From an article called The History of Punk:
Punk rock is generally considered to have surfaced in 1975, but exactly who the first punk act was is undetermined. If anybody were to tell you that they can pinpoint the first punk band, they are either lying or confused. Many early bands such as Iggy and the Stooges, the MC5, Richard Hell and the Voidoids displayed some aspects of punk, but no band combined all of the elements until the Ramones gathered in 1975.
The Ramones self-titled debut album, released in 1976, was the first example of punk rock, and they are generally accepted as the creators of the genre. Being tired of music that they considered boring, the Ramones gathered and began to piece their own sound together.
The lack of originality in music was a key factor in the creation of the Ramones' sounds. "No one tried to do anything original, and if they did, it came out sounding like Stevie Ray Vaughan or ZZ Top." (Cuellar 4) Another factor was their lack of technical skill as compared to the bands of 1975.
Their music would usually only utilize a few chords per song, and lyrics were often repetitions of short phrases. Many popular punk bands were often referred to as "Three chord wonders." Because of this, Ramones' songs are characterized by their amateur and aggressive sound. Examples of some of their more famous songs include "The Blizkrieg Bop," "Sheena Is A Punk Rocker," "Cretin Hop," "Pinhead, "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue," "Do You Remember Rock 'n' Roll Radio?," and "I Wanna Be Sedated."
The Ramones brought back the two-minute song, creating a sound that many found reminiscent of early rock 'n' roll. Others, blown away by the buzzsaw guitars and unconventional lyrics, condemned them. Legend has it that a touring representative from the A&M label saw the Ramones and got up and left in disgust after only hearing half of a song. Even later, record companies were not thrilled with punk, because it was very unstable. Danny Fields once said "American radio, then as now, doesn't like to participate in anything that is dangerous, or revolutionary, or radical. So [eventually] the whole thing [punk] became a great pile of sh*t that no one wanted to go near."
The Ramones directly influenced British punk acts, helping to spawn the British punk scene. They played a fourth of July concert in London, which was attended by many members of future punk bands, such as the Sex Pistols, the Clash, the Damned, Generation X, and Souxsie and the Banshees. This was the seed for what was to become the huge London punk scene of 1977.