Damned, The Vinyl Records
They were rarely cited as the most important of the first wave of British punk bands, nor one of the most influential, but in many respects, the Damned can honestly claim to be first. They released the first U.K. punk single (1976's "New Rose" b/w "Help"), the first U.K. punk album (1977's Damned Damned Damned), and were the first British punks to tour the United States. They were also one of the first major bands on the scene to break up, and were later ahead of the pack when they reunited. And few of their peers have had a longer or more interesting career path. Playing music that was dark but playful at the same time, the Damned started out as a loud, hell-bent-for-leather punk quartet. They soon began adding psychedelic and garage rock influences into their music (1979's Machine Gun Etiquette), detoured into epic-scale pop with a dash of prog (1980's The Black Album), and embraced a tuneful but muscular take on goth (1985's Phantasmagoria), all within their first ten years.