The Offspring maintains pace with SPLINTER. Since the last release, the band has lost longtime drummer Ron Welty, who’s replaced here by A Perfect Circle skins-pounder Josh Freese. There’s no discernible let-up in momentum; Dexter and company are essentially pursuing the same stylistic path they’ve been on from the beginning. Even though they achieved fame at the tail end of the grunge era, their ’80s beginnings make them the grand old men of third-wave punk, and SPLINTER consequently bears a lot more gravitas than the efforts of younger pop-punks.

Iggy and Bowie at the height of their respective powers presented a formidable artistic engine, and Lust For Life sees them working up a full head of steam. Two songs will need little introduction – ‘Lust For Life’ and ‘The Passenger’ are as intrinsic to the tapestry of 70s rock music as sundry Beatles efforts were to the previous decade (their influence on 90s film soundtracks is a testament to their durability). Those monolithic jukebox favourites aside, listeners may also find space in their hearts for the swaggering ‘Neighbourhood Threat’ (shades of the Stooges, without the musical clatter) and the disquieting ‘Turn Blue’, written from the viewpoint of an overdosing junkie.

Iggy’s solo debut following the end of the Stooges, THE IDIOT is often overlooked in favour of his second epistle, LUST FOR LIFE. Great album though the latter may be, THE IDIOT served to remind rock’s better-informed fans that one of its most original talents was still alive and kicking. Produced by Bowie, IDIOT contains two compositions, “Funtime” and “China Girl” that he later recorded himself. Another highlight is the electronics-driven “Nightclubbing” (a certifiable post-punk classic) and the meandering “Dum Dum Boys” (a precursor to “The Passenger”). An album that proved Iggy did not need to be flanked by guitars to retain his edge and menace.

Sensing the emollient rattle of punk was an artistic dead end, the Clash took an abrupt volte-face and invited American Sandy Pearlman to produce their second album. Respected for his work with Blue Oyster Cult and the Dictators, Pearlman introduced a sheen that disturbed purists but introduced the Clash to a wider audience. The clear sound brought a new emphasis to the quartet’s internal interplay and allowed the material to stand up in its own right. GIVE EM ENOUGH ROPE contains several of the band’s most popular songs, which range from the defiant “Tommy Gun” to the sensitive “Stay Free,” a contrast confirming the Clash’s wider musical ambitions.

Rock opera and punk are usually two mutually exclusive musical styles. Then again, Green Day has never followed any rock rulebook, so it’s not entirely surprising that the trio crafted a punk-rock opera that takes the Bush administration and its policies to task. It doesn’t get any more pointed than a couplet from the frenetic title cut that states, “I’m not a part of a redneck agenda/Now everybody do the propaganda!”
Under the guidance of any other group of agitated punks, the results of such an undertaking could easily become didactic. But with creative spearhead Billie Joe Armstrong at the helm, AMERICAN IDIOT is melodically driven, with the kind of intellectual bent that allows for a pair of mini-operas, “Jesus of Suburbia” and “Homecoming.” Trimmed with a light sprinkling of piano and a big guitar sound occasionally reminiscent of Mott the Hoople, the former skewers the hypocrisy that can pervade small-town life. The latter is equally effective, as clever time changes and sonic flourishes (glockenspiel, doo-wop harmonies, honking saxophone) serve as an intriguing counterpoint to the band’s hook-laced riffs.

In many ways Green Day’s first “proper” album–the debut 1039/SMOOTHED OUT SLAPPY HOURS was stitched together from multiple sessions and didn’t feature the definitive lineup with drummer Tre Cool–KERPLUNK is an early-1990s milestone. One listen to this album makes it clear why Green Day, rather than any of their Bay Area peers, were the band that won the major-label lottery; they were simply better than the vast majority of their contemporaries. This record’s version of “Welcome to Paradise,” while rougher than the eventual hit single from 1994’s DOOKIE, is only one of several clearly brilliant pop songs delivered with an approach that’s part Buzzcocks, part Go-Go’s, mixing sharply drawn neuroses and sweet pop hooks. “Who Wrote Holden Caulfield?” and the downright sweet “2000 Light Years Away,” an unabashed love song to the woman who singer Billie Joe Armstrong would soon marry, are just as good. This edition also adds the four-song SWEET CHILDREN EP, which includes a brash cover of the Who’s “My Generation.”

