To find the best punk album you first have to decide in what way it is the best, there are 100s of bands masquerading as punk !
Punk was never about being quality music or being able to play, that is for the people punks were not supposed to like LOL, it is about atittude, the only bands that made real punk in the true spirit were the bands like Crass and Rudimentary Peni who promoted anarchy as a lifestyle, and were political activists not posers, anything else is just another form of rock n roll music .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crass
I saw Crass and their music was awful to my ears but they were not concerned with notes and melody etc, the message was their music .
I was lucky enough to leave school in the 70s and saw just about all the UK `punk` bands, saw the sex pistols, clash, sham 69, The Damned (who I have seen 50 times and still go to their gigs, they are by far the very best english `punk` band live in terms of musical ability, their albums are excellent and so much variety in their music but is it punk - no .
I dont agree that London Calling is a great punk album, its too commercial and radio friendly to be real punk, the clash were also pretty bad live, I think the clash were too pretentious in their political posturing and never looked like they were enjoying themselves .
I love all music by Dead Kennedys, Jello is a genius with lyrics, east bay ray had a nice guitar style as did klaus on bass, they wrote some superb music which was always exciting and fresh, but is it punk - no .
Thank god that all these bands were not `punk` because I could not have listened to Crass all these years
My vote for all time No1 `punk` album goes to Never mind the bollocks by the sex pistols purely because every time I am in a bad mood I play it and instantly feel good, it does not matter if they were not virtuoso musicians but it does matter how it makes you feel, that is one classic album in that respect
