the jam

20 greatest punk-rock bassists of all time

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.

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 15 best punk albums of 2002, from Sleater-Kinney to the Used

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 […]

Rancid's Lars Frederiksen on solo debut EP 'To Victory'

Lars Frederiksen is one of the most influential figures in American punk-rock history. Frederiksen has been the co-vocalist and guitarist for Bay Area punk legends Rancid for over 30 years. In addition, Frederiksen has also been a member of bands such as Lars Frederiksen And The Bastards, the Old Firm Casuals and many others. His […]

Gang Of Four on what they learned from James Brown, COVID-19 and more

Welcome to the second installment of our exclusive two-part conversation with Leeds, U.K. post-punk icons Gang Of Four, represented by singer Jon King and drummer Hugo Burnham. We learned last time what the Marxist funkateers picked up from organizing political demonstrations and seeing early punk bands in the student refectory as Leeds University students. We […]

10 times different artists collaborated to make inspiring music

September 1963: A young R&B combo called the Rolling Stones are rehearsing, preparing for a recording session. Their manager, former Beatles publicist Andrew Loog Oldham, was tearing his hair out. They were about to record their second single, a follow-up to their modestly successful remake of Chuck Berry’s “Come On.” But they had one problem: […]

10 reasons why Oasis are the most influential Britpop band of all time

Britpop was the sound of England taking back rock ‘n’ roll after American grunge and alt rock had annexed the world’s airwaves and charts for the first half of the ‘90s. Vox amps, Union Jacks, 1964 Paul McCartney haircuts, Ben Sherman shirts and Chelsea boots became all the rage, as bands plundered their British Invasion, […]

How punk and reggae united and went "outernational" to rule the world

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 […]

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 […]

10 guitarists who brought punk rock firmly into the 2000s

As we exited the ’90s and entered the new millennium, pop divas, prefabricated boy bands and rappers bragging about conspicuous consumption and how poorly they treated women ruled the airwaves. Meanwhile, what passed for “rock” was the white guys who beat you up in high school P.E. class who’d discovered hip-hop and figured it’d sound […]

21 Northern Californian artists who have influenced AFI’s Hunter Burgan

Southern California gets a lot of credit for being the birthplace of many bands that you know and love such as Black Flag and Bad Religion, but Northern California’s discography, which includes both Green Day and Metallica, isn’t exactly that shabby either. The area may get a little less public affirmation, but hopefully we can […]

“TOP 10 HABITS OF HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE” as told by Hot Knife

Brooklyn pop-punk quartet Hot Knife are here to stick it to the corporate elite in their brand-new track “TOP 10 HABITS OF HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE.” The band are exclusively premiering the riffy and sarcastic song with AltPress. The single comes from their forthcoming five-track EP Dread, due April 20 via Black Numbers. The EP was […]

These 15 punk records from 1980 were complete game-changers

By 1980, U.S. major labels abandoned punk with Sid Vicious‘ corpse. The American underground reacted, hard: “Don’t want us? Fuck you, we’ll do it ourselves!” The independent record distribution and touring network kicked off in earnest, as the harder/faster/louder hardcore punk sound started revving up, initially in Los Angeles before spreading across America through the […]

Top 15 punk LPs of 1977 that undeniably defined the year

Punk festered the entire ’70s: The Stooges and New York Dolls cleared the field as all the misfits on the margins waited their turn, marinating in a stew of poverty, filth, midnight John Waters screenings, scratchy thrift-store garage and rockabilly 45s, ancient dimestore William S. Burroughs paperbacks and clothes stolen out of Goodwill dumpsters, then […]