10 Near Perfect Punk Rock Albums

This was Green Day's 1990s magnum opus. Despite the ridicule the group faced after signing to a major label, they soldiered on, unperturbed. This was part of the new wave of punk breaking into the mainstream. Before pop-punk became a commercially safe version of the art-form, Green Day proved you could gain mainstream success while maintaining integrity.

This form of punk was a different beast to the stuff being put out in the '70s. The tracks were longer, the energy was still high, but it was more joyous and less f*ck you. There was sarcasm to everything, lyrical themes of self-loathing were set to more jaunty pop centric rock tracks. Songs tended to revolve around internal personal struggles, rather than societal or political issues.

People were waking up from the decadence of the '80s with a hangover. The '90s welcomed in an overriding sense of consumerism boredom. And this album captured that. Rather than kicking against a particular injustice, the lyrics spoke to the loss of direction felt by many. It's not that life was intrinsically unjust, it's that it was boring and lacked meaning. This was the perfect distraction.