My dad bought a Blondie compilation sometime in my teens. It was a double disc. So I feel like, to the extent I know Blondie, it is through that compilation. Had he bought it 10 years earlier, I would likely know all their hits very well. Alas, he bought it a few years before my …
Tag: Pop Punk
Love Bites (1978) by Buzzcocks
I am not a fan of the Buzzcocks. They are way too far on the pop side of the pop punk spectrum for me. (Yes, going by that, it’s safe to assume I don’t like pop punk.) I acknowledge their importance in the evolution of punk and particularly in pop punk, but I would just …
Road to Ruin (1978) by Ramones
Someone on RYM observed that this title is prophetic. They are likely far from the first person as this record is considered by serious Ramones fans to be the beginning of the end, as far as I can tell. Well I’m not a serious fan of the Ramones, but I am a serious fan of …
Can’t Stand the Rezillos (1978)
This is one of those second wave English punk albums that manages to win you over despite the fact that they are quite late to the party at this point.
Another Music in a Different Kitchen (1978) by Buzzcocks
Full disclosure: I don’t like the Buzzcocks. Until hearing this debut, I’d only ever heard A Different Kind of Tension and that record likely biased me towards this one and its importance.
On the Mouth (1993) by Superchunk
By reputation, I always thought No Pocky for Kitty was the Superchunk album to listen to. Then I listened to it and, though I appreciated why people like it, I didn’t love. I see the RYM rating is higher for this one. I think I know why. I mean, maybe I know why.
Milo Goes to College (1982) by Descendents
This is the point where hardcore starts to lose me: where the virtues of the genre are starting to give way to things more common to earlier punk or the later skate punk. It is very clearly the bridge between early hardcore and skate punk/pop punk but I don’t know that this is a thing …
White Trash, Two Heebs and a Bean (1992) by NOFX
There was a time in my life that I think I would have really liked the sophomoric humour of NOFX. Unfortunately for them, but probably fortunately for me, I was into Oldies and then into prog rock when I was a teenager, so there is no way I would have listened to a record like …
nimrod. (1997) by Green Day
People tell me this is Green Day’s diverse, experimental record. There’s some humour there in that description but from everything I’ve read, it is relatively diverse compared to their other ’90s albums. (I myself have only ever listened to Dookie.)
Full Circle (1997) by Pennywise
I don’t love 90s punk, I generally find it too polished and too formulaic for my tastes. I’m not sure what it adds to the legacy of hardcore and frankly it’s all too one note. You can get away with one-note when you’re doing something brand new, but when you are doing a slightly more …
No Pocky for Kitty (1991) by Superchunk
This is a set of solid songs that are uptempo and pleasantly loud. I get why this band was a big deal back then because, to my knowledge, this kind of straight-ahead abrasive power pop/pop punk was a relative rarity. But it’s not really my thing. It’s too one note for me, as much as …
The Other F Word (2011 Andrea Blaugrund Nevins)
The subject matter is interesting. There is certainly a movie to be made about the rash of “punk” musicians who are still playing music about defying authority who now live in large to gigantic homes, send their daughters to private schools, etc and yet still claim to have retained some kind of anti-authority stance. But …
Pinkerton by Weezer (1996 DGM)
One of the myths of my generation is that this is some kind of lost treasure. Because it wasn’t played on the radio upon its release like the debut was, and it didn’t sell as many copies as their very catchy debut, that it is somehow a ‘forgotten classic.’ Of course that’s not true, because …
Weezer (1994 Geffen)
It’s pretty much impossible to judge this in any kind of “objective” light nearly 20 years later. If you’re of my generation (i.e. born between ’75 and ’85) chances are you have heard 60%-70% of the songs on Weezer’s debut a million times, courtesy of your friends and the radio. This album is basically ubiquitous. …
Ramones (1976, GRT)
The Ramones’ debut album begs the question: can we determine greatness without looking at influence? If the Ramones released this album, and it didn’t influence half the rock musicians alive today (maybe a slight exaggeration) would we still consider it great? However, that is a stupid question. Albums are indeed released publicly and I personally …
Smash by the Offspring (Epitaph 1994)
Two things about this make it better than most other ’90s pop punk: the louder, hard rock guitars and the “social comment.” The Offspring were certainly more literate than Greenday (at least at the time). On the other hand, Dexter is a pretty terrible singer (which would be more acceptable if the music was faster) …
The Greatest Songs Ever Written (by Us) by NOFX (Epitaph 2004)
When I was a little more musically naive I used to believe that NOFX were preserving something, let’s call it the ‘essence of punk’ or something silly like that. I didn’t believe this because I listened to them, but rather because the guys I knew who were into punk (I wasn’t really into punk at …
Bleach by NIrvana (Sup Pop 1989)
Despite the near complete lack of songs, I really like this. It’s noisy and sloppy and generally wonderful. There are some serious problems in comparison to their later albums but this also has a charm that is missing from those. Fun. 7/10
From the Muddy Banks of Wishkah by Nirvana (Geffen 1996)
Most – or at least a majority of – live albums are compilations. It is fairly rare when an album is just a show (though the most famous – and best – live rock album in history is from one show, but that is the exception not the rule); far more often they are tour …
In Utero by Nirvana (Geffen 1993)
This is, to my ears, a significant improvement on their most famous album. First off, its better produced! Hooray! Much of the gloss is gone, thank science. Second, the songs are generally more mature. We still get a healthy dose of sentiments I can’t relate too but there are far more I can. And there’s …
Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge by My Chemical Romance (Reprise 2004)
Totally over the top, totally histrionic… and that’s okay. I mean, that’s sort of why it’s not shitty. There could be some terrible emo balladry here and there really isn’t any. Instead there’s just immediacy. It’s short, it’s “sweet” (kidding). It’s enjoyable. It’s not ATDI, but what could be? It would help if the guitarist …