Today, so many years later, the shock of punk is that every good punk record can still sound like the greatest thing you've ever heard. "A Boring Life," "One Chord Wonders," X-ray Spex's "Oh Bondage Up Yours!," the Sex Pistols' singles, the Clash's "Complete Control"—the power in these bits of plastic, the tension between the desire that fuels them and the fatalism waiting to block each beat, the laughter and surprise in the voices, the confidence of the music, all these things are shocking now because, in its two or three minutes, each is absolute. You can't place one record above the other, not while you're listening; each one is the end of the world, the creation of the world, complete in itself. Every good punk record made in London in 1976 or 1977 can convince you that it's the greatest thing you've ever heard because it can convince you that you never have to hear anything else as long as you live—each record seems to say everything there is to say. For as long as the sound lasts, no other sound, not even a memory of any other music, can penetrate.

From ‘Lipstick Traces’ by Greil Marcus