Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
Christgau's Record Guide	A
Pitchfork	10/10
Q
The Rolling Stone Album Guide
Spin Alternative Record Guide	10/10
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Pink Flag is the debut studio album by English post-punk band Wire. It was released in December 1977, through Harvest Records. Though the album failed to chart on its initial release, the album has been widely acclaimed and is considered influential by critics.

Upon its release, Robert Christgau of The Village Voice called Pink Flag a "punk suite" and praised its "simultaneous rawness and detachment" and detected a rock-and-roll irony similar to but "much grimmer and more frightening" than the Ramones.

In a retrospective review, Steve Huey of AllMusic opined that Pink Flag was "perhaps the most original debut album to come out of the first wave of British punk" and also "recognizable, yet simultaneously quite unlike anything that preceded it. Pink Flag's enduring influence pops up in hardcore, post-punk, alternative rock, and even Britpop, and it still remains a fresh, invigorating listen today: a fascinating, highly inventive rethinking of punk rock and its freedom to make up your own rules."Trouser Press called the album "a brilliant 21-song suite" in which the band "manipulated classic rock song structure by condensing them into brief, intense explosions of attitude and energy, coming up with a collection of unforgettable tunes".

Although the album was released to critical acclaim, it was not a big seller. The album was listed at number 412 on Rolling Stone's list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time in 2009 and at number 378 in NME's list of the same name in 2013.Music journalist Stuart Maconie described it as "extraordinary" by the standards of the time at which it was produced.Pitchfork ranked Pink Flag number 22 in its list "Top 100 Albums of the 1970s". The album was included in Robert Dimery's 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.

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