will be the first to admit that I’m highly skeptical of any compilation that attempts to stand as a summation of an entire musical movement. Compilations of the sort tend to skip over important artists due to their obscurity and pick sub-par songs from the artists which they don’t.

When I first got my hands on the No Thanks! Compilation, a few of my more musically knowledgeable friends and I began to name off bands from the punk era, both obscure and well known, to put the box to the test. Much to our surprise, we weren’t able to name a single important or semi-important group or artist that wasn’t included within the four discs in the box (though no one mentioned the Sex Pistols (we’ll get to that later)).

In fact, before delving into the specific discs, it’s worth noting that this is probably the most concise and well produced compilation of a modern musical era that I’ve ever come across. The sequencing of the discs provide an acutely refined mix tape flow, with a booklet that provides commentary on every single song within the four disc set.

The discs divide the movement up into eras, starting with the early cornerstones of the genre: The Clash, The Ramones, The Buzzcocks, The Modern Lovers, with the other three discs following in a vaguely chronological sort of order.

Disc number two and three begin to push into post-punk and new wave a bit with excellent selections from The Fall, Blondie, The Jam, Wire, and enough other top-shelf names to make your head spin.

The fourth and final disc, though, seems to set its focus solely on post-punk and new wave, with classics from Siouxie and the Banshees, The Cure, Joy Division, Elvis Costello, The Dead Kennedys, The Talking Heads, among others.

The one qualm that some would bring to the table is the exclusion of the Sex Pistols, whom many consider to be the public face of punk and the genre’s true creators. The situation surrounding this fact appears to be that the Pistols simply refused to have their material included in the set (they are mentioned and credited quite heavily within the accompanying booklet). Personally, this is not a problem in the least, as many of the Pistols’ songs (and most likely the ones that would have been included in the set) have already been absorbed into the public lexicon, and there doesn’t seem to be a dire need to hear “God Save The Queen” for the trillionth time.

The best way to summarize this box is to say that it is an absolutely essential purchase for anyone interested in what happened with the music scene in regards to punk and its offspring during the late 70’s and early 80’s. Enjoy.