The Best Pop Punk Albums of the '90s

Diamond-certified twice over now, and it started in a Berkeley scene that promptly disowned them for it. Rob Cavallo co-produced the Reprise breakthrough; 'Basket Case' is the genre's four-chord thesis — verses narrating a panic attack, chorus selling it as bubblegum. It won the 1995 Grammy for Best Alternative Music Performance, a category name that has aged far worse than the record.

Jerry Finn's production made the difference: Travis Barker's first blink-182 album is the sound of a joke band suddenly playing like a machine. 'What's My Age Again?' turns arrested development into a chorus sturdy enough to survive the naked-video-run marketing around it. The MCA record every 2000s pop-punk band got signed in hopes of repeating.

Still cited as the best-selling independent-label album of all time — Epitaph moved millions of these with a staff that could fit in a van. Thom Wilson produced; 'Self Esteem' is the keeper, a mopey doormat anthem over a lurching half-time riff that made self-loathing radio-friendly a full year before that was standard practice. Skate-punk border, waved through for services rendered.

Milo Aukerman left a biochemistry career to make the first Descendents album in nine years, and Epitaph got the tightest record of the reunion era for it. 'I'm the One' is all forward motion — Bill Stevenson's drums sprinting under a melody about devotion played like a chase. The elder statesmen outrunning every band that grew up copying them.

Blueprint status: Lookout! put this out in 1991, and every three-chord romantic with glasses has been working from it since. Ben Weasel's Chicago crew treat the Ramones as scripture — 'Veronica Hates Me' files heartbreak as a two-minute complaint with a chorus that argues otherwise. The Midwest's answer to Berkeley, and frequently the better catalog.

Cargo and MCA split the release, Mark Trombino produced, and Scott Raynor drummed his last blink-182 album — the one where the jokes started sharing space with actual songs. 'Dammit' is the pivot point: a stuck-on-one-riff guitar figure, a growing-up-hurts lyric, and the first chorus they wrote that adults also shout. The bridge between the vans and the arenas.

No radio, no MTV — NOFX refused both and went gold anyway, six years after Epitaph released it, the only certified record they have. Skate-punk border case, flagged. 'Linoleum' opens the album at full sprint, Fat Mike mumbling an inventory of his possessions over drums in a hurry, and it somehow became the scene's most covered song. Integrity as a marketing plan that worked.

Operation Ivy's rhythm section grew up into this: Tim Armstrong and Matt Freeman leading Epitaph's street-punk flagship, gold within months and platinum eventually. 'Time Bomb' is the organ-brushed ska strut in the middle of the mohawked record — border case, flagged, and the hook that dragged a million kids backward into Two-Tone. Freeman's basslines should be a controlled substance.

Dr. Frank wrote the novel King Dork a decade later, and you can hear the author warming up all over this Lookout! release. 'Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba' is the entire genre reduced to its syllables — a title that is also the hook, self-aware and completely sincere at the same time. The smartest dumb record of the decade, or the dumbest smart one; either way it wins.

Three kids from Bremerton, Washington on a Christian label out-hooked most of the majors — Tooth & Nail released this in 1996, and Mike Herrera's bass works as the lead instrument for most of it. 'Chick Magnet' bounces a self-deprecating title around that busy low end until the chorus gives in and grins. The record that traveled farthest beyond its scene, skateparks and youth groups alike.

Victorville is high-desert nowhere, which may explain the earnestness: Face to Face's Dr. Strange Records debut plays melodic punk completely straight, no smirk available. 'Disconnected' — whose later remix broke the band on KROQ — already has the trick in its original form, a chorus that plants its feet and refuses to be clever. Trever Keith's baritone made sincerity sound tough.

A crooner fronting a buzzsaw: Josh Caterer sings like a lounge act while the Popes play Chicago punk, and Capitol picked the whole act up from indie Johann's Face Records. 'Need You Around' rode the Clueless soundtrack onto modern-rock radio, its held vowels floating over downstrokes like they wandered in from a different, sadder movie. Morrissey with power chords — the blueprint Alkaline Trio studied.

Asian Man released the debut, and the Trio arrived complete: Matt Skiba and Dan Andriano already trading vocals, Glenn Porter driving, everything soaked in Chicago winter. 'Nose Over Tail' is the early classic — a love song shaped like an apology, the melody sagging exactly where the lyric does. Darker than everything else here, and the decade's best last word before emo took the wheel.

The best scream in pop punk belonged to Kim Shattuck, late of The Pandoras, and Reprise let her use it. 'Sad Tomorrow' is two minutes of perfect construction — a sugary verse melody, then that ragged howl tearing through the last choruses — proof the genre's boys' club was working from her notes. Criminally under-ranked on every list this one will be compared against.

Ten thousand copies on day one — for Lookout!, an earthquake, and Reprise came calling within the year. Kerplunk still sounds like the tape that got a whole scene signed: '2000 Light Years Away' opens it with Billie Joe already writing choruses too big for a basement label, and the original 'Welcome to Paradise' waits two tracks later for its Dookie glow-up. The before picture, and arguably the charmer.

The title track is literally a Beach Boys cover — Joe Queer aiming his Lookout! release at the exact midpoint between Pet Sounds worship and Ramones downstrokes. 'Don't Back Down' keeps Brian Wilson's melody and roughs up everything around it, harmonies included, which is the whole Queers proposition in one song. Genre scholarship you can pogo to.

New Brunswick basement lifers made their Epitaph debut a self-titled mission statement. 'Say Anything' is the one that stuck — a friendship-first anthem with a gang-vocal chorus built for the last song of the night, sloppy exactly where it should be. Less precise than the California bands and warmer for it: the East Coast's counterargument in a single record.

Pop punk's next decade was invented in Coral Springs, Florida: New Found Glory's Eulogy Recordings debut — title borrowed from Robert Frost, licensed to Drive-Thru within months — closes the '90s by drawing the 2000s' map. 'Hit or Miss' opens on palm-muted chug and Jordan Pundik's nasal hooks, pop punk with hardcore's breakdowns already installed. The decade's last word, aimed straight at the future.