Green Day have been voted the best punk band of all time, ahead of genre stalwarts like the Clash, the Ramones and the Sex Pistols.
But Rolling Stone, who ran the poll, admit the result was almost certainly skewed because the US three-piece’s official website and leading fan club site both asked people to vote for the act.
The magazine admits: “Even the members of Green Day would probably object to being ranked higher than the Ramones and the Clash on this list – but the Internet has spoken and we have to honour that.
“We didn’t count on fan site Green Day Authority and the band’s official site posting a link and asking fans to vote for them. It gave the group a significant boost in the final tally.”
Of the band itself Rolling Stone says: “It’s easy to forget now, but by the early 2000s they seemed washed up, reduced to opening for Blink 182, and it was hard to imagine them making a comeback.
“Then again, no one saw American Idiot coming. The rock opera forever changed their career. The 2009 album 21st Century Breakdown didn’t quite live up to American Idiot, but it hardly mattered.”
Rolling Stone’s best punk bands of all time:
01. Green Day
02. The Clash
03. The Ramones
04. The Sex Pistols
05. The Dead Kennedys
06. Iggy and the Stooges
07. Black Flag
08. The Misfits
09. Social Distortion
10. Bad Brains
