10 Best Punk Rock Albums Of The 1980s
1. Minutemen - Double Nickels On The Dime
Minutemen could do the lot. Leaping from hardcore to balladeering, Latin influenced music to Van Halen covers, overtly poliitical works to just good old goofing around. And what’s more, they did it all on one spectacular album.
In fairness,Double Nickels is longer than most albums, to say nothing of most punk albums. It totals over 80 minutes, with three of its four sides curated by individual members of the band (the fourth, named the “chaff side”, being the leftover gubbins).
The majority of the music is written by D. Boon and Mike Watt, and they each produce their share of crackers here - "Corona" (better known as the Jackass theme) for the former, “History Lesson Pt II” for the latter - as well as great co-writes like "Maybe Partying Will Help" and covers of Creedence and Van Halen.
It’s a huge and immersive listen, ambitious but never pretentious and crammed full of charm on the part of the band. Once again it’s a reminder that stretching the dogma of the genre was the best possible thing that could happen to punk - this is a band with pure freedom at its finest.