Sex Pistols
Managed and provoked into being by Malcolm McLaren, the Sex Pistols existed for barely three years but detonated British youth culture on the way through, Johnny Rotten's sneering half-spoken vocals and Steve Jones's buzzsaw guitar turning Never Mind the Bollocks into punk's founding scripture. They burned out fast — bassist Sid Vicious was dead within two years of the split — but every UK guitar band that followed had to reckon with what they broke open.
Guitarist Steve Jones has said the Stooges' Raw Power was one of the two records — alongside the first New York Dolls album — that taught him how to play guitar in the first place, chasing the raw, careening energy of that record's playing.
listen forPlay the Stooges' Search and Destroy, then the Sex Pistols' Pretty Vacant — both are built on the same simple, overdriven, treble-heavy attack, stripped of anything resembling a guitar solo.
Jones has named the New York Dolls as one of his four biggest influences alongside Bowie, Roxy Music, and the Faces, and Malcolm McLaren's whole approach to managing the Pistols grew directly out of his earlier stint working with the Dolls.
listen forLine up the New York Dolls' Personality Crisis with the Sex Pistols' God Save the Queen — both take a trashy, glammed-up swagger and push it somewhere more confrontational and stripped-down.
Before punk, Steve Jones took up guitar inspired by early-1970s glam acts including T. Rex, learning riffs off Marc Bolan's records before he had a band of his own to put them in.
listen forPlay T. Rex's Get It On, then the Sex Pistols' Submission — beneath the sneer, both ride a thick, boogie-based riff that owes more to glam-rock strut than to hardcore aggression.