The Y2K bug was supposed to cause the end of the world. At least it was according to your parents’ stories of failing banks, planes colliding in the sky, and your shitty old VCR rising up to strangle the whole family in their sleep. As the end of the ‘90s approached, your parents joined the growing numbers of preppers who wanted to be ready when society fell apart. They emptied their savings accounts so their cash would be safe at home. They hoarded pasta, beans, and bottled water. They stocked up on batteries and propane so your post-apocalypse household would be ready for anything. And all of it was for nothing. After years of preparation by governments and banks, the Y2K bug was mostly harmless. Most people had a laugh about how paranoid they had been about the whole thing. But your household was different.
While an army of programmers had spent the last two years of the ‘90s manually correcting millions of lines of code to avoid catastrophe, your parents chose to spend that time filling your basement with cans of Spam and Chef Boyardi. And that stuff does technically have an expiration date. These are the punk albums you listened to 25 years ago while your family worked their way through that hoard of canned food.
Green Day “Warning”
It wasn’t that bad at first. you’d always been a picky eater, and what kid doesn’t love a bland dinner of spaghetti and store-brand pasta sauce? Was it a gourmet experience from that good Italian place your dad takes your mom to every year on their anniversary? Of course not. But “Warning” was definitely not “Dookie,” and you still enjoyed it. Complex meals were a thing of the past, as was the energy level of your favorite band’s newest release.
NOFX “Pump Up the Valuum”
You moved on to NOFX, who had also departed from their earlier pop-punk-defining sound. Just like Green Day’s “Warning,” “Pump Up the Valuum” was lacking the energy you’d come to expect from a band that had been making punk music for decades. At home, your nightly ration of spaghetti was now lacking parmesan cheese. Why didn’t your family think to stock up on that green-lidded shaky cheese? That was the highlight of spaghetti night.
All “Problematic”
“Problematic” stayed true to the new millennium’s theme of punk albums that mostly appealed to long-time fans who’d buy anything their favorite band released, while not really standing out from the rest of their catalog. This was the last album All would release, and you listened to it on the last night you’d eat spaghetti until your parents paid off the credit cards they’d maxed out buying all that jarred pasta sauce. Their debt hadn’t disappeared on January 1st like they’d hoped. There was no money for food. You’d eaten all of the pasta, and played all of the All.
Rancid “Self-Titled”
While many pop-punk bands dropped calmer, often experimental music in 2000, Rancid came crashing in with 38 minutes of fast, screamed hardcore punk. They had gotten the mellower album out of their systems two years earlier, and their second self-titled album, which you’d learned to call “2000” for clarity, was hard enough to make you completely forget how much reggae Rancid had included in “Life Won’t Wait.” By now, you’d also forgotten what it was like to eat anything that hadn’t been in your basement for a year.
Millencolin “Pennybridge Pioneers”
The word “pennybridge” is a loose translation of Örebro, the Swedish city that Millencolin is from. But you didn’t know any of this because your only exposure to Millencolin was when “No Cigar” came on every time you played “Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2.” The game was a nice distraction from the drudgery of forcing down all those canned green beans that were supposed to add variety to your diet.
Bad Religion “The New America”
Bad Religion had been accused by fans of selling out years before this after leaving Epitaph Records, the independent label they founded. “The New America” was their last major-label release before founding member Brett Gurewitz returned to the band. Your dad attempted to return all of the cans to the grocery store at one point in early 2000, but the manager said he needed the original receipts to get store credit.
Ignite “A Place Called Home”
This was the Orange County hardcore group’s third album, and the most commercially successful to date. Its standout song, “Veteran,” pushed the extremist political notion that the American government should probably feed and house its war veterans, rather than watching them starve on the streets. After hearing it and being inspired, you convinced your father to donate that big box of cans in his trunk to a local food bank and lie to your mom that he’d returned them to the store.
