Pop punk’s canon didn’t appear overnight—it was forged in sweaty basements, all-ages collectives, and scrappy DIY scenes up and down California. The same Gilman-bred ethos that once shaped the Karnivores, Operation Ivy, and a fledgling Green Day continues to reverberate through the genre’s most influential records. If you want to hear the sound that shook the Bay Area, dive into Alta’s curated playlist—your portal into the riffs, rawness, and radical energy that defined a generation.•
1. Girl Band
Kamala and the Karnivores, 1989
2. S/T
Operation Ivy, 1991
3. Kerplunk!
Green Day, 1991
4. The Sound of a New World Being Born
Crimpshrine, 1998
5. Lucky
Fifteen, 1999
Santi Elijah Holley is an award-winning journalist and the author of An Amerikan Family: The Shakurs and the Nation They Created. He is a regular contributor to Alta Journal.
