Everybody know that novelty bands have a hard time growing up, but the Presidents of the United States of America made a large leap toward that during their re-formation of 2000, with Freaked Out and Small demonstrating a decrease in their stylized silliness mellowed into something more genuine. It wasn't that the band rocked less, but their humor seemed less forced, a development that continued on 2004's Love Everybody. Evolution continues to be the name of the game on their 2008 follow-up These Are the Good Times People, as the group replaces departing guitarist (and founding member) Dave Dederer with Andrew McKeag, while they bring Seattle underground mainstay Kurt Bloch in as producer, all elements that help make These Are the Good Times People perhaps their most eclectic album to date.

The brilliance of this collection is that it combines the standard Brit-punk anthems by the Sex Pistols, the Damned, the Buzzcocks, and Stiff Little Fingers with other great songs that typify the variety and range of punk-era independent music from both sides of the Atlantic. The songs are so well chosen that the punk aesthetic is further revealed by the inclusion of songs that characterize pub rock, new wave, and other related genres. The usual punk suspects ("New Rose," "Anarchy in the UK") are all here, along with many other treasures: Dr. Feelgood's "Milk and Alcohol", Devo's "Mongoloid," Jonathan Richman's "Roadrunner," Talking Heads' "Psycho Killer," and Television's "Marquee Moon." The less commonly anthologized punk selections are inspired, too: the Ruts' "Babylon Is Burning," Generation X's "Ready Steady Go," and X-Ray Spex's "Identity," along with the seminal "Sheena is a Punk Rocker." The conception of the genre is expanded further to include Elvis Costello, Iggy Pop, XTC, Joe Jackson, the Pretenders, the Tubes, and Blondie, and their presence overcomes the tendency for boring repetition on a very long collection.

The Offspring's second album for Epitaph did the impossible: it landed in the Top Five, unheard of for independent records. The Offspring crossed over due to the raucous, Eastern-tinged single "Come Out and Play," which stopped and started just like Nirvana, only without the Seattle trio's recklessness. The record stayed in the charts because the Offspring sounded relentlessly heavy, no matter how much the band claimed to be punk. Their tempos are slower than traditional hardcore, and their attack is as heavy as Metallica. But they acted like they were punk, with odes to no "Self Esteem" and singing about fighting in school. Nothing on the album matches the incessant catchiness of the singles, but Smash is a solid record, filled with enough heavy riffs to keep most teenagers happy.

Between 1994 to 2001, Green Day would visit the BBC’s Maida Vale Studios in London four times and record live sessions for Radio 1’s “Evening Show” and its popular DJ Steve Lamacq. This compilation documents those sessions, and includes many of the band’s hits including “When I Come Around”, “Basket Case”, “Brain Stew/Jaded” and “Minority”.

The Offspring is an American punk rock band from Garden Grove, California, formed in 1984.[2] Originally formed under the name Manic Subsidal, the band's current lineup consists of lead vocalist and guitarist Bryan "Dexter" Holland, bassist Todd Morse, guitarist Kevin "Noodles" Wasserman and drummer Pete Parada…

Of all the various best-ofs and compilations that have come out over time that cover the Go-Go's career, this one is the clearest winner, by a long shot. Though by default it doesn't tell the full story, appearing as it did in 1994, in terms of containing both the famous hits and a slew of rarities and unreleased tracks, Return to the Valley of the Go-Go's is equally valuable for both neophytes and hardcore fans. The first 11 tracks alone make for an entertaining peek into the band's earliest days, with a slew of live cuts from both early rehearsals and gigs, including a number of songs taped at the legendary SF punk venue the Mabuhay Gardens. Everything's rough, energetic, and merry fun – while it's no surprise why some compositions remained unheard in later years, it's still worth hearing how the group pureed everything from straight-up punk to spaghetti Western guitar and girl group right from the start. A real treat is a romp through "Johnny, Are You Queer?" which would later get a more famous (and much more sedate!) take by Josie Cotton. Plenty of rare B-sides from the group's commercially dominant days surface here and there, and as for the big hits, they're available a-plenty: "We Got the Beat," "Vacation," "Our Lips Are Sealed," "Head Over Heels," "Turn to You," and more. Choice album cuts include "Skidmarks on My Heart" and "This Town".

In a way, the Ramones are an ideal band to anthologize. No matter how cohesive their records were (or not), their albums always played like collections of singles and since singles are easy to anthologize, it stands to reason that the best of the Ramones' songs will sound good in nearly any context; hell, the haphazard Ramones Mania proved that. However, Rhino's double-disc Hey! Ho! Let's Go: Ramones Anthology has much greater goals than being just another collection – it strives to be the final word on the Ramones.

It’s not quite right to say that the Go-Go’s' 1981 debut, Beauty and the Beat, is where new wave caught hold in the U.S., but it’s not quite wrong, either. Prior to this, there had certainly been new wave hits – Blondie had been reaching the Top Ten for two years running – but the Go-Go’s ushered in the era of big, bright stylish pop, spending six weeks at the top of the U.S. charts and generating two singles that defined the era: the cool groove of “Our Lips Are Sealed” and the exuberant “We Got the Beat.” So big were these two hits that they sometimes suggested that Beauty and the Beat was a hits-and-filler record, an impression escalated by the boost the Go-Go’s received from the just-launched MTV, yet that’s hardly the case. Beauty and the Beat is sharp, clever, and catchy, explicitly drawing from the well of pre-Beatles ‘60s pop – girl group harmonies, to be sure, but surf-rock echoes throughout – but filtering it through the nervy energy of punk.

Original Hits: 70s is a decent six-disc set, highlighting 111 pop singles released in that decade. Along with the original versions of radio classics by Al Stewart, Blondie, the Knack, KC & the Sunshine Band, and Dr. Hook, are less-than-obvious inclusions by Peter Tosh, XTC, the Move, and Benny Hill!

No Doubt’s 2010 installment in Universal’s ongoing Icon series is a retitled reissue of the excellent 2003 compilation The Singles 1992-2003. Spanning 15 tracks, the disc is sequenced like a concert, favoring forward momentum over chronological history, and that's a point in its favor since it shines a spotlight on individual songs, not eras. More than anything, this highlights No Doubt's consistency as a singles band, since the defining breakthrough single, "Just a Girl," is as exciting as both the band's pre-fame "Trapped in a Box" and the sexy neo-electro grind of "Hella Good." It also shows that even if lead singer Gwen Stefani grew increasingly assured and sexier over the years (compare the seductive "Underneath It All" to the breathy, naïve "Don't Speak") and even if she was always rightly the focal point, the band itself is a muscular, versatile, tuneful outfit, rooted in ska revivals like "Spiderwebs" but equally convincing when turning out spiky pop like the glorious "New," the hard-rocking "Sunday Morning" and "Ex-Girlfriend," the sighing ballad "Simple Kind of Life," or the rubbery, reggae-inflected "Hey Baby".