Bad Religion: No Control [EPITAPH]

Why you'll love it

This Epitaph LP comes with a lyric and credits insert. No Control is often called a landmark of hardcore punk, and most of its songs, from "Big Bang" to "Sanity," have stayed in Bad Religion's live set for decades.

This edition

• Lyric and credits insert
• Stereo mix

About the album

Greg Graffin and Brett Gurewitz wrote most of these songs on tour and in the gaps between tours, and you can hear the road in them: everything is faster, tighter and angrier than on Suffer the year before. It was also the first Bad Religion album made with the same lineup as the last one.

They cut it in June 1989 at Westbeach Recorders in Hollywood, Gurewitz's own studio, recording to half-inch two-track for the first time. He ran every track through a compressor, decided he hated the result, then spent the mix pulling it back out, and the aggressive, distinctive sound he ended up with is the one fans know. "Change of Ideas" is over almost before it starts, the title song quotes the Scottish geologist James Hutton, and "I Want to Conquer the World" and "Sometimes I Feel Like" became anthems.

Rise Against name it as one of their key influences, and Loudwire ranked "Change of Ideas" seventh among the greatest songs under a minute long. That's roughly the time it takes to read this paragraph, so do put the record on first.

Also at Kops: more Bad Religion on vinyl · browse Punk

Tracklist

Listen

On Epitaph (cat# E-86406-1), the 1989 album.