best punk albums
These 15 punk albums from 2001 brought the genre back into the spotlight
How the year 2001 unfolded must’ve deeply disappointed Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, director and co-author, respectively, of 1968’s masterly sci-fi film 2001: A Space Odyssey. For one thing, the space race had petered out aeons ago, and NASA had walked back its most ambitious dreams. In the meantime, we discovered there were bigger […]
These 15 classic albums made 1996 a crucial year in punk history
1996: President Bill Clinton was squaring off against Kansas Sen. Bob Dole in a successful bid for a second term in the White House. On April 3, former math professor Ted Kaczynski was arrested in his remote Montana cabin, suspected (correctly, it turns out) to be American domestic terrorist the Unabomber. Conservative public policy bulwark […]
15 albums from 1995 that are a perfect gateway into the world of punk
In 1996, Your Punk Professor interviewed the Clash’s distinguished lead guitarist Mick Jones for a proposed Alternative Press piece on punk’s original guitar heroes. Though it remains unpublished, I asked in the course of it what he thought of Rancid. Jones waxed effusive, noting he’d met the Berkeley punk traditionalists in the course of a […]
These 15 albums from 1991 laid the foundation for punk as we know it
Welcome to Alternative Press’ pick of the 15 best punk albums of 1991. It was a momentous year, one in which underground culture burst into the mainstream, taking punk and all its offshoots with it. Blame it on one album: Nirvana’s Nevermind. Many punkier-than-thou types will moan when seeing this album’s inclusion. They’d be denying […]
These 15 punk albums of 1990 set the tone for the decade
Welcome to the best punk albums of 1990. True, the Sunset Strip glam metallers’ omnipresence seemingly denied punk ever happened. Oddly, the bands all wore shredded Sex Pistols or Ramones T-shirts, grasping for some sorta punk credibility. They’d never get it. That was more speed metal’s province. Yet, speed-metal kings Metallica, who continually cited punk […]
These 15 punk albums from 1989 ended the ’80s loudly
Welcome to Alternative Press’ 15 best punk albums of 1989. It’s easy to look at the final year of the decade and see it as transitional. But there are portents of the future all over this list. Yet, truth be told, haven’t we seen that with all these lists? As we’ve worked on this series, […]
These 15 punk albums from 1988 helped shape alternative rock's future
Welcome to Alternative Press’ list of the best punk albums from 1988. Which, at the time, would have had most folks scratching their heads. After all, in 1988, the entire world thought punk rock was dead. Look at the charts: Guns N’ Roses and the more lightweight Sunset Strip glam-metal acts were defining “rock ’n’ […]
These 15 punk albums of 1987 brought more noise and power than ever
Welcome to the best punk albums of 1987. But first, some context. Feb. 20, 1987: An attack by a domestic terrorist called “the Unabomber” plants a bomb in a Salt Lake City computer store. The owner is injured. March 4: President Ronald Reagan owns up to what was swiftly called the Iran-Contra Affair in a […]
These 15 punk albums of 1986 mutated the underground even further
1986 was the year that speed metal and crossover (metal/core a la Cro-Mags’ The Age Of Quarrel) metastasized across the now-stale hardcore scene. The true sound of mid-’80s punk was the seeds of pop punk. Hüsker Dü were the kings of this, although Descendents really are the square root of every band who eventually played […]
These 15 punk albums from 1985 are the roots of alternative rock
The year is 1985: Punk’s now 10 years old and changing again. Hardcore was now a formula: 1. Pick a seemingly random number of initials for your name (Say, SRI – Social Reagan Injustice); 2. Play at light speed. 3. Sing about how you hate Reagan and nuclear war. 4. Shave your head. Like rock […]
These 14 punk albums of 1984 made the year heavier and meaner
First, some background about the motives of punk albums of 1984. Jello Biafra, in the Dead Kennedys‘ masterly 1979 debut single “California Über Alles,” predicted 1984 as the year presidential hopeful Jerry Brown‘s “suede/denim secret police” would be “knock-knock(ing) at your front door” to haul “your uncool niece” to a reeducation camp because “Zen fascists […]
The 15 best punk albums of 1983 include eternal hardcore classics
1983: Hardcore rules, OK—at least if it comes from America. England was mired in the nü pop of Culture Club and Duran Duran as its punk scene further slipped into shitty versions of what Motörhead did brilliantly. Not to say a similarly boneheaded ethic wasn’t starting to slip into U.S. hardcore. But the best of […]
These 15 punk albums from 1982 continue to bring the fire to this day
Welcome to the top punk albums of 1982. Ronald Reagan‘s been president for a year. His distaff British stunt double Margaret Thatcher‘s been prime minister a few years longer. Between the two of them cutting the legs out of their respective nation’s economies and eroding freedoms, punk had plenty of grist for the songwriting mill. […]
These 15 punk records from 1981 have some of the year’s best music
1981 was the year hardcore engulfed everything punk. Skanking pit warriors swarmed a stage at the Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles. England had its own equivalent—the Exploited, GBH, Discharge. But none of the mile-high Mohican British bands could touch what was coming out of America. And we have the punk-rock records to prove it. Yet, […]
These 15 punk records from 1980 were complete game-changers
By 1980, U.S. major labels abandoned punk with Sid Vicious‘ corpse. The American underground reacted, hard: “Don’t want us? Fuck you, we’ll do it ourselves!” The independent record distribution and touring network kicked off in earnest, as the harder/faster/louder hardcore punk sound started revving up, initially in Los Angeles before spreading across America through the […]
15 punk-rock albums of 1979 that still rule four decades later
By 1979, punk was firmly established. Seemingly, a million new bands formed weekly, releasing great singles seconds later. But some of the old guard were starting to feel constrained by angry teenage ramalama. Where else punk could go? These are the best punk-rock albums of 1979. As bands such as the Clash and the Damned […]
The top 15 punk albums of 1978 that still rock today
Punk in 1978: The Sex Pistols broke up in San Francisco and were about to become an asset in a legal battle, despite “new” material being issued. The Damned also dissolved and then reassembled as the Doomed, with Captain Sensible moving to lead guitar and Motörhead’s Lemmy briefly on bass before realizing they’d fare better […]
Top 15 punk LPs of 1977 that undeniably defined the year
Punk festered the entire ’70s: The Stooges and New York Dolls cleared the field as all the misfits on the margins waited their turn, marinating in a stew of poverty, filth, midnight John Waters screenings, scratchy thrift-store garage and rockabilly 45s, ancient dimestore William S. Burroughs paperbacks and clothes stolen out of Goodwill dumpsters, then […]
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