No Thanks! The '70s Punk Rebellion

Disc 1
1	Blitzkrieg Bop / The Ramones 2:14
2	White Riot / The Clash 1:58
3	Heart of the City / Nick Lowe 2:04
4	Boredom / Buzzcocks 2:52
5	(I'm) Stranded / The Saints 3:25
6	Neat Neat Neat / The Damned 2:34
7	In the City / The Jam 2:17
8	Final Solution / Pere Ubu 4:38
9	Roadrunner / Modern Lovers 4:04
10	Little Johnny Jewel / Television 7:50
11	One Chord Wonders / The Adverts 2:36
12	Born to Lose / The Heartbreakers 3:04
13	Search and DeStroy / Iggy & The Stooges 3:26
14	Let Me Dream If I Want To (Amphetamine Blues) / Mink DeVille 2:51
15	Oh Bondage Up Yours! / X-Ray Spex 2:45
16	1 2 X U / Wire 1:54
17	Blank Generation / Richard Hell 2:41
18	(Get A) Grip (On Yourself) / The Stranglers 3:55
19	Cherry Bomb / The Runaways 2:20
20	Personality Crisis / New York Dolls 3:41
21	Teenage Depression / Eddie & The Hot Rods 2:55
22	Two Tub Man / The Dictators 4:05
23	Hey Joe (Version) / Patti Smith 5:05
24	Your Generation / Generation X 3:11
Disc 2
1	Lust for Life / Iggy Pop 5:12
2	Gary Gilmore's Eyes / The Adverts 2:20
3	Satday Night in the City of the Dead / Ultravox 2:34
4	What Do I Get? / Buzzcocks 2:54
5	X Offender / Blondie 3:10
6	Lookin' After No. 1 / Boomtown Rats 3:09
7	Don't Dictate / Penetration 2:45
8	Bingo Master / The Fall 2:22
9	Free Money / Patti Smith 3:50
10	The Modern World / The Jam 2:31
11	Chinese Rocks / The Heartbreakers 2:53
12	New Rose / The Damned 2:43
13	Ambition / Subway Sect 3:09
14	See No Evil / Television 3:56
15	Suspect Device / Stiff Little Fingers 2:42
16	Mannequin / Wire 2:37
17	Baby Baby / The Vibrators 3:26
18	Love Comes in Spurts / Richard Hell 1:59
19	First Time / The Boys 2:19
20	Sonic Reducer / Dead Boys 3:04
21	Shot by Both Sides / Magazine 3:54
22	Mystery Dance / Elvis Costello 1:35
23	Trash / New York Dolls 3:08
24	The Day the World Turned Day-Glo / X-Ray Spex 2:50
25	Do Anything You Wanna Do / Eddie & The Hot Rods 4:00
Disc 3
1	Ready Steady Go / Generation X 3:02
2	Teenage Kicks / The Undertones 2:25
3	Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll / Ian Dury 3:06
4	Ever Fallen in Love? / Buzzcocks 2:40
5	Rocket U.S.A. / Suicide 4:17
6	Mongoloid / Devo 3:34
7	Homicide / 999 3:42
8	Mr. Big / Dils 1:40
9	Warsaw / Joy Division 2:25
10	Where Were You? / The Mekons 2:42
11	Lexicon Devil / The Germs 2:03
12	(My Baby Does) Good Sculptures / The Rezillos 2:50
13	The Wait / The Pretenders 3:09
14	We Got the Neutron Bomb / The Weirdos 3:00
15	Pablo Picasso / Modern Lovers 4:19
16	Action Time Vision / Alternative TV 2:30
17	2-4-6-8 Motorway / Tom Robinson 3:17
18	We Are the One / The Avengers 2:36
19	Borstal Breakout / Sham 69 2:05
20	Wasted / Black Flag 0:51
21	Sheena Is a Punk Rocker / The Ramones 2:45
22	I Love Livin in the City / Fear 2:03
23	She's So Modern / Boomtown Rats 2:57
24	Ghosts of Princes in Towers / The Rich Kids 3:33
25	We're Desperate / X 2:00
26	You Drive Me Ape (You Big Gorilla) / The Dickies 1:50
27	Dancing the Night Away / Motors 3:13
Disc 4
1	Hong Kong Garden / Siouxsie and the Ban 2:54
2	Hanging on the Telephone / Blondie 2:17
3	Top of the Pops / The Rezillos 2:55
4	Adult Books / X 3:10
5	The Sound of the Suburbs / Members 3:53
6	California Über Alles / Dead Kennedys 3:26
7	Another Girl, Another Planet / The Only Ones 3:01
8	(I Want to Be An) Anglepoise Lamp / The Soft Boys 2:59
9	Radio, Radio / Elvis Costello & The 3:04
10	Typical Girls / The Slits 3:56
11	Human Fly / The Cramps 2:12
12	Psycho Killer / Talking Heads 4:19
13	Babylon's Burning / Ruts 2:30
14	If the Kids Are United / Sham 69 3:46
15	Alternative Ulster / Stiff Little Fingers 2:43
16	Boys Don't Cry / The Cure 2:35
17	She Is Beyond Good and Evil / The Pop Group 3:22
18	Is She Really Going Out With Him? / Joe Jackson 3:33
19	Get Over You / The Undertones 2:43
20	Love Like Anthrax / Gang Of Four 3:17
21	Peaches / The Stranglers 4:09
22	Into the Valley / The Skids 3:15
23	You Can't Put Your Arms Round a Memory / Johnny Thunders 3:05
24	Love Will Tear Us Apart / Joy Division 3:26

