1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: 50. The Sonics – Here Are The Sonics (1965)

 

Is this the first punk album? The opening track The Witch is basically a hard attack on a repeated five chord progression, blasted through with aggression and rough-edged vocals. Compare and contrast to, say, Dion’s Runaround Sue which is also an attack on a troublesome woman. Dion’s is more of a sad lament, here The Sonics pile on a lot of bile (but also, one senses, a grudging admiration). 

There are the now expected collection of rock and roll, soul, and R&B covers including Roll Over Beethoven, Do You Love Me and (fourth time?) Money, but these are also given a hard and distorted edge. It's pretty good and, although most of the songs are familiar, the style is fresh.

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