Best 1970s Punk and New Wave Songs
The best punk songs of the 1970s (70s), ranked — each one links to the album it came from, on vinyl, CD or Amazon Music.
Reviewed by Callum Ashworth, 247 Album Verdict · Last updated · How we rank
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1ST
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2PS
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3RA
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4SP
Anarchy in the U.K.
The four minutes that made everyone feel the world could be restarted.
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5TE
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6TH
Psycho Killer
Bass guitar, French lyrics, and the most creepy chorus in new wave.
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7DA
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8EC
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9WI
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10BL
Heart of Glass
The disco crossover that punk was supposed to hate and couldn't resist.
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11BU
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12PO
Tap the artwork or "Listen" to find the track on Amazon Music; "Watch" opens a YouTube search; the song title or "Album" opens its album page. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases and sign-ups.
What's the actual difference between punk and new wave?
Punk stripped rock down to its fastest, rawest, most confrontational form as a deliberate reaction against progressive rock's excess; new wave grew directly out of the same scene but kept more melody, synths and pop structure — critics generally treat new wave as punk's more art-school, less aggressive sibling, emerging in punk's immediate aftermath.
Did punk really start in the UK or the US?
Both scenes developed close to simultaneously and influenced each other — New York's mid-1970s CBGB scene (Ramones, Television, Patti Smith) predates the UK explosion by a year or two, but the UK scene, led by the Sex Pistols and The Clash, is what turned punk into a mass cultural and media phenomenon.
Why does 1977 keep coming up as punk's key year?
It's when the UK scene reached full commercial and cultural visibility — the Sex Pistols' "Never Mind the Bollocks" and The Clash's debut both landed that year, alongside a wave of press coverage and moral panic that made punk a defining story of the decade rather than a cult scene.