411 Music Ten Deep 10.02.09: Top Ten Punk Rock Albums

Posted by Andrew Moll on 10.02.2009

From Never Mind the Bollocks to Raw Power to London Calling, check out the list of the Top Ten Punk Rock Albums in this week's edition of 411 Music Ten Deep!


(Disclaimer: All opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of 411 Music and its staff.)


Hello everybody and welcome to the eleventh edition of 411 Music Ten Deep, and let me say this; How ‘bout that Justin Timberlake?! That's what we call living the life, boys and girls. But enough about that, since we have a brand new column this week with a whole new list just ready to be read, examined and debated. However there's something to get to before that, and that's the feedback received from last's week's column on my Top Ten Favorite Pearl Jam songs.





We actually start this off this week with an e-mail I received from Chris Jones:

Hi there,

I enjoyed your article!

They played in Vancouver on Friday night. Everyone was hoarse from a
ROUSING singalong of "Elderly woman... small town" Thought you might
wanna post someting about this on your site. They donated $20,000 from
that gig to the Terry Fox Foundation.

http://www.theprovince.com/Pearl%20good%20ever/2035829/story.html

If you don't know, Terry Fox was a man with a prosthetic leg who ran across Canada to raise money for cancer research before succumbing to the disease himself. And PJ have always been great about highlighting causes throughout their careers and it's good to see their show in Vancouver did such a good job for that foundation.

"Pearl Jam has been my favorite band for as long as I can remember." I don't know if we are listening to the same band bro. NO "Porch" "Dissident" "Nothing Man" Better Man" "Down" "Hard to Imagine" and then "Given to Fly is number 2, ouch! They are my favorite band too, seen them 9 times but I gotta say my friend, this list is flawed. "RVM" is the greatest live song ever and you listed great songs, but not a top ten.
Posted By: Dan Baltrusis (Registered) on September 24, 2009 at 10:56 PM

You're right, I've been listening to Silverchair all this time! How foolish of me! But seriously, how can you not like "Given to Fly"? It's got a great chorus and is another one of their great live songs.

It is a top ten list. He listed ten songs that he thought were tops for him...what part of it don't you understand?

Top Queens of the Stone Age Songs List!!!!
Posted By: the danger stranger (Guest) on September 25, 2009 at 01:56 AM

A QOTSA list is not a bad idea, I may have to do that at some point. As well as an Alice in Chains list like someone mentioned.

Special honorable mention= Dirty Frank.
Wheres Mike McCready? My god hes been ate
Posted By: Guest#7534 (Guest) on September 25, 2009 at 02:50 AM

Awesome.

Thanks for the great write-up, Andrew. It was a pleasure to read, and your love for this band is very evident. Don't worry about people whose personal favorites didn't make the list. It happens with virtually every "Top Ten." Your writing is passionate and informative. That's why the column is yours, not theirs. :)
Posted By: Guest#4308 (Guest) on September 25, 2009 at 03:03 AM

Thank you, Guest#4308. I don't normally get too passionate about my musical opinions, but when it comes to Pearl Jam, I tend to.

I hate when people do honorable mention lists, it kinda robs the top ten song's of their prestige, can't believe the lack of love for "nothing man"
Posted By: Electrichotdogs (Guest) on September 27, 2009 at 06:03 AM

I understand what you mean about the honorable mentions, but some stuff is nearly as good as the ones that make the final list and I really feel that deserve at least something, even if it's just an honorable mention.

And a huge thanks to everybody who included some great Top Ten lists of their own. Each of them could had some really great songs. Of course, as a couple people said, it's not like Pearl Jam has any bad songs, per se. (Well, except "Stupid Mop." And maybe "Help Help." And "Evacuation" too. But other than those, all great.)



Top Ten Punk Rock Albums



Punk rock, the music of the young that can still kick your ass decades after it was released. Sometimes loud, sometimes fast, always full of attitude. I considered all the subgenres for this list; from protopunk to punk to post-punk to new wave to hardcore to pop-punk to post-post-punk, they all were looked at.

Two things before we move on, though. First, I haven't heard Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables so you won't be seeing it here. And second, for reasons I'm not even really one-hundred percent sure of, I didn't include any compilations here, so you won't see Minor Threat's Complete Discography or The Germs' MIA here either. But there are plenty more great albums on both the list and in the honorable mentions:


Some honorable mentions: Gang of Four - Entertainment!; Husker Du - New Day Rising; The Jam - All Mod Cons; MC5 - Kick out the Jams; Pere Ubu - The Modern Dance; Richard Hell and the Voidoids - Blank Generation; Sleater-Kinney - Dig Me Out; Patti Smith - Horses; X - Los Angeles




10. Suicide - Suicide


Let me be clear; this is not the type of album you just put on when you want something to listen to or to have on in the background. It's the kind of album you listen to every once in a while maybe, and you appreciate its genius. But it's a harrowing and occasionally terrifying listen that offers no hope of relief from the terror it puts forth. Suicide was an atypical punk band, with only Alan Vega on vocals and Martin Rev on keyboards and drum machine. There were no guitars, bass or anything else to be found. The only things present are you, Vega's voice, Rev's instruments and the creep tension that consumes the entire album. The darkness of songs like "Ghost Rider" and "Rocket U.S.A." is briefly offset by eerily beautiful and sweet songs like "Cheree." You're never even remotely comfortable when listening to this album, because if the band wrote the most romantic love song ever, it would still come off as creepy because of the way it's played and recorded.





