Blank Generation by Richard Hell and the Voidoids

Blank Generation, the debut from Richard Hell and the Voidoids, came out on Sire in 1977, cut at Electric Lady Studios with Richard Gottehrer producing. Hell had already lived a few punk lifetimes by then. Born Richard Meyers in Kentucky, he dropped out of high school and came to New York to be a poet, formed the Neon Boys with his school friend Tom Miller (soon to be Tom Verlaine), saw them become Television, the first rock band to play CBGB, and walked out in April 1975 to start the Heartbreakers with Johnny Thunders. His torn, safety-pinned clothes and spiked hair set a look the whole scene would borrow.

The Voidoids, formed in 1976, were his own band at last, and the record sounds like it: nervy, arty punk with jagged, jumpy guitars and rhythms that lurch as if about to fly apart. The title track is the one the countdowns remember. Destiny Street came next.

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