Punk rock used to be about not fitting in, about being bored and underwhelmed by everything around you, musically and stylistically. It was all about being disgusted with the emptiness and lack of flavor inherent in the music and style prevalent of the late 1970's and early 1980's.

I know, because I graduated high school in 1989, and punk was already realistically deceased by that point. It had yet to be pre-empted (like a football game) by corporate America, and bandied about as a new fashion piece.

[Pictured: Pennywise]

The members of Blink-182 were probably playing in a sandbox somewhere, and the morons in Pennywise were likely at football practice in Huntington Beach, safely surrounded by thousands of white people, as they huddled and told racist jokes.

You see, backs then jocks were NOT allowed to be "punk." Now they own it! I love punk rock. Well, I used to. After seeing it (and practically everything else involving the use of a guitar) continue to be blatantly violated I moved on, and am listening to much more hip-hop and "electronica" these days.

I still love the vintage/authentic punk sound, and as such, I have compiled a few lists here of must-have albums, sadly-forgotten-and-likely-out-of-print-releases. I think you'll enjoy most of these albums regardless of your age. Happy hunting...

The Absolute Essentials:

GG Allin Public Animal #1 EP Bad Brains I Against I Bad Religion Suffer Black Flag Damaged Black Flag The First Four Years Child Molesters The Legendary Brown Album Cramps Songs The Lord Taught Us Crass Feeding of the 5,000 The Decline of Western Civilization Film Soundtrack Dead Kennedys In God We Trust, Inc. Descendents I Don't Want to Grow Up Devo Are We Not Men Discharge Why Dream Syndicate The Days of Wine and Roses Fear The Record Flipper Album Flux of Pink Indians Strive to Survive Causing Least Suffering Possible The Frogs It's Only Right and Natural Germs GI Nina Hagen Nunsexmonkrock Husker Du Zen Arcade The Jam All Mod Cons Joy Division Unknown Pleasures

Killing Joke Extreme Conditions Madness One Step Beyond Minor Threat Out of Step Minutemen Double Nickles on the Dime The Misfits Walk Among Us The Misfits Legacy of Brutality The Misfits self titled Mission of Burma self titled Raincoats self titled Ramones Rocket to Russia Redd Kross Born Innocent Repo Man Film Soundtrack Rudimentary Peni Death Church Samhain Initium Sex Pistols Nevermind the Bollocks Sonic Youth Confusion is Sex Suicidal Tendencies self titled (their only good album) Swans Greed Toy Dolls Fat Bob's Feet Tubeway Army Replicas Wire Pink Flag X Los Angeles XTC Drums & Wires

Obscure but still brilliant artists:

Amebix Assuck Cryptic Slaughter Doom Dr. Know Dropdead Final Conflict Gang Of Four The Gaia Gism Gun Club

Happy Flowers Hard Ons Jackofficers Jody Foster's Army Poison Idea Mentors SOB Society Gang Rape Stupids Ugly Americans

Chances are that you've never heard of any of the latter bands I mentioned, and you probably never will again. That's what punk used to be about. Willful obscurity. Now take that Rancid t-shirt back to the mall where you paid $21.00 for it and get your money back.

Think about the reason "punk" exists in the first place. Malcolm McClaren, an entrepreneur, a businessman, a capitalist in the purest sense, saw vast marketing promise in punk rock via the Sex Pistols. He saw it both as a form of music (through their vocalist primarily), and later as new visual terrain to pillage (posthumously through their deceased bassist), who incidentally, didn't play a single note on their sole album. In fact, Sid Vicious could barely even plug in his bass, much less tune it. He became punk's figurehead--its uninformed mascot.

Johnny Rotten's last words at their final show say everything. Punk really died that night in San Francisco. It ended with their last song.

"Ever get the feeling you've been cheated? Goodnight!"

(C) 2002 - Jason Thornberry