Recently in Punk Category

Live from New York City's CMJ Music Festival, here's our exclusive chat with Janet Weiss and Rebecca Cole from fantastic art-punk band Wild Flag, wherein they discuss inspiring scores of young female rockers, "building a sense of mystery," and their unquenchable love for Bill Withers. Enjoy.

Demolished Thoughts may just be Thurston Moore's Sea Change -- an apt comparison, since Beck himself sat as producer. Moore's noisier ambitions are mostly left in the dust as he strums an acoustic and paints some of his most personal vignettes to date. The album's best supporting characters are Mary Lattimore's harp and Samara Lubelski's violin, soothing and assuring Moore through sleepy hymns ("Benediction," "Illuminine"), giving urgency to his darkest moments ("Circulation," "Mina Loy"), and adding instant drama to his cinematic twists and turns ("Blood Never Lies," "Orchard Street"). [Stephanie Benson] Hear It Now!

Pop punk is one big, fat oxymoron if you think about it, but if The Ramones were the first punk band, then "Blitzkrieg Bop'" and their obvious affection for teenybopper pop also made them the first pop punk band. Punk, in its earthiest of roots, may just be poppier than any self-aware devotee would ever admit. But since The Ramones, the genre branched off into several differing sectors, some more snot-nosed and anarchic than others. This Cheat Sheet highlights more of the latter: groups that nail the requisite sneer but add irresistible pop charm that even a mom could love (well, maybe), full of punks more likely to scream about orgasm addictions, getting stoned in the afternoon, suburban stagnancy and losing their nose-ringed sweetheart than any unjust isms. Starting with 1976's Ramones, we travel through time and highlight 20 of pop punk's most successful and influential albums to see how the genre has grown, changed and thrived.

Click here to listen to my playlist: Cheat Sheet: A Pop Punk Timeline.


The Ramones
Ramones (1976)
Forget about "Anarchy in the U.K.": Punk started the minute the needle hit "Blitzkrieg Bop." The Ramones' debut has it all: buzz saw guitar riffs, insanely catchy tunes and an obvious love for 1960s teen pop. Their original "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend" is even more authentic than the cover of "Let's Dance." The extra demos show they had it from the start. — Nick Dedina

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Signing with a major label may have come as a let-down to Green Day's doting underground fanbase. But those screaming "Sellout!" were quickly drowned out by Dookie's unprecedented success, largely due to major exposure on MTV and radio. The recognition was every bit earned, though, and the album spawned such hits as "Longview," "Welcome to Paradise," "Basket Case" and "When I Come Around." At a time when grunge was ruling the roost, Green Day's playful pop-punk provided a hookier, droller outlet for any kid who's ever felt a tinge of boredom, disillusionment or lack of motivation. —Stephanie Benson Hear It Now!

Teaming up with troubled genius Phil Spector, who reportedly drew a gun on the band during recording sessions, The Ramones attempted to make a commercially minded album, one that bridged the gulf between New York punk rock and the classic 1960s pop of their youth. Wildly hyped at the time of its release in 1980, End of the Century is an uneven affair. Not surprisingly, Spector's wall-of-sound production style lacks focus. That said, on "Do You Remember Rock N' Roll Radio?", as well as "The Return of Jackie and Judy" and The Ronettes' "Baby, I Love You," the band totally nails the concept. —Justin Farrar Hear It Now!

Released in fall 2000, New Found Glory's major-label debut has acted as a business model of sorts for pop-punk groups, influencing bands like the Starting Line, Fall Out Boy and Yellowcard. Featuring the upbeat track "Hit or Miss," New Found Glory runs along a route that's more pop-influenced than punk. Embodying the "easy-core" style that N.F.G. had been crafting since the late '90s, the approach would bring them a great amount of mainstream appeal. — Richard Iwanik-Marques Hear It Now!

A couple of years ago I was programming a new Rhapsody radio station to complement our New Wave channel. Since it was called ‘80s Alternative, I was loading it up with hundreds of songs from the 1980s (no duh!). Picking songs for this station was easy as can be — after all, this was the era I grew up in. But when I listened to the station I knew that something was wrong.

When I looked into what was missing, I discovered that much essential '80s alternative music, from New Wave and synth pop to British art rock and N.Y.C. art punk, actually came out in the late 1970s and was on heavy rotation deep into the next decade. Limiting the station to songs released from 1980 through 1989 only told part of the story. The records from ’79 just kept multiplying until it looked like a watershed year ... in the '80s.

Just looking at the releases that came out in 1979 was awe-inspiring — The Specials, Joy Division, The Cars, The B-52s and Joe Jackson all had debuts, while Elvis Costello and The Police started making real headway into the American mainstream. (Nick Lowe actually scored the biggest Top 40 hit single with "Cruel to Be Kind," but for some strange reason he did not sustain the mass Blondie-style commercial appeal he deserved.) Gary Numan released two (!!) synth classics with Replicas and The Pleasure Principle; O.M.D. put out the equally trend-setting single “Electricity,” and The Human League were about to get more pop oriented.

