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These 10 bands showcase the Ramones’ undying influence on music
Boston, Massachusetts, Sept. 25, 2021: The 1965 Mosrite Ventures II electric guitar played by Johnny Ramone on every Ramones album from 1977 onward and at 1,985 of their live shows sold at auction for $937,500. Not bad, considering the punk guitar architect paid $200 for it, after his original one he bought for $50 in […]
10 influential Australian punk bands who defined the nation’s current sounds
“Detroit is the capital of Australia.” That phrase got thrown around a lot in ’80s American fanzines as our underground discovered Australian punk’s loud-and-aggressive charms. The basic sound: U.S. protopunk, especially of the Stooges/MC5 variety, mixed with ’60s garage, played with thermonuclear energy through modern heavy metal amplification. There was also an especial appreciation for […]
10 essential punk Christmas songs to add to your holiday playlist
Christmas is quite possibly the most musically controversial holiday of the year. Not everyone digs the varying styles of seasonal music, though it’s a genre unto itself. You have the ancient carols, full of religious imagery, usually sung by hoary old choirs. The early 20th century’s awash with hokey Tin Pan Alley Christmas standards, sung […]
The best punk albums of 1987 are still setting fire to the underground
What a year 1987 was! Ronald Reagan was all all up in the Iran-Contra affair, but his Teflon psyche made sure none of the backlash stuck to him. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher brought uptight conservative rule to the U.K. for a third term. Ted Kaczynski (aka the Unabomber) came to notoriety as a domestic […]
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 […]
The best punk albums of 1986 were the sounds of rules being broken
1986 was a turning point for punk rock. Some people thought it should stay frozen in beer-soaked amber or it should sit the hell down. For a culture that proclaimed there were no rules, it felt like the punk-rock rulebook was going to go into its second or third editions. Fortunately, there were plenty of […]
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 […]
The best punk albums of 1984 were leaner, meaner and so much weirder
The Sex Pistols may have cheerfully sang “No future for you” back in 1977. But in the ’80s, an entire generation lived in fear that America and Russia would lob nuclear warheads at each other, making for a really MAD time. It’s only fitting that as American politics got more conservative, the underground would dig […]
These 15 punk albums from 1983 will still floor you decades later
In the ’80s, many a cloth-eared critic and social dullard thought punk was just a mindless fad. Here in 2020, we know better than our parents ever did. But there’s still time for them to catch up. Because these punk albums of 1983 haven’t lost any of their potency. This APTV video rundown shows exactly […]
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 […]
