The Late 1980s and Early 1990s Pre-Grunge Underground

15 works, in the order the book names them

• 001/Album/2015

  Apex Predator – Easy Meat

  Napalm Death

  He described his performance on the Swans-ish title track to Apex Predator – Easy Meat (2015) in the following terms: ‘Vocally what I wanted to do with that was take Public Image Ltd-era John Lydon and multiply it by ten.

  Open in YouTube ↗

• 002/Album/1979

  Metal Box

  Public Image Ltd

  PiL didn’t help galvanize a vibrant post-punk music scene solely by releasing groundbreaking records of dub-infused, emotionally raw experimentation like Metal Box.

  Open in YouTube ↗

• 003/Live album

  Ballot Result

  Minutemen

  On the sleeve of the 1987 compilation Ballot Result, Minutemen gave the backhanded compliment of thanking Johnny Rotten, ‘or our idea of him’.

  Open in YouTube ↗

• 004/Book

  Our Band Could Be Your Life

  Michael Azerrad

  Examples of such behaviour run riot in Michael Azerrad’s account of the pre-grunge U.S. rock scene Our Band Could Be Your Life.

  Open in Goodreads ↗

• 005/Album/1984

  My War

  Black Flag

  They also made the decision to load side two of their 1984 LP My War with three painfully slow sludge metal numbers indebted to Black Sabbath.

  Open in YouTube ↗

• 006/Film

  Human Highway

  Neil Young & Dean Stockwell

  He fondly name-checked Johnny Rotten in ‘Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)’ and enlisted Devo to star in his 1982 movie Human Highway.

  Open in IMDb ↗

• 007/Album/1981

  Youth of America

  Wipers

  You know, someone like Hendrix seemed like way too good to even understand what he was doing.’ The title track from Wipers’ second album, 1981’s Youth of America, had particular significance in the development of American post-punk, and is yet another example of punk rockers being punk rock by doing exactly what punk rockers were not supposed to do.

  Open in YouTube ↗

• 008/Album/1977

  Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols

  Sex Pistols

  Put off by the violent nihilism they heard in Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols, Bad Brains also strove to forge a more positive take on punk.

  Open in YouTube ↗

• 009/Book/1937

  Think and Grow Rich

  Napoleon Hill

  Paul ‘H.R.’ Hudson sang about ‘PMA’, the initials standing for ‘Positive Mental Attitude’, an idea taken from a self-improvement book that H.R.’s father had recommended: Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich (1937).

  Open in Goodreads ↗

• 010/Album/1986

  I Against I

  Bad Brains

  In an interview promoting 1986’s I Against I, bassist Darryl Jenifer credited his band with basically inventing the speed/thrash metal sound, while also having the foresight to keep developing beyond that narrow style.

  Open in YouTube ↗

• 011/Album/2001

  The Argument

  Fugazi

  This culminated in 2001 with their career-topping final statement The Argument.

  Open in YouTube ↗

• 012/Album/1991

  Pretty on the Inside

  Hole

  Produced by Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth, Hole’s debut album Pretty on the Inside (1991) is ferocious, scuzzy and both emotionally and sonically raw.

  Open in YouTube ↗

• 013/Album/1994

  Live Through This

  Hole

  Second album Live Through This got the balance just right.

  Open in YouTube ↗

• 014/Album/1991

  Nevermind

  Nirvana

  In that respect it is similar to Nirvana’s Nevermind.

  Open in YouTube ↗

• 015/Album

  Fear of the Dark

  Iron Maiden

  To those who were enamoured by the steely precision of Metallica’s self-titled ‘Black Album’ or the elaborate material on Iron Maiden’s Fear of the Dark, Babes in Toyland’s messier output may well have sounded like incomprehensible noise.

  Open in YouTube ↗