joan jett

In the 1990s, a pro-choice benefit album Choice: The Freedom Remix was set to feature an all-star cast. Years later, the album still hasn't been fully released, but is as relevant as ever.

Putting to rest their pop image, Demi Lovato has entered their rock era. In conversation with AP, Lovato breaks down HOLY FVCK — the return to their roots.

Ska has a rich history, and the Interrupters are leading the charge for the new gen. The band open up about their most personal album yet, In The Wild.

“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 thei...

The hype about punk rock has always been that anyone can do it. This has resulted in misguided notions that musicianship is absent from punk. Truth be told, you only stand out in this scene if you can really play. Nothing grates eardrums harder than a punk band with no chops...

Fresh Produce Media and Audible have launched the Punk in Translation: Latinx Origins podcast. The project “tells the stories of Latinx artists and Latin music's overlooked role in the origins and evolution of punk,” according to a press release. Additio...

In 1991, Anita Hill testified before a Senate Judiciary Committee about being the target of sexual harassment from African-American judge Clarence Thomas at his Supreme Court confirmation hearing. The hearings were televised, and Hill’s lurid testimony sent bolts of shock and disgust across an America yet to become completely tabloidized. When...

It’s often difficult to figure out an artist’s true identity at face value. Press interviews and social media offer a more transparent lens into the worlds of our favorite artists. Even so, the bigger — and more complicated — picture can often remain out of view. Because these intimate...

The most notable aspect of punk rock in 2002 was the mainstream ascension of garage for the first time since the ‘60s. But all those albums by the Strokes, the White Stripes and the Hives that went mega this year were all recorded and released in 2002. Whic...

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 the...

“Energy, good energy and bad energy/I've got plenty of energy,” Amy Taylor wails seconds into Melbourne, Australia aggro-punks Amyl And The Sniffers’ freshly released second LP, Comfort To Me. “It’s my currency,” she sings on that opening track, “Guided By Angels.” Indeed, the band—Taylor, drummer Bryce ... Read More ...

Alternative Press’ native home of Cleveland, Ohio, stands alongside New York City and London as one of punk’s birthplaces. Yet, few outside of U.K. music journalist Jon Savage, in his crucial ‘70s punk history England’s Dreaming, acknowledge this. But how could Clevelan...

Elvis Presley portrayed by actor Michael St. Gerard performing “Baby Let’s Play House” in 1955 in the 1990 ABC TV series “Elvis”: Rockabilly is the original punk rock, from back in the dawn of rock ‘n’ roll in the 1950s. Nothing is more rebellious and life-affi...

1997: All media is declaring the alternative-rock explosion—for which Nirvana lit the fuse—over. This means the commercial pop-punk wave Green Day touched off was over in their eyes, too. That selfsame media could not have been more wrong. Green Day ...

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. Pop ...

A greasy R&B riff rips from the speakers, coated in more fuzz than a peach orchard wearing a 50-year-old wool sweater. A singer with a sneer that could wilt Elvis’ upper lip indicates he’s gonna tell you a story about his town. He snarls abou...

Important people in music aren’t just behind the microphone, drums or keyboard. They’re also slaving away on Pro Tools, tweaking audio and making the band sound better.  The late Jerry Finn produced Sum 41, blink-182, MxPx and dozens of others in the early 2000s. Tom Lord-Alge m...

Lester Bangs, the greatest rock journalist ever, felt eternal Lower East Side musical royals the Velvet Underground were “our Beatles and Bob Dylan combined” and that “modern music begins” with them. He wasn’t wrong. They existed only for a hand...

The idea of compiling a list of the greatest punk singers of the ‘80s might seem a bit odd. After all, this was when hardcore rose and quickly dominated all things punk. And let’s face it: Hardcore vocalists are more noted for bellowing than actual singing, per se. Not that l...

Han Mee and Jim Shaw took a big risk when they quit their jobs in the music industry to start Hot Milk. But soon enough, the Manchester-based band, rounded out by bassist Tom Paton and drummer Harry Deller, were supporting bands such as Foo Fighters and You Me At Six...