the hard-ons

From Joy Division’s Peter Hook to Green Day’s Mike Dirnt, these are the 20 greatest punk-rock bassists of all time. See if your favorite made the list.

“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 […]

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’ […]

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 […]

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 […]