Richard Hell & the Voidoids: CBGB's Poet and "Blank Generation"

The ex-Television bassist whose safety pins and spiked hair helped create the punk look, and the song that named a generation.

WURN-DB · U-Rock® Network — HQ · 2026-10-13

Richard Hell & the Voidoids: CBGB's Poet and "Blank Generation"

Photo: Sire Records / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Public_domain). Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Richard_Hell_and_the_Voidoids_1977_press_photo.jpg

Richard Hell and the Voidoids were an American punk rock band formed in New York City in 1976, fronted by Richard Hell, formerly of the Neon Boys, Television and the Heartbreakers. U-Rock® has logged 156 plays of "Blank Generation."

The look of punk

According to Wikipedia, Hell (born Richard Meyers in Kentucky) moved to New York to become a poet. With his school friend Tom Miller, who became Tom Verlaine, he started the Neon Boys, which became Television, the first rock band to play CBGB. Hell's torn clothes held together with safety pins and his spiked hair influenced punk fashion. After leaving Television in 1975 and spending less than a year in the Heartbreakers, he formed the Voidoids.

Blank Generation

The band's debut album, Blank Generation, produced by Richard Gottehrer, came out on Sire Records on 26 August 1977. Wikipedia says the title song opens with a riff loosely inspired by the Who's "The Seeker." Robert Christgau said the Voidoids made "unique music from a reputedly immutable formula." Ben Ratliff of the New York Times wrote that the album "helped define punk... but it's much more than that: it's literary, romantic." AllMusic's Mark Deming called it "one of the most powerful [albums] to come from punk's first wave." The photo is a 1977 Sire press photo.

Why it matters on U-Rock®

Richard Hell's style helped shape punk fashion, and "Blank Generation" helped shape its sound.

U-Rock® play data: 156 plays logged across the BROADCAST and CORE histories (2026-07-02 to 2026-10-12), using the higher of the two logs.

Sources 1. Wikipedia, "Richard Hell and the Voidoids" — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Hell_and_the_Voidoids 2. Wikipedia, "Blank Generation (album)" — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blank_Generation_(album) 3. Wikimedia Commons, "Richard Hell and the Voidoids 1977 press photo (Sire Records)" — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Richard_Hell_and_the_Voidoids_1977_press_photo.jpg 4. U-Rock® BROADCAST (AzuraCast) and CORE (airplay_spins) play logs

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