Kid Dynamite “Shorter, Faster, Louder”
The Philadelphia punk scene was briefly home to the shouted vocals and “whoa-oh” choruses of Kid Dynamite. “Shorter, Faster, Louder” described not only the band’s second album, but their entire tenure as recording artists, as this album was released less than 16 months after their debut. One day, you examined the basement food stash and discovered that the oldest cans were already expired by significantly more than this. Was it safe to eat those?
The Mighty Mighty Bosstones “Pay Attention”
Why doesn’t “Pay Attention” ever come up when people talk about the Bosstones? Yes, it was sandwiched in time between two of their most popular releases, but it aptly showed off the group’s clever writing and unique ska-punk sound. You listened to this CD while you checked the USDA’s website on a painfully slow internet connection to find out that canned food is likely safe to eat for several years after the expiration date, so long as the cans aren’t rusty or dented. Fuck.
The Explosion “Flash Flash Flash”
The Explosion released their debut LP to critical acclaim, as well as legal troubles from their bass player’s previous label, which compelled the band to record an EP with them as part of a settlement. “Steal This” EP came out the same year, proving that it’s maybe not a great idea to give naming rights to the band you’re forcing to work with you. You started stealing food from your school’s cafeteria rather than eat SpaghettiOs from the can, which was your go-to lunch at home.
AFI “The Art of Drowning”
There isn’t a single track worth skipping on AFI’s fifth studio album to be released in as many years. The group showed zero loss of power or momentum from their hardcore roots, an accusation they’d face three years later when they released “Sing the Sorrow.” You lost a noticeable amount of weight from skipping meals after you got tired of eating the Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup your family microwaved every night. It was kind of your fault, though. You were the one who told them about Y2K in the first place, but you just wanted to scare them into buying a newer computer.
The Distillers “Self-Titled”
Australian-born Brody Dalle was hardly old enough to order a drink when her Los Angeles-based punk band unleashed their first album. The song “Red Carpet and Rebellion” is probably the best example available of the raspy, screamed lyrics that singer, songwriter, and lead guitarist Dalle had to offer. Back at your house, Zatarain’s Red Beans and Rice was the best meal available which required more than a can opener to prepare. This 40-minute album was long enough to play in its entirety while you cooked and ate an entire box of that New Orleans comfort dish night after night.
The Movielife “This Time Next Year”
The opening track, “I Hope You Die Soon,” made you assume this album would be another batch of shout-in-your-face hardcore, but it immediately calmed down to a more melodic, pop-punk affair. This was a needed relief, as you were starting to notice your heart quite literally pounding in your chest whenever you listened to your punk CDs. Humans were never meant to eat this much salt, and your blood pressure was dangerously high. The family doctor warned you that it was unwise to listen to punk music in your rapidly deteriorating condition.
Suicidal Tendencies “Free Your Soul…And Save My Mind”
Doctors be damned, there was a new Suicidal Tendencies album out! Maybe it was a good compromise that this wasn’t purely hardcore punk? Was thrash metal any better? Surely your doctor would approve of the noticeable funk influence on the Tendencies’ tenth album? What they would absolutely not approve of was your family’s daily intake of sodium. All those cans of Spam were going to have a permanent effect on your bodies.
Goldfinger “Stomping Ground”
Despite its goofy, Godzilla-themed album cover, this was not the brassy ska album you expected when you bought it. Goldfinger had outgrown their trombones and they wanted you to know it. “Stomping Ground” kept up the pace expected from the era’s pop-punk offerings. Their cover of “99 Red Balloons” was a fun sing-along song for a teenager who knew nothing about its WWII bombing metaphor. You counted exactly 99 unseasoned pinto beans on your plate one night after each member of your family took a scoop from the can. Fun!
Dillinger Four “Versus God”
This was a well-written and even better executed example of lyrical outrage with less of the sometimes hard-to-follow screams of their industry peers. While your music purchases that year were mostly dominated by punk veterans whose careers spanned back to the ‘80s, Dillinger Four had just warmed up with their fast, catchy brand of political punk rock. On a typical night in 2000, you warmed up the contents of the first can you could reach in the cupboard and let fate decide what you had for dinner. It didn’t matter what it was, nothing mattered anymore.
