ska

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.

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. Which explains their inclusion on this list, rather […]

Hyperpop’s dynamic duo 100 gecs have officially released “mememe,” their first single from the forthcoming album 10000 gecs.  After performing the song live during their ongoing tour and teasing a snippet on social media,  fans are finally able to experience the melodic madness themselves. The song blends together chiptune, ska and hyperpop into the chaotically […]

Berkeley’s Rancid, history’s most commercially successful street punk band, also have deep-running ska/rock steady/reggae roots. After all, both singer/guitarist Tim Armstrong and bassist Matt Freeman got their start in 924 Gilman Street heroes Operation Ivy, who almost single-handedly invented ska-core. Don’t buy it? Listen to “Sound System” and you tell us. With such a pedigree, […]

“We’re the Interrupters! We’re from Los Angeles, California!” the young guitarist announces over a fanfare, as the camera pulls back and reveals a four-piece band, plus a singer, and a crush of throbbing humanity in a tiny space. “And this first song is a protest song, but it’s also a unity song. Because there’s no […]

Born and raised in Florida, Matthew Tyler Musto—these days better known as blackbear—has been making music, and making music his life, since at least 2006.  With five studio albums and seven EPs under his belt (or should that be pelt?), releasing his latest extended play, misery lake, Aug. 13, this year finds blackbear riding high […]

311 are in the midst of a major tour with special guests Iration and Iya Terra, taking them on the road to over three dozen U.S. cities. The band also will be livestreaming select shows via their streaming platform, 311 Streamsystem. Additionally, they recently announced three shows over Halloween weekend, including an appearance at The […]

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 had just issued their fifth album, Nimrod. The Offspring, the band who made the catchphrase […]

This past March 5, the French punk label Guerilla Asso quietly slipped a genius album into the marketplace: Rocket To Kingston, credited to Bobby Ramone. The melding of the isolated vocal tracks from nine of Bob Marley’s most deathless classics to edited Ramones backing tracks, it sounds like a joke on paper. The cover even […]

You don’t have to look back at the Hot Topic crowd’s fixation with Hello Kitty to see the influence of Japanese culture on the alternative scene. The music speaks for itself. We’ve already taken you around the Western world—from Canada to the U.K. and even out to Australia—in our examination of new, prominent forces in pop-punk music. Now, it’s time to set our […]

Fueled By Ramen has signed some of the most talented alternative bands and musicians to date. With 25 years of greatness under its belt, now is the opportune moment to look back at its incredible discography. In 1996, John Janick joined forces with Vinnie Fiorello of Less Than Jake and brought the label to life. […]

Next year, No Doubt’s iconic debut self-titled album officially turns 30. Naturally, whenever a historic anniversary for the band rolls around, reunion rumors begin to spread. During a new Apple Music interview with Zane Lowe, Gwen Stefani weighed in on if a No Doubt reunion could happen. As well, she opened up about her new […]

Remember the time Hootie And The Blowfish performed on NBC’s Friends and Monica even wound up getting a hickey from one of the band members at a meet and greet after the concert? Of course you do. You probably also remember that the band actually didn’t play on the show and, even worse, weren’t seen […]

1998 really wasn’t that long ago, but after saying the number 2021 out loud, it feels like it happened during another lifetime. To put things in perspective, Billie Eilish was born three years after 1998, and, hell, even FINNEAS was born the year before. Despite the fact that said year was toward the end of […]

The good old days of the closest Broadway ever coming to a rock ’n’ roll experience being Jesus Christ Superstar or Hair are long gone and have been for a long time. While those shows did, and still do, rock and can even be viewed as a harbinger of things to come, the headbanging on […]

The year is 2001. The middle school bus stops by your house in 10 minutes as you hastily smudge on frosted lip gloss, grab your tattoo choker necklace and add an extra gem to your jeans’ bedazzled pocket. Trucker hats and studded belts are all the rage. In some ways, times are simpler.  Pop punk […]

It’s easy to mistake the foundations of pop punk as being laid in the 2000s. After all, that’s when the mainstream radio takeover of the genre occurred. As it turns out, though, we really have the ’90s to thank for our favorite artists and albums.  With the meteoric rise of bands such as Nirvana and […]

If we could identify one incandescent moment to come out of the coronavirus pandemic, it would have to be having large stretches of time to listen to albums. Yes, in 2020, most of us binged on Netflix and chilled the best we could. But streaming services made access to music downright infinite. We could finally […]