SUPER BLACK MARKET contains 21 tracks including the entire LP BLACK MARKET CLASH (1980), B-sides, remixes & one previously unreleased song. Originally released as a 10-inch EP, BLACK MARKET CLASH effectively bridged the gap between LONDON CALLING and SANDINISTA, both literally and figuratively. While most collections of b-sides and outtakes are of interest only to hardcore fans, this one turned out to be an artistic statement nearly equal to the two classic album that sandwiched it. Halfway between the punk fervor of LONDON CALLING (as on the raging “Cheat”) and the reggae/funk experimentation of SANDINISTA (see “Bankrobber” and “Armagideon Time,”) the EP stood up as a singular, worthwhile entry in the band’s canon.
Years later, supplemented by a bounty of bonus cuts, the album was reissued as SUPER BLACK MARKET CLASH. With the added cuts, this recording provides a real insight into the workings of the band, including everything from their first dub workouts to romantic pop dabblings. It’s a bit like reading between the lines of LONDON CALLING and SANDINISTA and discovering an entire world of musical subtext. Essential not only to Clash completists, but anyone interesting in the evolution of punk into something deeper and grander.

Bad Religion is punk-rock’s Bonnie Raitt, a cult band that persisted and persisted until the world finally came around to them. Around the time Robert Johnson’s old Delta blues records started selling in the hundreds of thousands, Raitt started collecting platinum records and Grammys; likewise, in the era of Nirvana’s and Green Day’s run up the charts, Bad Religion began seeing big returns for the same kind of records they used to make for peanuts.
STRANGER THAN FICTION is where Bad Religion cashes in–at the alternative register, anyway. Far from a sellout, it’s a confident reaffirmation of all the band’s strengths: anthemic rhythm-guitar hooks that are equal parts 70’s punk, 80’s hardcore and classic heavy metal; a fast but super-tight rhythm section; unswervingly political lyrics; and, in defiant contrast to all of the above, pop harmonies. Songs like “Incomplete,” “Stranger Than Fiction” and “Handshake” (which equates record-company business deals with class and race warfare) enter your head as hurricanes of information about the world’s ills. They remain there because they’re built upon blistering punk-rock guitar hooks.

As yet another group of latter-day rockin’ rebounds, the Donnas afront the musical standards community with GET SKINTIGHT, a high-energy offering that’s fueled by Ramones- and Runaways-caliber attitude. Donna F., Donna A., Donna C., and Donna R (who have all recently graduated from the proverbial “Rock & Roll High School”) successfully continue the siren-sassy, drop-rock-and-party tradition they set with their first two LPs, THE DONNAS (Superteem, 1998) and AMERICAN TEENAGE ROCK ‘N’ ROLL MACHINE (Lookout!, 1998).
Equal parts Shonen Knife, the Muffs, and L7, the Donnas blend winsome vocal harmonies into guitar-fueled barnburners with titles like “Party Action,” “I Didn’t Like You Anyway,” and “Get Outta My Room.” There’s even a cover of the Motley Crue anthem “Too Fast For Love.” GET SKINTIGHT is about as basic as post-’70s garage rock idolatry comes, and full of indelible classics that will never go out of style.

By the time of 1982’s FELINE, the Stranglers had left behind the raucous, bad-boy pub-punk of their ’70s albums and had moved firmly into the arena of New Wave. FELINE is dominated by synthesizers, and has the moody, lilting feel of the British electro-pop of the era. Setting the tone of the album is the opener, “Midnight Summer Dream,” which floats on a wiry synth progression backed by a strummed acoustic guitar and programmed drums.
The burbling post-punk pop of “It’s a Small World” is haunting and highly melodic at once, while hit single “The European Female (In Celebration Of)” sounds like a cross between Kraftwerk and Antonio Carlos Jobim. Also here is “Golden Brown,” a moody, waltz-time tune (possibly about heroin) that evokes late-’60 psychedelic pop and became one of the Stranglers’ biggest charts hits. FELINE may not appeal to fans of the Stranglers’ early work–it’s more nuanced and less boisterous than their punk material–however, it shows the band keeping apace with the times, and admirably reaching for new sounds and directions.