Pop punk from the UK

Pop-punk seems a bit of a dirty word these days as it tends to conjure up the image of the blandest, most manufactured, commercial groups on major labels – that are only a step away from boy bands – who are merely churning out a generic, formulaic type of music in order to rake in the cash.

However, in the late 80s/ early 90s this wasn’t the case, the more melodic pop-influenced punk groups were a really credible force – especially when it seemed that many of the groups in the punk scene at the time leaned more towards a metal-influenced or crust/grindcore type of sound – the groups that were playing fast, catchy melodic tunes and singing about girls, etc tended to stand out.

Many of these bands were directly influenced by the earlier American group Descendents who were still then active in a slightly changed line-up called All.

Some of the other more prominent bands around at the time were the Hard-Ons from Australia, the Doughboys and Nils from Canada, Mr T Experience from the San Francisco area and Green Day were also just starting out at this time.

In the UK as well there was also quite a decent number of these groups such as The Sect, Mega City 4 and Senseless Things. The latter two went on to achieve a bit more fame and popularity among student and grebo/skateboarder types but their origins were firmly in the punk scene – the first few times I saw them they were playing on bills with the likes of Snuff, Sofa Head and Wat Tyler.

Senseless Things were also probably the first group who had a working relationship with the comic book artist Jamie Hewlett – who at the time was enjoying a cult hit with his Tank Girl strip in Deadline magazine and later on Hewligan’s Haircut in 2000AD – who did a lot of their album cover artwork and of course went on to create Gorillaz with Damon Albarn.

 

 

 

 

 

Senseless Things – Postcard CV + Up And Coming EP

01.Trevor 02.Come Together 03.Sneaking Kisses 04.Laura Lamorna 05.Shoplifting 06.Drunk And Soppy 07.Back To Nowhere 08.Teenage 09.Someone In You 10.Too Much Kissing 11.Where The Secret Lies 12.I Want To Go Back 13.I Don’t Want To Talk About It 14.You Don’t Want Me 15.Girlfriend 16.Standing In The Rain 17.When You Let Me Down

rapidshare.com/files/116148689/senseless_things.rar

The Sect – 3 x EPs – Playing With Fire, Summer Girl, This Side Of Summer

01.A Free England 02.Firebird 03.Far Away 04.Escape 05.Summer Girl 06.Too Scared To Try 07.Empty Sounds 08.Cyclone 09.This Side Of Summer 10.Smile 11.Clean Slate

rapidshare.com/files/116136633/sect.rar