elastica

A history of Britpop, from Pulp to Oasis

“The Battle Of Britpop” In its Aug. 26, 1995 issue, venerable U.K. pop weekly NME reported, “In a week where news leaked that Saddam Hussein was preparing nuclear weapons, everyday folks were still getting slaughtered in Bosnia and Mike Tyson was making his comeback, tabloids and broadsheets alike went Britpop crazy.” Homegrown pop groups Blur […]

These are the 20 best English punk songs

To the outside world, punk rock was initially believed to be an English invention. Blame this on the Sex Pistols’ precocious ability to garner national and international headlines mere months after forming. The truth was, punk began in the early ‘70s with the off-center, jagged rock ‘n’ roll efforts of bands such as the New […]

The 10 best punk drummers of the '90s, from Dave Grohl to Tobi Vail

The ‘90s was the moment when the experiments wrestled control of the laboratory away from the scientists. Suddenly, punk rock — the ragged step-sibling of rock and pop — was squarely in the mainstream of culture, after years of ruling the underground. It spawned alternative music and the latter’s most successful subthread, grunge. Grunge was […]

11 singers who helped define the vocal style of punk rock in the ‘90s

The ‘90s: the decade punk went mainstream. First, SoundScan made radio safe for Nirvana and the grunge-ified hordes. Then Green Day and other pop-punk acts moved in and squatted at the top of the Billboard charts. True, it seemed to be finished two years later, only to be reinvigorated at the turn of the century. […]

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 Though it remains unpublished, I asked in the course of it what he thought of Rancid.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 […]

15 punk guitarists of the ’90s who paved the way for the genre’s future

Welcome to Alternative Press’ pick of the 15 best punk guitarists of the ’90s. One notable difference between this list and the other two we’ve compiled is the inclusion of several women. Punk did much to democratize rock ’n’ roll in the ’70s, with many pioneering all-female (the Runaways, the Slits) or mixed-gender lineups (X-Ray […]

These 10 Britpop tracks from the '90s were the UK antidote for grunge

This week, the British Broadcasting Company announced that Oasis’ 1995 hit “Wonderwall” was the biggest-selling Britpop track of that decade. Noel Gallagher wrote the song about “an imaginary friend who’s going to save you from yourself.” While it’s an amazing song, Britpop as a movement was something different altogether. More proud than pensive, clamorous than […]