bad brains

In 1996, the ska giants covered the band that gave them their name.

From Alexisonfire to Anthrax, we ranked the greatest hardcore bands of all time. See who made the list.

This is the evolution of hardcore.

From Arctic Monkeys’ Favourite Worst Nightmare to Fall Out Boy’s Infinity On High, these are the best punk albums of 2007.

From Joy Division’s Peter Hook to Green Day’s Mike Dirnt, these are the 20 greatest punk-rock bassists of all time. See if your favorite made the list.

Nov. 20, 1980, after-dinner hour: England’s eyes were focused on Top Of The Pops, BBC’s long-running pop program, as they had every Thursday evening since the first day of 1964. In the middle of the rundown of the U.K.’s 30 best-selling singles appeared this apparition, resembling black leather Visigoths from a Hell’s Angels fever dream. […]

Los Angeles-based brand Babylon has partnered with Bad Brains for a new capsule collection. The collection celebrates the band’s 40-year legacy and features a slew of items, including everything from hoodies to woven blankets. It also includes a “DESTROY BABYLON” statue, sculpted and manufactured in LA. Read more: Babylon releases ‘jackass forever’ merch collection ahead […]

From Patti Smith and Joe Strummer to Iggy Pop and Keith Morris, see our list.

“Rock ‘n’ roll is supposed to be fun,” Sex Pistols singer Johnny Rotten told British rock journalist Charles Shaar Murray in 1977. “You’re supposed to enjoy it. It’s not about taking a million fucking years to learn a million fucking chords on the guitar.”  That clarion call — sounded as their anti-royalist diatribe “God Save […]

The seven-inch 45 RPM single was the perfect punk–rock medium, insofar as anything about a musical genre and culture as fly-by-the-seat-of-your-bondage-pants as punk can be designed. This is because it was originally rock ‘n’ roll’s perfect medium, and punk’s initial goal was reducing rock to its fundamentals. And if you restrict your presentation’s time to […]

2022 already feels like it’s flying by. Lucky for us, that means another issue of Alternative Press magazine is on the way. We’re excited to announce our February issue (#403), featuring multitalented sensation Dominic Fike on the cover. In the issue, Fike appears alongside a genre-spanning list of artists, including Korn, Dashboard Confessional, Shamir, Bad […]

Within minutes of speaking to Pink Siifu, it’s clear that he’s a student of music who’s bursting with ideas. He mentions Pink Floyd in the same breath as Alice Coltrane, rattling off several more names that delight and inspire him. Like those artists, Siifu’s music demonstrates the same breadth and richness, tilting between punk-inflected free […]

Four hundred issues after the very first book to carry our name ran off the printers back in 1985, we look back on 36 years of our favorite-ever AP covers, the stories they told and the secrets behind their creation. You can pick up an issue here, starring twenty one pilots. Read more: In issue […]

Forming in the early 1990s, H2O released several acclaimed records that have gone on to inspire generations of artists with their fast, energetic music paired with vocalist Toby Morse’s emotional lyrics that tackle subjects such as family, loss, friendship and staying true to your roots. Additionally, Morse is an outspoken animal rights activist, using his […]

In a world where bigotry has grown and isolation from digital screens amplified, IDLES strive to show love and empathy in the most in-your-face way possible. Fresh off their recent release, Crawler, the English quintet have released a music video for “When The Lights Come On.” The visual was co-directed by vocalist Joe Talbot and […]

One of punk rock’s original goals was “the destruction of rock ‘n’ roll.” While that didn’t happen, most early punk musicians were rock fans, in spite of their espoused rhetoric. Hence why most early pogo soundtracks were basically Chuck Berry with a Marshall amp. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But this is hardly […]

There are a lot of people out there who know what punk rock is but have no idea how to explain it to a novice or an outsider. It would seem simple enough to define it as “three-chord teenage rebel music,” but what about all those songs that have four or more chords? Or all […]

Welcome to Alternative Press’ selection of the 1980s’ 11 best punk drummers. One key factor happened that changed it, and the character of its musicianship: hardcore. ‘70s punk posited that Anyone Could Do It. While this was true on paper, some degree of basic musicianship was required to make truly great punk rock. This was […]

“People were commenting about this one photo I took of Marginal Man that was in the inner sleeve of their record [Identity, Dischord Records, 1984],” mused veteran Washington, D.C. punk/alt-rock photographer Jim Saah via telephone. He was reflecting on an exhibit at D.C.’s Lost Origins Gallery celebrating his new book In My Eyes: Photographs 1982-1997 […]

It’s been said in various ways that Washington, D.C. is the least punk town in the world, which perhaps makes it the perfect place for a punk scene. Certainly, the national capital’s first stabs at three-chord ‘70s teenage rebel music might challenge Johnny Ramone or Joe Strummer’s idea of the same. Among the earliest local […]