If It Wasn't For Who They Voted #1...

Rolling Stone magazine - who loves to publish top-10 and top-100 lists and used to come up with them on their own - asked their readers to vote on a top-10 lists of the best punk bands of all time.

Here are the results:

10. Bad Brains
9. Social Distortion
8. The Misfits
7. Black Flag
6. Iggy & The Stooges
5. The Dead Kennedys
4. The Sex Pistols
3. The Ramones
2. The Clash
1. Green Day

Now, these bands all deserve a spot on the list...  but Green Day at #1? Really? Seems like their fans did quite a bit of ballot-stuffing... and aren't aware of what came before them.

I won't complain about their presence altogether - Dookie still sounds good and American Idiot was a surprisingly loud and clear political statement from a band used to singing about poo and futile teenage issues, but some of the most important bands were robbed of a better position (The Clash, for one, should have been on top, as could have been The Stooges).

And some of the omitted bands deserved much better, particularly Bad Religion, Rancid, Richard Hell, Television, and Jim Carroll; and acts like The Avengers, The Germs, Subhumans (U.K.), Fugazi/Minor Threat, The Minutemen, Crass, The Exploited and American Devices should at least have been mentioned in an ''honorable mentions'' segment.

And that's not counting my personal favourite punk band of all time, the Dead Boys.