10 Hard Rock Albums Everyone Forgets About

It's always an uneasy tightrope for a punk rock act to keep their street cred. Even when the Clash became global superstars, there were horror stories of Mick Jones playing up his rock star credentials, which went against all of the Everyman mentality that punk rock stood for. So when you've made the kind of punk record that even pop fans could get into, where were you supposed to go?

Though Green Day had already been kicked out of their home club for signing with a major label on Dookie, the follow up Insomniac feels like the record that they had always wanted to make, taking the budget of their blockbuster album and making it that much more intense. For all of the hookiness that songs like Longview an When I Come Around brought to the table, the guys sound so much more pissed on this record, going after people who kicked them out of the scene on 86 and criticizing the kind of yuppie kids who might listen to their music on Brat.

Without the lyrical context though, the music itself just feels much more raw this time around, like Mike Dirnt channeling into some sort of super speed for the intro of Panic Song or having the band go for broke on the back half of the song Jaded. If you're wondering why Green Day should even be called a punk band after Dookie, this is much better indicator of where they're coming from.