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How Going Underground Kept Punk From "Breaking" in 1991

From pivotal, iconic venues in New York and California and the ubiquity of the house show, to the dramatic, intentional divorce from the highly lucrative hardcore/metal crossover scene, 1991 saw numerous DIY punk rock groups reinterpret a 14-year-old subculture with new and urgent relevance.
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Music

Punk Hybrids: Back in the Garage

Punk's idea(l)s may have been fostered in Art schools, but its musical foundations were cultivated in garages.

Music

Rebelling Against the Rebellion: British Punk's Second Coming

Louder, faster, angrier, and harder than punk ever sounded, second-wave punk in 1979 Britain kept the core instrumental ingredients but used and produced them in ways that boiled off any subtleties or sophistication.

Music

Darkness Illuminates: Goth Punk's Great Escapism

While goth punk's theatricality dramatizes concerns about depression and suicide amongst young people today, its safe spaces are inviting to the otherwise alienated and ostracized.

Music

Sunny War and Edith Crash Head to "The Place" (premiere)

Featuring Edith Crash, "The Place" is the buoyant, wispy new single from Sunny War that's releasing ahead of her forthcoming album, Shell of a Girl.

Books

Vivien Goldman's 'Revenge of the She-Punks' Doesn't Gloss the Reasons We Still Have to Rage

In her history of women in punk music, Revenge of the She-Punks, Vivien Goldman hefts the scene's virtues and the vices into one heap and concludes that some of it was necessary, some of it was fun, and some of it was evil.

Music

Brits in Hot Weather #15

This time we have shadowy, soulful house with a UK garage twist in the form of Quiet Man X Joy Anonymous, stuttering funk from Skinny Pelembe, downtempo synthpop from CC Honeymoon, fiery punk 'n' roll from Eyesore & the Jinx, and glam-infused psychedelia from Benedict Benjamin.

Music

Post-Punk: The Cerebral Genre

The punk spirit would likely have died but for the theoretical questions post-punk forced bands into answering.

Books

Jessica Hopper's 'Night Moves': Prose Poetry for the Punk Rock Masses

Jessica Hopper's Night Moves is a dozen thorny roses for the city that keeps blowing its windy-ness beneath her darkly comic wings.

Music

New Wave: Turning Rebellion into Money

If 1977 was New Wave's breakout year, by 1979 it had become an industry force, all but replacing punk as a viable vehicle or term of currency.

Music

Three Chords and the Truth: The Ramones, the Sex Pistols and the Clash

Ask most punk fans today to name their top ten punk songs and bands and it's likely that the Ramones, Sex Pistols and the Clash will still be there.

Music

Bourgeois Mystics Invite You to the Craziest Party of Your Life on "Jaan Pehechan Ho" (premiere)

Prepare to pop your conscious in a psychedelic tumble dryer and kiss goodbye to any shred of sanity you may have been saving for the weekend.

Music

Wire's 'Pink Flag', 'Chairs Missing', and '154' Resonate Decades Later

The first three albums from groundbreaking punk/post-punk band Wire still serve as a benchmark for what punk rock could be at its best as well as where underground music would go in the decades that followed.

Music

Supersonic Festival 2018 Highlights the Best in Experimental Music

The prominent Birmingham music festival Supersonic returned for three days of experimental goodness, partly curated this year by Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe.

Music

Here to Stay? The Neil Young Archives

Combining his punk ethos and tech savvy in this new online archive, Neil Young has to choose what archival releases add new understanding, new angles on the story, new points of emphasis in his own history -- and which do not.

Music

Say It Loud! 100 Great Protest Songs: Part 2 - Steve Reich to the Sex Pistols

PopMatters has scoured the musical spectrum for the best examples of the protest song form, including anthems of great popularity and obscurity alike. Stay tuned all week as we unveil the top 100.

Music

Classic Punk Band the Split Seconds Document Their Time Growing Up in DC on ​​New Album (album stream)

The Split Seconds channel their experiences into a tough, street savvy mix of the crisp, melodic punk power of the Buzzcocks, the working class spirit of Stiff Little Fingers and the activism of the Clash.

Music

Damn Jackals Get Dangerous With "Crooked Castle" (premiere)

Brooklyn quintet Damn Jackals give us the shivers on "Crooked Castle" from upcoming their full-length.

Music

Burning Britain: A Story of Independent UK Punk 1980-1983

This four-CD sequel to 2016's Action Time Vision box set shows that UK punk burned brighter and hotter when it moved underground.

Music

Ike Reilly Makes Not-Quite Love Song From Heavy Air Via "She Haunts My Hideouts" (premiere)

Ahead of new LP, Crooked Love, Ike Reilly gives listeners a glimpse into his fast-moving mind with "She Haunts My Hideouts".

Jedd Beaudoin
Music

Nobody Asked Mean Jeans to Write Two Dozen Ad Jingles

But they did it anyway and put it out as an album.

Music

The Last Punks Standing: The Damned Team With Bowie's Producer for 'Evil Spirits'

They were the first and at this rate, they'll probably be the last. The least hip band of UK punk's first wave outlast the competition by 30-plus years and make a polished rock album.

Music

Svalbard on the Plight of the "Unpaid Intern" (premiere)

Svalbard turns pen into sword via single from English band's upcoming, It's Hard to Have Hope.

Music

High Up Reach for the Moon on Emotionally Intense Soul Gem "Blue Moon" (premiere)

"Blue Moon", the latest track from High Up's forthcoming debut album, You Are Here, is a plaintive, slow-burning soul ballad that highlights the effortless, intimate majesty of singer Christine Fink's voice.

Music

Various Artists: To the Outside of Everything: A Story of UK Post Punk 1977 - 1981

This definitive, five-CD anthology is a challenging and enlightening listen, a triumph of curatorship that provides near-encyclopedic insight into this important chapter of UK popular music history.

Music

Protomartyr and the Paradise Papers of a Developing Nation

Protomartyr's story of the USA is the "Paradise Papers" of a country that officially considers itself a developed nation but in fact is developing in the wrong direction -- and everyone knows it.

Music

Metz: Strange Peace

On the band's third album, there is a constant search for a frequency that is thrilling and a commitment to it.

Music

The Slits: Return of the Giant Slits

The post-punk pioneers' second album gets a reissue/remaster, but its anarchy and tumult still sounds one step too beyond (just as it did in 1981).

Music

Deerhoof: Mountain Moves

Deerhoof has been cranking out vital, multifaceted music for decades, and their latest album shows no signs of the band slowing down.

Music

Juiceboxxx: Freaked Out American Loser

Juiceboxxx offers a self-portrait of maybe the most energetic and gregarious loner "freak" ever to put an album on tape.

Music

Mo Kenney - "Maybe I Am" (audio) (premiere)

An exciting blend of alternative/pop rock that feels both poetic and punky, "Maybe I Am" is sure to get stuck in your head.


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