Punk 45: The Singles Cover Art of Punk 1976-80

Punk 45! is introduced and co-edited by Jon Savage, author of the acclaimed definitive history of punk, England’s Dreaming.

Contributors include Peter Saville, Richard Hell, Richard H Kirk, Seymour Stein, Geoff Travis, Martin Moscrop, Glenn Branca, Jamie Reid, Dave Robinson, Roger Armstrong, Martin Mills, Gee Vaucher, Savage Pencil, Dennis Morris and many more.

This book serves as a revelatory guide to hundreds of original 7” record cover sleeve designs – visual artefacts found at the heart of the 20th century’s most radical and anarchistic musical movement.

Beyond the encyclopaedic visual imagery featured within, the book also includes interviews with a number of significant figures in punk music. These encompass artists and groups such as Richard Hell, Martin Moscrop (A Certain Ratio), Richard H Kirk (Cabaret Voltaire), Glenn Branca, and David Thomas (Pere Ubu). It also features record label owners including Seymour Stein (Sire Records), Geoff Travis (Rough Trade), Roger Armstrong (Chiswick), Martin Mills (Beggars Banquet), Dave Robinson (Stiff Records), and David Brown (Dangerhouse). Additionally, celebrated designers involved in creating punk’s original iconic imagery are interviewed: Peter Saville (Factory Records), Gee Vaucher (Crass Records), Jamie Reid (Sex Pistols), and Dennis Morris (Public Image Limited).

The revolutionary do-it-yourself ethic of punk was applied to the aesthetic of design as much as it was to music. Record sleeves functioned as lo-fi signifiers of anarchy, style, fashion, politics, and more, with an urban and suburban invective courtesy of the thousands of new bands – punk, post-punk, pre-punk, nearly-punk and beyond – that emerged at the close of the 1970s.

This book is an exhaustive, thorough, and exciting celebration of the stunning artwork of punk music, covering everything from the most celebrated and iconic designs through to the stark beauty of the cheapest, do-it-yourself, lo-fi obscurities.