If anyone were to tell me this is the greatest single song of all time, I would not dare to disagree. It’s flawless – perfect tune, perfect lyric, perfect voice, perfect arrangement – and filled with such emotion that it makes me cry almost every time I hear it.
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Graph are another of those barely remembered bands from Fast Product’s first release in their ‘earcom’ EP series in 1979.

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The Prats embodied the spirit of punk as much as any band. They looked like schoolkids, they sounded like schoolkids. Because they were.

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While some bands tried to pose as punks and failed miserably, others carried it off with aplomb – like Cardiff’s one-hit wonders The Table with their minor classic Do The Standing Still.

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Before they made perfectly crafted pop-soul records, Scritti Politti were what was then called an “agitprop” band – though you would not immediately mark them down as left-wing firebrands from their music.

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I suppose you’d have to call Vic Godard another of the oddballs of punk, alongside the likes of Wreckless Eric, Johnny Moped, Kevin Rowland and Spizz.

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I don’t know much about Dee Edwards, who sang this Northern Soul gem. It’s a B-side but I prefer it to the A-side, Tired Of Staying Home.

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Here’s another rare groove, this time by The Constellations, released in 1968. Despite their starry name, they never hit the heights but they left their mark with this Northern Soul classic.

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Looking back from more than half a century later, it’s astonishing how rapidly the primitive pounding of punk evolved into the questing experimentalism of postpunk. PragVEC were one of the first to embrace the avant-garde.

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Of all the great female-fronted bands that punk produced – Siouxsie, Slits, Raincoats, Delta 5, Kleenex – the most confrontational were the Au Pairs. They were also my favourites.

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