Explore › Punk
Genre guide

Punk rock.
Loud, fast, and built to provoke.

Punk erupted in the mid-1970s in New York and London as a furious rejection of everything rock had become - a return to short, fast, raw songs and the belief that anyone could pick up an instrument and start. With bands like the Ramones, the Sex Pistols, and the Clash, it was as much an attitude as a sound: confrontational, political, and proudly do-it-yourself. Punk burned briefly but seeded almost everything after it, from hardcore and post-punk to indie and beyond - proof that energy and urgency can matter more than polish.

Browse featured Punk artists

From the genre's founders to the names still being discovered.

Punk articles
Today
Jimmy Eat World Wrote 'The Middle' With Nothing Left to Lose
Jimmy Eat World wrote 'The Middle' after Capitol Records dropped them, while band members worked day jobs to self-finance recording sessions with producer Mark Trombino. Jim Adkins nearly cut the song from Bleed American, calling it a throwaway, before it hit number five on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2002.
Yesterday
The Feud That Made Two Long Island Debut Albums Essential
Brand New's "Your Favorite Weapon" (October 2001) and Taking Back Sunday's "Tell All Your Friends" (March 2002) were recorded five months apart by two Long Island bands with a shared history, a personal betrayal, and a summer 2002 tour where they sang each other's diss tracks onstage together.
Yesterday
"Holiday in Cambodia" Is Still the Most Uncomfortable Song in the Room
"Holiday in Cambodia" landed as Dead Kennedys' second single in May 1980 and became hardcore's sharpest political statement, a song about liberal complicity that later sat at the center of a six-year legal war over a Levi's licensing deal and destroyed the band's unity.
6 days ago
The Flatliners Have Been Doing This for 24 Years. 'Cold World' Sounds Like It.
The Flatliners' seventh album 'Cold World,' out May 8 via Equal Vision, Dine Alone, and Rude Records, finds the Juno-nominated Canadian quartet — unchanged in lineup for 24 years — delivering their most confident record yet, produced by the band themselves and engineered by Matt Snell.
6 days ago
Mike Ness Came Back from Cancer. He Brought Fifteen Years of Songs with Him.
Social Distortion's eighth album, "Born to Kill," arrives fifteen years after their last record and two years after Mike Ness was diagnosed with Stage 1 tonsil cancer mid-session — and it sounds like a band that earned every note, with guests Benmont Tench and Lucinda Williams along for the ride. Three advance singles, including the emotionally charged "The Way Things Were," paved the way for an eleven-track album that balances punk fury with roots-rock heart.