Ranking the Sum 41 Albums: From Pop-Punk to Thrash Metal
With eight records across a 27-year discography, each of Sum 41’s albums have ranged widely in style from pop-punk to thrash metal.
punk
Country Westerns’ ‘Forgive the City’ Bristles With Punk Energy and Barroom Rockers
Country Westerns’ music is tight, propulsive, and unafraid to meld genres. Their “punk chutzpah with classic rock sheen” is unafraid of country and blues flavors.
The Kids Are Alt-Right: How Punk Got Co-opted by Fascism
Like political populism, punk’s traits and tenets are sufficiently vague, contradictory, and unmoored to be vulnerable to co-option by all political opportunists—including the fascist alt-right.
Black Flag’s ‘Damaged’ and the Hardcore Hope of “Rise Above”
Black Flag’s Damaged is a valuable document of the past as well as a prophetic testimony to the values of present and future hardcore punk music.
Model Citizen Take Us Back to the Garage
Alabama’s Model Citizen boast a pair of Drive-By Truckers and punk rock bonafides on the loud and proud new album, Live at Dial Back Sound.
Shame Move Beyond Post-Punk on the Euphoric ‘Food for Worms’
Post-punk revivalists Shame’s Food for Worms shows a band unafraid to move beyond their sound. The result is anthemic, pulverizing, thoughtful, and expansive.
Shonen Knife Endure with ‘Our Best Place’
Japanese pop-punkers Shonen Knife recognize their perceived novelty to outsiders and utilize it to their advantage: cute and zany as a means of empowerment.
Pub Rock Guitarist Wilko Johnson Was an Inspiration to a Generation of “Twitchy Dorks”
Guitarist Wilko Johnson of pub rock band Dr. Feelgood created a polyrhythmic down-and-up chop on open chords that inspired Paul Weller (the Jam), Hugh Cornwell (the Stranglers), and Jon King (Gang of Four) – and many more.
Warm and Cool: Thoughts on Television’s Tom Verlaine (1949-2023)
Tom Verlaine’s death symbolizes the continued denouement of a certain period of New York City history, a time when the word “bohemian” still held some meaning.
Fucked Up Are Just Fine on ‘One Day’
Fucked Up’s One Day possesses a brightness and sense of happiness that’s addictive and optimistic, even if the lyrics at times insinuate the opposite.
Show Me the Body’s ‘Trouble the Water’ Is an Empowering Proclamation for Truth and Action
Brooklyn-based hardcore band Show Me the Body strive to escape banality and preach for the sake of the outcasts on Trouble the Water.
Never Mind the Sex Pistols: ‘Never Mind the Bullocks’ at 45
The Sex Pistols’ Never Mind the Bollocks is a solid album of the punk era, but it neither reflects the most explosive music of the era nor the most creative.
