The Damned (GB)

About

Also known as: Damned, The Dammed, The Damned Night, The Doomed

Few bands can claim firsts the way The Damned can. The London outfit beat everyone to the punch as the first UK punk band to release a single ("New Rose" in 1976), the first to put out a studio album (Damned Damned Damned in 1977), and the first to tour the United States. That debut, produced by Nick Lowe, remains a landmark, but the band never stopped evolving. Through the 1980s they leaned into gothic and psychedelic rock, racking up nine UK top 40 singles and releasing albums like Phantasmagoria and The Black Album. The Damned have been through more breakups and reformations than most bands survive, yet they keep coming back swinging. Evil Spirits in 2018 cracked the UK top 10, their first time there, and Darkadelic in 2023 repeated the trick. Rat Scabies, absent for over thirty years, rejoined in late 2023, and the resulting covers album Not Like Everybody Else marked the first time three members of the classic lineup appeared on record together in more than four decades. Influential on punk, gothic rock and hardcore punk alike, they are one of the genuinely formative acts in British rock history.