Ms. Avril Lavigne's latest, Goodbye Lullaby, is a rather somber, serious affair -- the most adult (and adult-alt) effort we've ever heard from the Sk8r Boi-loving Canadian, which makes sense, given that, well, she's a grownup and one who's been through a divorce at that. But you know what's packed in all that baggage, don't you? A rakish necktie, a ratty tee and a tube of eyeliner. Or at least, based on Goodbye's boi-baiting, "screw you, monogamy" of a lead single, "What the Hell," it sure sounds like Avril's still got a lot of Mall Punk in her.

So what do we mean by Mall Punk, exactly? In some senses, it's basically a synonym for pop-punk: music that shoots the snarling guitars and spikier attitudes of old-school punk through with pop hooks, danceable beats and a somewhat charts-friendly vibe. But there's also a specifically sartorial/shopping aspect of this brat we call Mall Punk: a distinct, commodifiable fashion, perhaps, or an overarching interest in style. Above all else, this is the kind of pop-punk that just sounds like it ought to be blasting out of the smart phones and car stereos of kids on their way to waste the afternoon just hanging out in the mall. Which brings us to the final nuance: Mall Punk also refers to the fans of this music, the "damn kids" loitering near the FroYo stand, the "rotten punks" shoplifting from the Sunglass Hut, the Warped Tour-tee-clad cadre blowing their allowance at Hot Topic. The kind of kid who snarls and sneers in public, then goes back to the subdivision for a nice, home-cooked meal and a round of door-slamming fights with the parents. Kids, consider this Mall Punk Cheat Sheet your own personal Cliff's Notes to the angsty, acne-riddled years.

Relive glory days and yesteryears with the debut of a new weekly Rhapsody series titled Senior Year. We've handpicked tracks from specific years and put together playlists dedicated to everyone from goths to bathroom smokers to urban cowboys to Catholic school dance attendees. Dig into our first installment of Senior Year, spotlighting the classes of 1963, 1974, 1980, 1984 and 1988. Stay tuned for more high school nostalgia with a new playlist each week.

	1988: After-School Rap Videos			1984: Catholic School Dance
	1984: Goth Night			1980: Boots, Blouses and Belt Buckles
	1974: Smokin' in the Boys' Room			1963: The Prom

For three decades Social Distortion has been raking roots-rock over punk's hot coals. The band (along with The Replacements) foresaw the rise of The Hold Steady and other 21-century indie bands digging Springsteen's America. Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes is another solid entry in Social D's discography. Full of scratchy guitars and boisterous twang, it's their most country-flavored effort since 1992's Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell. Main man Mike Ness' love for the catharsis of flight never seems to wane: "We can run to the far side of nowhere/ We're gonna run until the days are gone." — Justin Farrar Hear It Now!

It was as if nobody wanted to admit it was 2010. MGMT released a paean to '60s psyche, Ariel Pink looked back at the '70s and '80s through rose-colored, lo-fi glasses and Broken Bells and Cee-Lo dipped their buckets in the ever-deepening well of '70s soul. LCD Soundsystem plundered '80s avant disco, while Robyn revisited the halcyon days of Swedish pop. On the other end, Janelle Monae peered into the future and saw messianic robots, while Flying Lotus crafted an album that mined the sublime amidst fractured electro future shock. The albums that strained for the zeitgeist -- Kanye West's angry, self-obsessed Fantasy and Arcade Fire's meditation on the mundane crunch of suburban life -- were the most emotionally desperate and revealing. There was more great music, as always, and we've compiled our top 50 albums right here.

Also, be sure to check out our list of the top tracks of the year here.


50.
School of Seven Bells
Disconnect from Desire
Disconnect From Desire sounds like it was recorded in either a church filled with synths or a goth club haunted by the ghost of Siouxsie and the Banshees. The band's sophomore album is not a great departure from its first, though the tracks here are slightly more polished. "Heart Is Strange" has the flirty fun of a Goldfrapp song, while tracks like "I L U" and "Camarilla" have all the elements of a Cocteau Twin dream. The hypnotic coos of identical twins Alejandra and Claudia Deheza are nothing but transfixing, as cool to the touch as Benjamin Curtis' dark, jittery guitar and synths. — Stephanie Benson

Albums:

50-31 |

30-11 |

10-1

30.
Matthew Dear
Black City
After his left turn with 2007's Asa Breed, there are no great surprises on Matthew Dear's Black City. Once again, it sounds like he's spent many a long, dark night holed up in his studio, channeling David Bowie and Ian Curtis through the mic while he fiddles with wine-soaked synthesizers. There's more of a full-band feel here, with ropy electric bass lines and daubs of electric guitar, but it's typically broken into off-kilter electronic rhythms. Even in its moments of disco abandon, Dear's Black City is a claustrophobic place to live. — P.S.

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29.
M.I.A.
MAYA
Much has been made of M.I.A.'s "terrorist" tendencies, a reputation she exacerbates on album three. MAYA* is an aural assault, battering the listener with a barrage of repetitive lyrics and sometimes grating waves of sound. This is an album that is designed to alienate. Yet "Born Free"'s high-octane dissonance is, if not likable, then energizing. And fascinating (once your ears stop ringing) pockets of sweetness and quiet exist: the electro-dancehall "It Takes a Muscle" (a cover of '80s Dutch group Spectral Display), the Bollywood-meets-sacred-harp "Tell Me Why." — Rachel Devitt