Barnes & Noble

Diehards can usually find something to complain about in any compilation that claims to be a definitive look at a genre or time, but even the prickliest stickler would have a hard time casting stones at this encyclopedic punk primer. Yes, the Sex Pistols are conspicuously absent -- a fact the producers make plain in the liner notes -- but the 100-song set is otherwise exhaustive beyond the wildest dreams of punk addicts. Roughly chronological, the four-disc set touches on releases that preceded what most folks think of as the original punk explosion (notably Pere Ubu's "Final Solution" and Television's "Little Johnny Jewel," both of which date back to 1975) and gives plenty of play to such less-mainstream New York pioneers as the Dictators, the Heartbreakers, and Mink DeVille alongside early cuts from the Ramones and Blondie. Brit pioneers like Eddie & the Hot Rods, the Stranglers, and the Damned are represented by classic cuts as well. Disc 2 delves more deeply into the catalogs of those bands, while peppering its repertoire with embryonic offerings from more experimental acts like Magazine (represented by "Shot by Both Sides"), Wire ("Mannequin"), and the Fall ("Bingo Master"). The quality doesn't tail off on the admittedly more disjointed third disc, which flits from the sugary pop-punk of the Undertones' timeless anthem "Teenage Kicks" to the nihilistic raving of the Germs' "Lexicon Devil" and Fear's "I Love Livin in the City." The set's fourth and final disc maintains that whiplash-inducing pace, taking in neo-oi offerings from Sham 69, free-form freakouts from the Pop Group and the Slits, and formative recordings from future legends like the Cramps (represented by the ultra-early "Human Fly") and the Cure ("Boys Don't Cry"). The box is rounded out by a thick, photo-packed booklet with exhaustive song-by-song liner notes and snappy essays, making it a must-have for the punk rocker inside us all. David Sprague

All Music Guide

Like all the great rock revolutions, punk was fueled by singles. Sure, there were a lot of tremendous albums, but all the artists that cut great LPs also had great 7"s -- and in the case of Television and Patti Smith, they had independent singles released prior to their first albums that never appeared on their debuts. Since rock criticism tends to be album-driven, singles tend to get slightly overlooked, and since punk is a rock critic's favorite, some revisionist historians paint the era as fueled by albums, not singles. Rhino's excellent four-disc No Thanks! The '70s Punk Rebellion corrects that error by focusing on the singles, winding up with a one-stop introduction and summary of the era that is as good as Loud, Fast & Out of Control, their similar set on early rock & roll. The compilers have bent the rules of punk slightly, deciding to include proto-punkers like New York Dolls, the Stooges, the Dictators, and Jonathan Richman, and then to not present the cuts in a strictly chronological order. This benefits the album, since these artists are in the same spirit of the bands they inspired, and the sequencing plays like a great mixtape. Rhino has also evenly balanced the set between American and British punk, including both early hardcore punkers the Dead Kennedys and British pub rock renegades like Nick Lowe and Ian Dury in equal measure. Though there's a bit of difference between "California Über Alles" and "Heart of the City," they deserve to be paired on this set because they both were genuinely independent, exciting 45s that crackled with energy and captured the spirit of punk, albeit in different ways. And that's what makes No Thanks! work so well -- it illustrates how diverse punk and new wave were in the late '70s, but it places a premium on adventure and excitement, which means even artier bands like Pere Ubu and Suicide come across as pure rock & roll. If there is any flaw to the box, it's that most record collectors will already own the lion's share of these songs -- in fact, if they own Rhino's previous 1993 multi-disc punk retrospective D.I.Y., they'll own no less than 53 of these songs (an additional 14 songs have appeared on other Rhino titles, making for a grand total of 67 of 100 songs already released by Rhino). While this is undoubtedly a problem for some collectors, it is also true that it functions more as an overview for fans that don't already own a bunch of this on CD, and on that level it can't be faulted. True, this may contain no tracks from the Sex Pistols, since John Lydon refused them permission (allegedly because Rhino chose not to release the 2002 Sex Pistols box set in the States), but every other major player is here, and the music here is so good they're not missed at all. Finally, if a collector is wondering whether it's worth the expense to buy this box, there are three rare singles that make their debut here: the aforementioned Television and Patti Smith singles, "Little Johnny Jewel" and "Hey Joe [version]," plus an early single version of the Pretenders' "The Wait." (Note: "Little Johnny Jewel" was released nearly simultaneously on an expanded reissue of Television's Marquee Moon.) For those that can afford it, that's reason enough to pick up the set. Stephen Thomas Erlewine

New York Times

An all-but-comprehensive selection from a time that's too often simplified in hindsight. Jon Pareles

Rolling Stone

As an introduction to a fertile musical moment... No Thanks! is nearly ideal... Alternative rock is still based on the axioms of these 100 songs. Douglas Wolk

Blender

Everywhere you look on No Thanks! there are attempts to infuriate, challenge and intimidate rather than simply entertain... No Thanks! is just about perfect. Tony Power