Green Day is shopping mall punk. Garbage.
The Pistols were it. Not the poseer and bankwagon jumping Clash or all the US frauds like Henry Rollins.
The Ramones were good but it was sort of comic book punk. MC 5 or Iggy and the Stooges - nah.
You’d have done better if you hadn’t pushed the punk rock equivalent of the Monkees as “it” for punk. The Sex Pistols, while a lot of fun, were a fabricated band put together largely to be controversial and draw a lot of attention to the genre. And while I still love to blast out Anarchy in the UK periodically I always know that the worst thing Lydon’s done in PIL is better than anything the Pistols ever could have achieved.
The Clash was a fantastic band. “Sandinista” a terrific album. In fact, I think I will listen to it later today.
Since I love actual music the Sex Pistols are excluded. Ramones were not bad and could actually play their instruments unlike the SP.
I like Green Day for their humble beginnings. Their first summer on the road pre-mainstream they sold 70,000 CD’s at concerts in po-dunk clubs.
Billy Armstrong is a mental idiot when it comes to ideology but he’s got more backbone against the music industry manipulators than most artists.
And any band that can sell 65 million cd’s has a following and their not all idiots.