But everything else on the album, as great as they may be, takes a backseat to "Frankie Teardrop," a song that despite the fact I don't particularly enjoy listening to it, I can easily say is one of the greatest songs ever written. The song about a young, struggling factory worker who goes home and kills his wife and young child before turning the gun on himself is as terrifying and horrific as the lyrics make it out to be. It's only made worse (or better, really) by Vega's blood-curdling scream that could keep you up for days. And as Rev's synth beat continues unchanged for ten minutes, Vega eventually sings, "We're all Frankies/We're all lying in hell," which makes for quite a depressive end to one of rock's most disturbing yet amazing ten minutes ever put to record. It's the centerpiece of an album that you likely never heard before and will definitely never, ever hear again.





9. Mission of Burma - Vs.


Back when I had my old column, I did a whole write up on this album from Mission of Burma, who are in my opinion one of the most underappreciated bands in rock. The arty post-punk scene had sprung up in the late 1970s, and Burma took that style and turned it into an all-out sonic assault. Nobody played louder than Burma and they colored their songs with lots of sounds, coming from every instrument and even tape manipulations. There was no room for respite or time for recovery on a Burma album, and the songs came out from a number of different directions that you could in no way be prepared for. But burrowing inside all that noise were some pretty great melodies that kept Burma from just being a nose rock band, but instead post-punk pioneers. Their music was incredibly complex, but what made them great was that, despite that, they still knew how to rock. Few bands are as viscerally impressive as Mission of Burma.





This all makes for an occasionally abrasive album, but that's exactly the way it should be with Burma. Members Roger Miller and Clint Conley may have had easily identifiable styles and voices, but they were never disparate enough where it sounded like two completely different bands. They blended together perfectly on Millers art rock tunes, like "Trem Two" and the more anthemic Conley songs like "That's How I Escaped My Certain Fate." Burma was always bringing two sides together, as they are probably the most brilliant combination of power and intelligence that we've heard in rock music. Vs. is lean and muscular while also being complex and pretty hard to penetrate; but once you do break through the wall of noise, you end up with one of the best punk albums of all-time and one of the most visceral albums as well.





8. The Sex Pistols - Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols


The case of the Sex Pistols is an interesting one. They were basically a media creation and sensation, concocted by manager Malcolm McLaren. One could view them as a boy band with piercings that wasn't as melodic as the Ramones or as talented as the Clash. To be sure I'm not sure that a good bit of that isn't true, but to discard them as simply a creation of others diminishes the real impact they had on British music and the chances they took that no others would have been willing to take. It's insane to imagine the number on album on the British charts containing songs about anarchy, abortion, badmouthing the Queen, and whatever else Johnny Rotten thought would piss a lot of people off. Backed by Steve Jones' killer guitar riffs, Rotten's snarl has an added punch; you can practically feel his disdain when he sings, "God save the Queen, she ain't no human being."





Never Mind the Bollocks is pretty much the soundtrack for nihilism, with its rough attack on the British establishment. But at the same time, it's got quite a sheen to it and has been very well-produced, as opposed to a lot of punk rock at the time. That just made the songs more accessible, allowing them to become popular with people who maybe weren't sure what they were listening to; the proverbial Trojan horse, if you will. Despite what you think of the quality, though, Never Mind the Bollocks is the type of album where the songs are almost irrelevant. Instead, the focus is on everything surrounding the album and what its total affect is. Whether you think the Sex Pistols were mostly full of shit or engaging in performance art or were the real deal, there's no doubt they made one of the most important rock and roll albums ever made, and it should be heard by everyone at least once.





7. Black Flag - Damaged


Black Flag was a pretty damn good hardcore band came 1981 as they looked to release their first full length. But it was the addition of new singer Henry Rollins put the band over the top turned them into hardcore icons. Rollins was the perfect man for the job with his forward-charging and unrelenting style. He gave the band an aura of unpredictability that can't be created, but instead can only happen naturally with the right individual. That individual was Rollins, and his performance on Damaged is quite probably the best to ever come out of the hardcore scene. With his furious vocals and mesmerizing bark, it seemed like Rollins could fly off the handle at any moment, a quality that doesn't appear too often in music. That possibility of chaos not only made Black Flag the standard in hardcore punk at the time, but also terrified plenty of people, including the head of their record label who refused to release the album because he found it to be "anti-parent."





