Your way in
Punk rock 1974
Three chords, two minutes and zero patience for solos. A full reset of rock, and the second major source of extreme metal.
- Heaviness
- 4
- Speed
- 8
- Melody
- 7
- Where from
- New York / London
- Tempo
- 160-200 bpm
- Song length
- 2-3 min
- Written about
- Boredom, Class, The state, Refusal
- Vocals
- Shouted
Why this one
| You said | Punk rock | Match | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Light How much weight do you want behind it? | 4 out of 10 | 80% | ×2 |
| As fast as anyone can play What pace? | 8 out of 10 | 80% | ×2 |
| The seventies and eighties Does it matter when it was made? | 1974 | 100% | ×1 |
| Anger at something real What should the words be about? | Boredom, Class, The state, Refusal | 100% | ×1 |
| Weighted mean | 87% | ||
Ranked over all 150 genres in the encyclopedia, on the 4 answers you gave, weighted heaviness 2, pace 2, era 1, about 1 out of 6. Punk rock leads the next by 3 points. Where two genres score the same the broader one wins, because a genre with subgenres under it is somewhere to carry on from and a leaf is a full stop.
Five records, in this order
- 1The one to put on first
Ramones, Ramones 1976
Ramones - Ramones. Fourteen songs in twenty-nine minutes, not a wasted note.
- 2Then
- 3Then
- 4Then
- 5One step further in
The Descendents, Milo Goes to College 1982
The Descendents - Milo Goes to College. The manual, written twelve years before the boom.
The first is Punk rock's own entry point. After it come Punk rock's essential records in the order the encyclopedia lists them. Every one of these has a page here with links out to somewhere it can be played.
If that is not it
-
Thrash metal 77%
NWOBHM plus hardcore punk: palm-muted riffs, brutal tempos and lyrics about war and society. The first truly extreme branch.
On the other branch of the tree entirely, and 4 steps from Punk rock.
The way into Thrash metal -
Screamo 70%
Emo pushed into hysteria: continuous screaming, cutting guitars and songs that collapse into silence. Also called skramz.
4 steps from Punk rock, meeting it only at Punk rock.
The way into Screamo
Not simply the second and third of the ranking: those are almost always near neighbours of the first, which is three names for one suggestion. An alternate has to sit at least 4 steps through the tree from the headline and from the other alternate, which is the same floor the "sounds like this, but isn't" panel uses.
What your answers ruled out
- Light put 12 genres at the bottom of that one question, among them Death metal, Brutal death metal, Sludge metal. Worth 2 of 6.
- As fast as anyone can play put 4 genres at the bottom of that one question, among them Doom metal, Drone metal, Funeral doom. Worth 2 of 6.
- The seventies and eighties put 4 genres at the bottom of that one question, among them Kawaii metal, New nu metal, Progressive metalcore. Worth 1 of 6.
- Anger at something real put 108 genres at the bottom of that one question, among them Alternative rock, Black metal, Blues rock. Worth 1 of 6.
Counted as genres scoring 20% or less on that answer alone. A recommendation that only shows what it chose is hiding half of what it did.