A Global Threat “Until We Die”
A fitting accompaniment to the repetitive meals you were putting down each night, “Until We Die” contained songs so similar to each other that you couldn’t tell where each track ended and the next began. You loved how fast-paced this album was, though, and thought it would have fit in with any street-punk release from the 1980s. One night, your parents revealed that they still had hundreds of boxes of MREs they’d purchased in the ‘80s during the Cold War panic. They’d always been like this, hadn’t they?
The Offspring “Conspiracy of One”
It’s hard to believe that the band that got you grounded for screaming along as that “stupid dumbshit goddamn motherfucker” line came up in “Bad Habit” a few years before this would write a song featuring Redman on the chorus and cowbell in the beat. But that actually happened in this album’s made-for-the-radio “Original Prankster.” You also got grounded once that year for trying to order a pizza with your mom’s credit card when you learned that the food stash was mostly beans at this point.
Oi Polloi “Fuaim Catha”
This was technically from 1999, but that wasn’t clear when you bought it. This Scottish anarcho-punk group was still full of rage about pretty much anything. “Fuaim Catha,” whose name means “Noise of Struggle” in Scottish Gaelic, was loudly anti-government, pro-choice, pro-earth, and for some unclear reason anti-imported-beer, there’s something in here for everybody. Did you know that the baked beans you had for breakfast the day you first heard this CD are a traditional component in a full Scottish breakfast? Check you out!
Midtown “Save the World, Lose the Girl”
This was the most emo-sounding pop-punk album you added to your collection in 2000. It’s unsurprising that lead singer Gabe Saporta, who would go on to front Cobra Starship, released the softest pop-punk album you would encounter a quarter century later when you googled “2000 punk albums list” to settle a bet about that Oi Polloi CD. The softest food you endured that same year was instant mashed potatoes from a box. How did they manage to get so much sodium into such a flavorless sludge?
Chixdiggit! “From Scene to Shining Scene”
You needed another light, pop-punk album to relax and lower your heart rate after you listened to too much Oi Polloi. “From Scene to Shining Scene” still had the fast drumming and melodic guitar elements you craved but without the red-faced screaming of the year’s harder offerings. You and your siblings screamed at your parents the night they informed you that the next month would be nothing but beans for dinner, since you had eaten every other option already.
MxPx “The Ever Passing Moment”
MxPx, the band that every radio-friendly pop-punk band in the 2000s would cite as their inspiration, wasn’t really your favorite thing to listen to. But it was always playing at your friend’s house because his overly religious parents heard they were a Christian group. He was your favorite friend to visit because Friday night was always pizza night. You got to skip one meal of beans as long as you two could keep the noise down over there in the game room.
The Living End “Roll On”
This rockabilly-influenced Australian punk group’s second album went platinum in their home country. Going platinum in Australia required 70,000 domestic album sales, compared to the 1 million sales needed in the States. The unique milestone is fair if you compare the populations of the two countries. Australia does not have any unique methods of preparing beans that could have been worked into the dinner menu at home. You checked.
Cro-Mags “Revenge”
If revenge is a dish best-served cold, then a hearty scoop of plain pinto beans would not meet the definition of “revenge”. The Cro-Mags’ “Revenge” was a welcome infusion of an ‘80s NY hardcore sound that nobody in 2000 described as being better than a bowl of cold beans, though they easily could have. This would be the Mags’ last album until 2020, so it was fitting that you listened to it while you polished off the last can of hoarded beans in your house until it became trendy to stock up on canned food again in 2020.
Zeke “Dirty Sanchez”
This album was the loudest, fastest, craziest, 21 minutes of your entire year. Zeke was the noise shrieking in your parents’ heads whenever they envisioned that angry music you listened to. You know now that you should have never searched “Dirty Sanchez” online, because the results ruined your appetite for the rest of the day. It was annoying, since that would have been your first fresh meal in a year after your family had finally opened and consumed the final can of beans the day before. But at least the year of canned food was finally over. And what were the odds that some other major event would occur in 2001 that would lead your parents into doomsday-prepper mode again? Things were looking up.