Blank Generation

VINYL FORMAT. This is the way this record was meant to be heard. Richard Hell was one of the first men in the emerging NYC punk rock as an early member of both Television and the Heartbreakers (he left both groups before they could record), but his own version of punk wasn't much like anyone else's. While Hell's debut album, "Blank Generation," remains one of the most powerful to come from punk's first wave, anyone expecting a Ramones/Dead Boys-style frontal assault from this set had better readjust their expectations. While there's little on the album that's friendly or life-affirming, there's a crackling intelligence to songs like "New Pleasure," "Betrayal Takes Two," and "Another World" that confirmed Hell had a truly unique lyrical voice, at once supremely self-confident and dismissive of nearly every thing around him (sometimes including himself). Brittle and troubling, but brimming with ideas and musical intelligence, "Blank Generation" was ground-breaking punk rock that followed no one's template, and today it sounds just as fresh -- and nearly as abrasive -- as it did when it first hit the racks.