Minutemen- Double Nickels on the Dime

I guess I should just make my own list:

Ramones first 5 records
Misfits (Danzig version, obviously) everything with the possible exception of "Earth AD", although the Die My Darling EP from that era is awesome.
X - everything through See How We Are, after that it gets wanky. Billy Zoom albums are awesome though
Dag Nasty - Can I Say and to a lesser degree Wig Out at Denko's
Bad Religion - Everything through Stranger than Fiction and from Process of Belief forward, albums without Brett Gurewitz aren't very good. My faves are Suffer and No Control
Cocksparrer - Shock Troops at least, if you like those, dig into Two Monkeys and the rest, there are several pretty decent greatest hits CDs out there
Cramps - Bad Music for Bad People, Gravest Hits, Songs the Lord Taught Us, Stay Sick
Adolescents - first album
Agent Orange - first album and EP
Dickies - Incredible Shrinking Dickies and Dawn of the Dickies are both awesome, as is Stukas over Disneyland
Dwarves - Blood Guts and Pussy, Sugarfix, and Thank Heaven for Little Girls, those are the best.
45 Grave - Sleep in Safety
Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures
Toy Dolls - their first few records are great, but you'd be safe finding the 2 disc greatest hits "We're Mad!"
DOA - Hardcore '81
Circle Jerks - Group Sex, Wild In The Streets, Golden Shower of Hits
and I hate to plug a friend's band, but The Nerve Agents are AMAZING, the albums to get are "Days of the White Owl", and "The Butterfly Collection"

The Misfits- "Static Age" is a great place to start.

agreed, and Marquee moon is a fantastic album even if you don't think of it as punk. Highly recommend the OP pick it up if they don't have it already.

I think all of you have covered most of the ones I would have suggested, but I'll try to add a bit to the conversation.

While much of it is a little on the poppy side, I would also recommend The Slits - Cut.

As for some other bands that I don't recall being mentioned (apologies if any of these were mentioned):

Patti Smith - I'm a huge fan!
The Big Boys
The Dicks
Minutemen
UK Subs
Fear
Subhumans

May not be the earliest of punk, but it is a dire necessity.

go & buy this now . . .

Also: I Against I

Also: So Alone

There's a fantastic compilation called Old School Punk that has a great selection of early 80's stuff: Circle Jerks, Fear, Germs, Flipper, X, Redd Kross, etc.

Some great recommendations. The only other one I can think of off the top of my head that hasn't been mentioned yet is

The Dead Boys Young, Loud and Snotty ("Sonic Reducer" is an especially awesome song)

Shame on me. Should've been one of the first ones I thought of.

Funny but I feel the same way about:

Agreed.

Hell I recommend all of The Souls albums. They're probably my favorite punk band ever.

I think The Bouncing Souls Live album is a necessity as well. It's one of the few live albums that makes you feel like you're really there. So much energy.

I already posted it...

Meh. Give me Sandinista!

Apart from the ones already mentioned (Crass, Conflict, Discharge, UK Subs, Black Flag, Dead Kennedys) ...

The Ruts - The Crack
Stiff Little Fingers - Inflammable Material
Stranglers - Rattus Norvegicus
Slaughter And The Dogs - Do It Dog Style
Anti-Nowhere League - We Are The League
Subhumans - The Day The Country Died
The Exploited - Punk's Not Dead

A tad too much dub stuff for me. As much as I like Sandinista!, I thought they could've reduced the number of records from 3 to 2 and it would've been better. They veered a too far from punk. I've always considered it their White Album

Sorry man, I didn't notice that. I was kind of surprised that they were "overlooked". Never mind.

Yes, seriously! Please get "Walk Among Us" before you ever consider picking up the "Legacy Of Brutality" release that Glenn Danzing re-recorded most of the bass lines for. I would even suggest picking up their "Static Age" album, too.

And just what are we considering to be "punk" here? The OP's only wanting the considered "classic" stuff, correct? In that case, I would also suggest getting Fear "The Record" and any of the early Bad Brains releases, or you could pick up the "best of" Bad Brains release that came out a few years ago.

CC

Yep, to me, if they could have cut Sandinista! down to even a double album, it might have been the best thing they ever did. I didn't mind that they veered away from punk, but it just seemed to me that some of those tracks were interesting, but forgettable experiments.

I do love Give Em Enough Rope. There's so much persective in the writing there. On only their 2nd album, they were already taking themselves down a peg and poking a hole in their "rebel chic" image with "Safe European Home" (one of the greatest pure rockers ever recorded, IMO), and "Cheapskate" talks about their already strained relations with the more dogmatic punk ethicists. I wouldn't argue that it's one of their best works, but to me the groundwork was laid on this one for the Clash outgrowing punk and just being The Clash.

My favorite Clash release is probably Black Market Clash, even though it's not an official album. The mix of stuff on that one, from their great early singles like Capital Radio, The Prisoner and City of the Dead, to awesome covers liked Pressure Drop and Armagideon Time, to dub stuff with Bankrobber---that compilation to me really encapsulates what The Clash were about.

I never saw The Clash in concert, but I was fortunate enough to see Joe Strummer in Boston in 1999. He would alternate between one new song off his Rock Art album, and one Clash classic. Seeing him do Safe European Home, London's Burning, Rock the Casbah and Bankrobber live was one of my favorite concert moments ever.

One of my personal favorite songs of all time. In one song, it destroys all of the pretentious posing rife in (most) punk. And it effing rocks, I can't think of too many better side 1 track 1s.

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I don't think I have seen it mentioned, but I would recommend Mission of Burma- Signals, Calls and Marches.

Not sure if it is what you are looking for, but I would still consider it punk

If you don't like spending 3 days punching studs into your dad's leather jacket, sewing hot topic patches onto your pajama pants and spending 30 bucks in knox gelatin here's a few old bands and some slightly modern bands you can check out:

Propagandhi
Ignite
Capital
SNFU
Sick of it all
Strung out

Surprised to see that no one has mentioned NOFX yet. "Punk In Drublic" is a good place to start.

I was going with the pre-1985 rule. NoFX are awesome, Punk in Drublic, White Trash Two Heebs and a Bean, and The War On Errorism are great.

Don't forget The Decline.