Fortunately the album was released and we were treated to one of the essential hardcore documents. And for all the possibilities of chaos and youth uprising, this is a remarkably well-crafted record that provides just as many funny moments as it does powerful ones. The classic "T.V. Party" still stands as one of the funniest rock songs ever written, with the group shouts of "We've got nothin' better to do/Than watch TV and have a couple of brews!" The albums would much more bleak after this, but for at least one shining moment Rollins let the band explore their goofier side, even if the rest of the album didn't necessarily go that way. But while Rollins' depressive songs would get increasingly unbearable over the years, on Damaged they're still filled with passion and you're absolutely compelled listening to him. This album is an incredibly good introduction to hardcore and one of that genre's best works.





6. The Stooges - Raw Power


I feel pretty confident in saying that there wouldn't have been a punk rock movement without Iggy Pop and the Stooges. Their previous two albums before this one hadn't been commercially successful, and by most accounts the tensions were quite high for the recording of this album. You get the feeling when listening to it, like it's a band on the brink of total destruction. In the face of such peril the band ended up with their best work; while their previous albums were manic and primal, Raw Power is a focused attack by a group ready to take on all comers and even themselves if necessary. Every song is an assault on its own; "Search and Destroy," "Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell," "Death Trip," they're all turned up to eleven. There's no shine to the album, no attempt to mollify things to reach a larger audience. All the distortion and imperfections are part of what make the album so damn exciting.





Of course, the Stooges were blessed to have one of the most charismatic lead singers of all-time in Iggy Pop at the forefront. His frenzied screams and wails are compelling and at times a little unnerving. There's a seriousness to his voice when he sings, "And I'm the world's forgotten boy/The one who's searchin', searchin' to destroy" that makes you believe he's more than just talk. The band backs him up on that channeling all their problems and aggression into the music, creating almost a brutal (in a good way) listening experience. You get the feeling that the band figures if they're going down, they may as well take you with them. And when Iggy sings, "Your pretty face is going to hell!" at least you know the soundtrack will be good on the way there.





5. The Minutemen - Double Nickels on the Dime


There probably weren't too many punk bands that enjoyed playing as much as the Minutemen did, and that feeling is immediate whenever you listen to their work. The band was hardcore by association only; instead they took the post-punk template created by Wire and turned it on its ear, incorporating jazz, funk and whatever else sprang to mind. Lead singer/guitarist D. Boon was an everyman with somewhat eclectic tastes and a vast knowledge of the world that he used to his advantage for many of the Minutemen's political songs. With their songs, you never got the feeling you were being yelled at or dictated to; it seemed like Boon was a man with facts that he would lay out straight. I don't think too many hardcore bands at the time would've sung something like "Was this our policy?/Ten long years/Not one domino shall fall," as Boon does on "Viet Nam." Although, one doesn't have to read the lyric sheet to realize the Minutemen were a different kind of hardcore band. To do that, all you had to do was put the album on.





Many of the album's best songs are ones that are frantic and with a sense of urgency. These jazz-influenced songs could have been a huge mess, but the band gels so well together that make it seem effortless. Drummer George Hurley is simply stunning throughout the album's forty-four songs, but it's the relationship between Boon and bassist Mike Watt that made the band what it was. Their partnership deserves to be mentioned with the other great partnerships in rock history. Unfortunately that partnership would end in 1985 with Boon's death in a van accident, but we still have Double Nickels on the Dime to serve as his band's greatest triumph. It's a sprawling double album that doesn't apologize for any left turns that it takes, trusting the audience to come along with them.. And those that went were greatly rewarded with one of the great punk albums ever recorded.





4. Wire - Pink Flag


Few albums have ever opened as well as Pink Flag does, with the powerful "Reuters." The record only gets better from there, with a series of arty bursts that frequently last just a minute or so (21 songs in 35 minutes, to be exact). You can hear a lot of the future Minutemen catalog on Pink Flag, with plenty of riffs and hooks packed into a short amount of time, with nothing threatening to drag on much too long. The official label for this is probably art rock, but that conjures up an image of a pretentious band making some insanely inaccessible work. And while this album isn't the most mainstream thing ever made, it's certainly never boring. Their aggression and energy clearly were influenced by bands like The Ramones, while it would also serve as a huge influence for the emerging hardcore scene that excelled in short bursts of furious punk rock.





