| The Best of Times | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | 1991 | |||
| Studio | Studio 55 (Los Angeles) | |||
| Genre | Hardcore punk | |||
| Label | Relativity [1] | |||
| Producer | John "Norwood" and Phillip "Fish" Fisher | |||
| Murphy's Law chronology | ||||
| ||||
The Best of Times is an album by the New York City hardcore punk band Murphy's Law, released in 1991. [2] [3]
The album was produced by Fishbone's John "Norwood" and Phillip "Fish" Fisher. [4] "Ebony and Ivory" is a cover of the Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder song. [5]
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   [4] |
| Chicago Tribune |  [6] |
| The Encyclopedia of Popular Music | [1] |
The Washington Post opined that the "eclecticism does provide for more variegation than is common on hardcore punk albums, but the band is still most convincing on such high-speed, relatively unadorned rockers as Freaktown' and the title song." [7] The Chicago Tribune noted that "a hearty horn section punctuates and adds a wallop to the guitar assault." [6] The Deseret News noted the "muscular riff-rock approach." [8]
Punk rock is a music genre that emerged in the mid-1970s. Rooted in 1960s garage rock, punk bands rejected the perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock music. They typically produced short, fast-paced songs with hard-edged melodies and singing styles, stripped-down instrumentation, and often shouted political, anti-establishment lyrics. Punk embraces a DIY ethic; many bands self-produce recordings and distribute them through independent record labels.
Hardcore punk is a punk rock music genre and subculture that originated in the late 1970s. It is generally faster, harder, and more aggressive than other forms of punk rock. Its roots can be traced to earlier punk scenes in San Francisco and Southern California which arose as a reaction against the still predominant hippie cultural climate of the time. It was also inspired by Washington D.C. and New York punk rock and early proto-punk. Hardcore punk generally disavows commercialism, the established music industry and "anything similar to the characteristics of mainstream rock" and often addresses social and political topics with "confrontational, politically-charged lyrics."
Emo is a rock music genre characterized by emotional, often confessional lyrics. It emerged as a style of post-hardcore and hardcore punk from the mid-1980s Washington D.C. hardcore punk scene, where it was known as emotional hardcore or emocore and pioneered by bands such as Rites of Spring and Embrace. In the early–mid 1990s, emo was adopted and reinvented by alternative rock, indie rock and/or punk rock bands such as Sunny Day Real Estate, Jawbreaker, Cap'n Jazz, and Jimmy Eat World. By the mid-1990s, bands such as Braid, the Promise Ring, and the Get Up Kids emerged from the burgeoning Midwest emo scene, and several independent record labels began to specialize in the genre. Meanwhile, screamo, a more aggressive style of emo using screamed vocals, also emerged, pioneered by the San Diego bands Heroin and Antioch Arrow. Screamo achieved mainstream success in the 2000s with bands like Hawthorne Heights, Silverstein, Story of the Year, Thursday, the Used, and Underoath.
Industrial rock is a fusion genre that fuses industrial music and rock music. It initially originated in the 1970s, and drew influence from early experimental and industrial acts such as Throbbing Gristle, Einstürzende Neubauten and Chrome. Industrial rock became more prominent in the 1980s with the success of artists such as Killing Joke, Swans, and partially Skinny Puppy, and later spawned the offshoot genre known as industrial metal. The genre was made more accessible to mainstream audiences in the 1990s with the aid of acts such as Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson, both of which have released platinum-selling records.
Skate punk is a skater subculture and punk rock subgenre that developed in the 1980s. Originally a form of hardcore punk that had been closely associated with skate culture, skate punk evolved into a more melodic genre of punk rock in the 1990s similar to pop punk. Since then, it has predominately featured fast tempos, lead guitar playing, fast drumming, and singing. Occasionally, skate punk also combines the fast tempos of hardcore punk and melodic hardcore with the catchy hooks of pop-punk.
New Day Rising is the third studio album by American punk rock band Hüsker Dü, released in 1985 on SST Records. The album continued the move away from the fast hardcore punk of the band's earliest releases toward slower, more melodic material.
Post-hardcore is a punk rock music genre that maintains the aggression and intensity of hardcore punk but emphasizes a greater degree of creative expression. It was initially inspired by post-punk and noise rock. Like post-punk, the term has been applied to a broad constellation of groups. Post-hardcore began in the 1980s with bands like Hüsker Dü and Minutemen. The genre expanded in the 1980s and 1990s with releases by bands from cities that had established hardcore scenes, such as Fugazi from Washington, D.C. as well as groups such as Big Black and Jawbox that stuck closer to post-hardcore's noise rock roots. In the early- and mid-2000s, post-hardcore achieved mainstream success with the popularity of bands like My Chemical Romance, Dance Gavin Dance, AFI, Underoath, Hawthorne Heights, Silverstein, The Used, At the Drive-In, Saosin, Alexisonfire, and Senses Fail. In the 2010s, bands like Sleeping with Sirens and Pierce the Veil achieved mainstream success. Meanwhile, bands like Title Fight and La Dispute experienced underground popularity.
Swingin' Utters is a Californian punk rock band that formed in the late 1980s. After a seven-year hiatus, the band reformed in 2010 and have since released four more records.
Murphy's Law is an American hardcore punk band from New York City, formed in 1982. While vocalist Jimmy Gestapo remains the only founding member of the band, the line-up has consisted of numerous musicians who have performed with a diverse selection of musical acts across multiple genres, such as Skinnerbox, Danzig, The Bouncing Souls, Mucky Pup, Dog Eat Dog, Hanoi Rocks, Agnostic Front, Warzone, Cro-Mags, D Generation, New York Dolls, Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, The Slackers, Thursday, Skavoovie and the Epitones, and Glen Campbell.
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Punk jazz is a genre of music that combines elements of jazz, especially improvisation, with the instrumentation and performance style of punk rock. The term was first used to describe James Chance and the Contortions' 1979 album Buy. Punk jazz is closely related to free jazz, no wave, and loft jazz, and has since significantly inspired post-hardcore and alternative hip hop.
The Blow-Up is a live album by the American band Television, released as The Blow Up on cassette in 1982. It was reissued in 1990 and again in 1999. The songs first appeared on a bootleg titled Arrow.
Field Trip was a four-piece rock band from Pleasanton, California active in the 1980s and 1990s. The band's members included Jim Galbraith (guitar/songwriting) and his brother Tom (drums). Their songs were often played on college radio stations. Their third album, Ripe, was released in 1991 on Slash Records and featured keyboards by Faith No More's Roddy Bottum.
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