John Cooper Clarke

Often dubbed the Poet Laureate of Punk, John Cooper Clarke made a name for himself opening for era-defining artists like the Sex Pistols, the Fall, Joy Division, Buzzcocks, and Elvis Costello. His tragi-comic, harshly enunciated, Salford-accented verse nailed the times just as fiercely as the tunes of his late-'70s punk-mates, and although he's best known for his unaccompanied spoken-word performances (check out "Twat"), he also roped in musical backing: "Gimmix! Play Loud" was a hit in '79. J.C.C. puts the jazz into jazz mags, in Next Steps.

There's imagery aplenty here that you're unlikely to forget in a hurry — how about the "rubber gloves called cold caress" on "Sperm Test" from J.C.C.'s first album, 1978's Où Est la Maison de Fromage? — translation Where Is the House of Cheese? — or "the human grenade minus pin" to describe "Action Man". "Readers Wives" is a highlight of the poet's band-backed output, the softly tinkling melody harshly at odds with his lyrical dissection of D.I.Y. porn . . . "cold flesh the colour of potatoes".

There's no doubt that the hirsute old punk bard — who sometimes introduces himself onstage as "Johnny Clarke, the name behind the hairstyle" — continues to exert a lasting influence on any band in British rock that thinks they've got something to say. The Arctic Monkeys paid homage to him on the sleeve of their Flourescent Adolescent EP, and it was fitting that Clarke turned back the decades to play himself in Anton Corbijn's 2007 Joy Division biopic, Control (opening for the band when they were called Warsaw) — "Evidently Chickentown" features on the soundtrack, and was also used in an episode of The Sopranos. Shakespeare? Perhaps not . . . but Will would've been proud.