But while many of those bands just played really loud and really fast while barking indecipherable lyrics, Wire weren't opposed to exploring different sonic structures while also exploiting some great melodies and hooks, especially on something like "Ex Lion Tamer." The band also knew when to slow things down but keep the song's impact, as with the aforementioned "Reuters" and also the title track. For some reason I connect this album to something people have said about The Velvet Underground & Nico, which is that not a lot of people bought the album, but everyone that did went and started a band. I can't help but think Pink Flag had a similar impact back in 1977 since you can hear their influence in a lot of both punk and art rock afterwards. Ultimately, Wire proved that those two ideas could co-exist and make something great and memorable. Certain albums can shift a musical culture around itself so you can see where things started to change, and that's the case with Pink Flag.





3. Television - Marquee Moon


Just like with Vs, I once devoted an entire column to Marquee Moon and deservedly so. It's one of the absolute best guitar albums of all-time, standing in stark contrast to the works of some of their CBGB's compatriots. It's easy to become hypnotized by the guitar work of Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd as their instruments intricately hover through around each song. While the NYC club CBGB's harbored a type of gritty band and sound, Television stood apart with their arty compositions and lengthy, epic songs. They were also one of the few punk bands unafraid of guitar solos; Verlaine's work on the classic title track is nothing short of amazing. You can sure make an impact with just three chords, but at the same time there's nothing wrong with expanding the limits of your genre, which is exactly what Television did here.





There's still an underground quality to the album through all the flourishes. You could probably say that Television made the most expansive garage rock record ever with Marquee Moon. Verlaine and the band had no problem incorporating plenty of jazz and poetic lyrics into the songs, creating yet another difference between them and typical punk rock. All in all, Television were a punk band like no other, one with long extended flourishes highlighting cryptic lyrics to create an avant-garde album full of punk tension and energy. Marquee Moon is their magnum opus, an album of such quality that it was simply impossible to replicate. And that goes not only for Television, but any similar band that followed.





2. The Ramones - The Ramones


The Ramones' songs were generally considered to be fast and dumb two chord bursts that were composed without much appreciation for taste or musicianship. But to me that does a great disservice to the songwriting on this album. It's no surprise that lead singer Joey Ramone was a huge fan of the Beach Boys and the Phil Spector groups of the early 1960s because those kinds of melodies can be heard all over the band's debut. Granted, they're played at almost double speed by guys dressed in jeans and leather jackets, but make no mistake this is pop music all the way. The reason a song like "Blitzkrieg Bop" is revered today is because of just how catchy it is; the song really makes for quite an infectious lesson. Not to mention the inclusion of what is definitely the most beautiful punk rock song "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend." Maybe they were just dumb and simple guys from New York City, but they still knew how to write a great song.





Of course a big part of the album's appeal isn't just the songs; it's in the attitude that band put out, and it's especially because of that album cover above. If you ever needed to describe either punk rock or even New York City in 1976, all you would have to do is show them that picture and they'd immediately get it. But all of that would have meant nothing if the album itself didn't deliver. Thankfully it does, as it leaves with a number of classic songs that said something about youth culture at the time, even if all it was that they wanted to sniff some glue. Nothing on this album is complex, but it doesn't have to be. Sometimes all you need is a good melody and a fun attitude to create a classic album. This was the manifestation of people's feelings on punk rock; it was rock and roll broken down to its most simplistic parts, and that was all The Ramones needed.





1. The Clash - London Calling


This is the greatest punk rock album of all-time because it's not really a punk rock album at all, at least not completely. It's at times a rockabilly album, a pop album, a reggae album, a ska album and more. London Calling was the pinnacle for the Only Band that Matters and their greatest statement as a group unwilling to remain stagnant. From the opening stomp of the epic title track to the fading harmonica at the end of the surprise hit "Train in Vain" this is a near-perfect rock record that explores all the different aspects of the genre while remaining a Clash album, through and through. It's full of all the attitude and importance of their previous works but funneled in a different way, one that emphasized not only the political ("Spanish Bombs") but also the personal ("Lost in the Supermarket"). The entire album is played with the feeling that something big is happening, that this was rock and roll with ambition and purpose.





One of the triumphs of London Calling is that it never tires or overstays its welcome, as most double albums do. This is over an hour of urgency broadcast through music with songs that can be listened to over and over again without them losing their impact. The album is a timeless one because of its musical and lyrical relevance today; London Calling may have been recorded in 1979 but nothing on it sounds dated. Actually, the time and place it was recorded is important. The English punk scene in 1979 was already changing with the Sex Pistols having imploded and new post-punk bands taking things in a new direction. But The Clash stayed their own course and ended up with the best record of their careers and an album almost unmatched in the history of rock and roll. Each of the nineteen songs defines the band and everything they stood for while becoming something more, a landmark achievement for punk rock.



That'll do it for this week folks, thanks for reading. If you have any questions, comments or concerns feel free to let me know, and make sure to leave your own lists in the comments. I'll see you all next week. And if you're out on your bike tonight, do wear white.