not have been Wayne's plan when he got things rolling, but every other punk act owes him a debt of gratitude for being this off the rails at the start.