On the other hand, the Pistols and Ramones mostly annoy me.
GASP!
*points*
Heresey!
Say what you will. To me, the Pistols were the Marilyn Manson of their day: manufactured nihilism. Musically, they were a dead end from the start (but they paved the way for PiL, so they get a provisional pass). And the Ramones were just conservatives in cooler clothes, basically playing Chuck Berry on amphetamines. Their schtick gets too old too fast, too.
I disagree with Gaz about the Clash being overrated. To be clear, I don't think they lived up to their own hype, but they were one of a handful of bands from that time (Wire also comes to mind) that managed to break genuinely new ground because they realized the limitations of punk and at some point -- lip service aside -- basically stopped giving a fuck whether they were punk or not. That, I'd submit, makes them and others of their ilk more punk than a lot of the rest of their peers.