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.

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

The Ramones Debut Was Built, Not Stumbled Into
The Ramones' 1976 debut sounds like an accident. It wasn't. Producer Craig Leon and associate producer Tommy Ramone built the album's rawness deliberately at Plaza Sound in Radio City Music Hall, using split stereo mixing, overdubs, and vocal doubling to make seven days and $6,400 sound like a force of nature.
GLOW ON Proved Hardcore Could Sound Like Everything at Once
GLOW ON, Turnstile's third album, released August 27, 2021 on Roadrunner Records, was produced by Mike Elizondo and co-produced by vocalist Brendan Yates, recorded at Phantom Studios in Gallatin, Tennessee. The fifteen-track record features guest appearances from Blood Orange on "Alien Love Call," "Endless," and closing track "Lonely Dezires," debuted at number thirty on the Billboard 200, peaked at number two on Top Hard Rock Albums, earned a Metacritic score of ninety-two, and received three Grammy nominations. It remains the last album to feature founding guitarist Brady Ebert.
Howard Benson Engineered the Danger Out of Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge
My Chemical Romance recorded “Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge” at Bay 7 Studios in Valley Village with producer Howard Benson between late 2003 and March 2004, releasing it on June 8, 2004. Benson’s production philosophy, disciplined, hook-forward, and structurally precise, is why the album crossed over without losing its danger.
The Real Crash Behind Thursday's Most Enduring Song
Thursday's "Understanding in a Car Crash," the lead single from Full Collapse (April 10, 2001), was written by Geoff Rickly about a real high school tragedy: his girlfriend was driving when his best female friend was killed in an accident. This is the story of how that grief became the song that defined a genre, and why it still holds up on the album's 25th anniversary.
London Calling Made the Whole History of Rock and Roll Its Own
London Calling, released December 14, 1979, is the record where The Clash stopped arguing about what rock and roll was allowed to be and became it. Produced by Guy Stevens at Wessex Sound Studios in London, its 19-track, four-sided architecture argues that punk conviction and rock history are the same energy at different points in time.
The Ban That Followed Dookie Everywhere Green Day Went
Green Day's third album, Dookie, released February 1, 1994 on Reprise Records, got the band banned from 924 Gilman Street and sold twenty million copies in the United States. Produced by Rob Cavallo and the band at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley, it generated four charting singles and a Woodstock '94 set that became the stuff of legend. The tension between where the band came from and where Dookie took them is still the most interesting thing about it.
Mark Trombino Produced the Records That Built Emo's Mainstream
Mark Trombino co-produced the records that built emo's mainstream moment, including Blink-182's "Dude Ranch," Jimmy Eat World's "Clarity" and "Bleed American," and Finch's "What It Is to Burn," yet his name rarely appears in the genre's oral history. This is the case for the man who made the scene sound like itself.
Tom Verlaine Killed the Big Drum Sound and Saved the Record
In the autumn of 1976, Tom Verlaine walked into A&R Recording in New York and rejected Andy Johns's big drum sound on the first day of sessions. That decision shaped everything about "Marquee Moon," Television's debut, released February 8, 1977. Co-produced by Verlaine and Johns, recorded live with almost no effects, the album remains one of the most precisely realized records to come out of the New York punk scene.
Tell All Your Friends and Take This to Your Grave Were Always Talking to Each Other
Taking Back Sunday and Fall Out Boy launched within a year of each other in 2001-2002, built on the same hardcore-to-emo pipeline, and spent the decade in an explicit creative dialogue that Fall Out Boy literally named a song after. Their parallel debuts reveal two different solutions to the same problem, and the conversation between them shaped a generation of pop-punk.
Brand New Recorded Deja Entendu in Charlotte and Came Back a Different Band
Brand New recorded Deja Entendu at Reflection Sound Studios in Charlotte, North Carolina in February 2003, with producer Steven Haigler. Released June 17, 2003, the album marked a sharp departure from their pop-punk debut, charted at number 63 in the US, went Gold, and produced two UK top-40 singles.