Top 20 Greatest L.A. Punk Albums of All Time: The Complete List
11. Suicidal Tendencies
Suicidal Tendencies
"Institutionalized," for which the album and band is most known, is the punk rock version of the talking blues. Instead of "mama's in the kitchen fixing biscuits," it's "momma's in the kitchen tryin' to get me to take my Ritalin." The work is in the very DNA of every subsequent hardcore kid, punk, anti-social shitfit misfit who wanted to piss off their parents by doing something different. Suicidal Tendencies is filled with serious speed and aggression, but punctuated and occasionally slowed for effect -- making its politically charged, humor-tinged lyrics entirely intelligible. That's not often the case in hardcore. --Paul Bradley
10. The Dickies
The Incredible Shrinking Dickies
The Dickies' amphetamine-soaked covers of Black Sabbath's "Paranoid" and The Monkees' "She" provide an insight into the heart of punk: speed it up and get to the fucking point. Reacting to the ballads of long-haired troubadours of the '70s, The Incredible Shrinking Dickies injects quickness where there was once excess. They never take themselves too seriously; on "Poodle Party" they sing "You're the easiest except for me." In the end, the group were never scared to break any of punk's unwritten rules, even allowing for a variety of instrumentation, including a sax solo on "Shadow Man." --Kai Flanders
9. Wasted Youth
Reagan's In

Ole' Ronny took office in 1981, the same year this vitriolic gem was released. Its ten tracks last barely that many minutes but, along with the terrific cover art -- where the band's logo is carved into Reagan's forehead -- they get you terrifically angry. In a way, Reagan's America both spawned and destroyed hardcore punk. In their review of the documentary American Hardcore, Slant Magazine wrote that the late president "figures prominently in the film's explanation for domestic punk's birth... and unceremonious disappearance shortly after Reagan's reelection." --Kai Flanders
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