American punk didn’t have the instant impact of British punk - instead, it inspired an emerging underground scene, and bands that didn’t sound like The Dead Kennedys but kept punk’s anti-commercial values. Every band from the nerds in Devo to the party animals in the B-52s to the greasers in The Ramones set the template for whole punk & indie subgenres. Not everything has aged well (two N-word drops don’t fly even when the message is anti-racist), but these songs still hold primal power; you’ll bang your head like a reflex.