The Clash, perhaps more than any of the rest of the Class of ’77, seemed to be looking for a way out of punk almost from the start. In an era where it felt like music could actually change the world, they set about making themselves “the only band that mattered”. No band since has fought the law and won, like The Clash.

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During the punk years there were many rules to follow. What to wear, what to listen to and what you should avoid listening to. Punk was an all encompassing lifestyle. But one band with one song proudly proclaimed that they played pop music and it opened the gates for many punk and new wave artists to embrace the catchy melodic chorus while still retaining a bit of aggression, a bit of quirkiness and the snotty punk attitude.

So let’s all go Meccanik Dancing with the brilliance that is XTC.

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Despite their success, Talking Heads made a career out of never really fitting in. With no discernable image or direction apart from a desire to stand out, they emerged at the dawn of US punk, played the game their way – and won. How did these very original outsiders eventually Stop Making Sense and go on to triumph in their own Revenge of the Nerds?

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Forget the waitresses, forget the cocktail bars, forget the brilliantly simple chorus that ensured Don’t You Want Me would be a number one single around the world. While it’s understandable that many people’s memories of The Human League revolve around their global smash hit, for the real story we needed to go back to The Future. How did a bunch of sci-fi loving non-musicians from a grim industrial city in northern England help shape the destiny of popular music and sell millions of records along the way? Welcome to the peculiar world of The Human League.

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When it comes to influential bands coming out of Liverpool, they don’t get any bigger than Echo & The Bunnymen. (Except for one notable exception).

From the reptilian snap of Crocodiles, the other-worldly Heaven Up Here, the sharpened spine of Porcupine to the pop deluge of Ocean Rain, the Post Punk output of Echo & The Bunnymen cemented their place in the pantheon of New Wave greats and for these reasons they will always be the Fab Four.

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Killing Joke emerged from the squats of Notting Hill and Ladbroke Grove during what became known as the second wave of punk in late 1978. They cast a long, dark, influential shadow over bands as diverse as Metallica and Nirvana but it is their early works that set the template and reconfigured what the noise left by the end of punk could be.

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