The Slits Typical Girls

Earlier this year was the 40th anniversary of the White Riot tour, the anarchic, ramshackle series of gigs across the UK that launched the Clash into public consciousness (alongside their iconic first album, which moved the punk movement past the Sex Pistols’ iconoclastic entrance). The Slits were one of the tour's support acts; if anyone suited the DIY ethos of the way the music was evolving, it was this all-girl band whose take no prisoners approach (read Viv Albertine’s fabulous warts ‘n’ all autobiography) chimed with the times and attitude.

Over 100 tracks that smashed through the bloated excesses of arena rock and disco in the late '70s, cross-licensed from everywhere. Blitzkrieg Bop Ramones; White Riot Clash; Personality Crisis New York Dolls; Neat Neat Neat Damned; See No Evil Television; Free Money Patti Smith; Sonic Reducer Dead Boys; In the City Jam; Pablo Picasso Modern Lovers; Boredom Buzzcocks; Mongoloid Devo; Wasted Black Flag by far the most complete punk collection ever assembled. A 116-page book contains essays, track-by-track commentary and personal recollections!

Over 100 tracks that smashed through the bloated excesses of arena rock and disco in the late '70s, cross-licensed from everywhere. Blitzkrieg Bop Ramones; White Riot Clash; Personality Crisis New York Dolls; Neat Neat Neat Damned; See No Evil Television; Free Money Patti Smith; Sonic Reducer Dead Boys; In the City Jam; Pablo Picasso Modern Lovers; Boredom Buzzcocks; Mongoloid Devo; Wasted Black Flag by far the most complete punk collection ever assembled. A 116-page book contains essays, track-by-track commentary and personal recollections!

4CD / 90 track set exploring the work of female artists in the decade following the punk explosion. From household names and legends – Alison Moyet, Toyah, Kirsty MacColl, Nico, Tracey Thorn, Chrissie Hynde, Neneh Cherry, Pauline Murray, Sinead O’Connor, Tracey Ullman, Cosey Fanni Tutti – to underground figureheads and unsung pioneers. Spanning the genres – from the punk howl of X-Ray Spex and the NWOBHM stylings of Girlschool to Cosey Fanni Tutti’s post-TG electronica, the experimental dub of Vivien Goldman and the the High Street pop of Bananarama.

No single box set–however sumptuously packaged, however comprehensively compiled–could hope to contain the bewildering, diverse array of musical styles and opinions that was brought together under the loose description "punk" between 1976 and 1979. There were so many fresh ideas and concepts–the final, irreversible emancipation of women in rock and the creation of an entirely new, non-R&B, guitar-based music form–contained within that one word, no compilation could hope to represent it fairly. 1-2-3-4 has a damn good try, though. Five CDs, featuring 100 tracks from the good, bad and downright ugly of punk.