4. MinutemenThe Punch Line
Black Flag and the Minutemen in the west, Teen Idles and Minor Threat in the east, and Corey Rusk’s Necros in the Midwest set the stage for the next 20 years by releasing their own records and booking their own tours. This is hugely important for American underground rock bands. There were others, but as time went on, these turned out to be the most stubbornly independent.
Stylistically, however, the Minutemen stand alone. There’s an equality that exists between the three instruments and whoever is singing, like, "make space for me and I’ll make space for you". Of course they famously list many of their influences right on the sleeve, so you can understand that it didn’t just come out of the blue sky, but still it was really just their own thing. I guess that’s what I respect most about most of the records on this list. They’re all bands that worked really hard to have their own thing. I remember hearing Captain Beefheart for the first time right around this time and then seeing them mentioned on a Minutemen sleeve.
