(Credits: Far Out / Alamy)
Thu 8 January 2026 6:00, UK
‘Here’s three chords, now form a band’ has always been the core principle of the punk revolution, and although that DIY attitude paved the way for some of the rawest, most honest rock and roll to ever grace the airwaves, it did leave listeners yearning for a greater degree of musical talent after a while.
There are, after all, only so many songs that can be generated by the same three barre chords and a sneering attitude. Hence why punk, for all its shock tactics and cultural revolution, had a fairly short-lived time in the spotlight. In between the moment that The Damned released ‘New Rose’ in 1976, to John Lydon’s decision to abandon the Sex PIstols’ ship, the entirety of the UK’s punk revolt lasted for around two years before most of its artists and devotees moved on to bigger and better things.
That is not to say, however, that punk’s legacy disappeared overnight. In the wake of the movement, in fact, artists like Depeche Mode took the independent ethos of punk and blended it with a more expansive musical repertoire, thus birthing post-punk and new wave – a scene, if anything, more revolutionary than punk had been.
Post-punk was the natural successor to punk, but in the case of Depeche Mode, especially, it had far more success when it came to breaking those DIY sounds into the musical mainstream. During the early 1980s, Dave Gahan and the gang were a fixture of the singles chart, and today there is not a wedding DJ or karaoke booth not familiar with the sounds of tracks like ‘Just Can’t Get Enough’.
Depeche Mode weren’t the only group to take punk’s ethos and blend it with genuine musical talent, though. One group that had been there to witness the birth of punk during its early years, and harbour that same spirit throughout their existence, was The Pretenders, who Gahan always had a close affinity to. “The Pretenders came up with punk,” he once told Mojo. “They were at the back end like us, but they were a band that could actually play shall we say.”
Inevitably, the shared appreciation of punk values and musical skill shared between The Pretenders and Depeche Mode led the two factions of postpunk mastery to cross paths, eventually. Namely, Gahan was recruited by Chrissie Hynde for her 2025 record Duets Special, to perform a cover of Fred Neil’s ‘Dolphins’.
Seemingly, for the cover, the pair revisited their DIY punk origins, with Gahan recalling, “I actually recorded my first vocal take in my bathroom at home because I like the sound in there. I found out she recorded hers in her kitchen which I love.”
Although that duet arrived multiple decades after the post-punk boom which gave rise to both The Stranglers and Depeche Mode, the appeal of Hynde’s output has never changed for Gahan. “Chrissie’s voice is so unique,” he gushed. “The moment you hear the first words she sings on anything you know it’s her. It seems so effortless the way she sings.”
Perhaps that is why Hynde never really flourished until after the initial boom of punk had subsided. For all her songwriting talent and knack for performance, she might have simply been too musically skilled to fit in during the age of thrown-together barre chords and bondage trousers.
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