D.I.Y.: The Modern World: UK Punk II (1977-78)

Various Artists

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D.I.Y.: The Modern World: UK Punk II (1977-78) Review

by Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Picking up where the first volume of D.I.Y.: U.K. Punk left off, D.I.Y.: The Modern World: UK Punk II (1977-78) captures the moment when punk began to fracture into post-punk, hardcore, and new wave. There are still some straightforward punk anthems from the Jam ("The Modern World"), the Buzzcocks ("What Do I Get?"), the Rezillos ("[My Baby Does] Good Sculptures"), Generation X ("Wild Youth"), and Stiff Little Fingers ("Alternative Ulster," "Suspect Device"), but the collection finds punk turning dark, noisy, paranoid, and weird through Siouxsie & the Banshees ("Hong Kong Garden"), the Fall ("Bingo Master"), Wire ("I Am the Fly"), X-Ray Spex ("The Day the World Turned Day-Glo"), the Soft Boys ("[I Want to Be An] Angleploise Lamp"), and Magazine ("Shot by Both Sides"). There's also some loutish rock from Sham 69 and 999, but The Modern World on the whole is much more interesting than that. Despite missing a few major figures like the Clash, it is a definitive portrait of the last days of the original British punk movement, and it works both as an introduction and a great, listenable overview.

Track Listing

Title/Composer Performer Time Stream
1 The Jam 02:33 SpotifyAmazon
2 Generation X 02:52 SpotifyAmazon
3 The Rezillos 02:52 SpotifyAmazon
4 999 02:45 SpotifyAmazon
5 Sham 69 02:07 SpotifyAmazon
6 Magazine 04:04 SpotifyAmazon
7 Buzzcocks 02:55 SpotifyAmazon
8 Wire 03:08 SpotifyAmazon
9 X-Ray Spex 02:51 SpotifyAmazon
10 Stiff Little Fingers 02:43 SpotifyAmazon
11 Lurkers 02:11 SpotifyAmazon
12 The Soft Boys 03:02 SpotifyAmazon
13 Sham 69 03:49 SpotifyAmazon
14 Alternative TV 02:32 SpotifyAmazon
15 The Fall 02:24 SpotifyAmazon
16 Stiff Little Fingers 02:46 SpotifyAmazon
17 Siouxsie and the Banshees 02:56 SpotifyAmazon
18 999 03:44 SpotifyAmazon
19 Subway Sect 03:03 SpotifyAmazon
blue highlight denotes track pick