Teenage Dirtbags

If the release of Nirvana's Nevermind in 1991 was where punk rock finally broke into the mainstream of American rock in the form of grunge, Green Day's Dookie in 1994 was the first major salvo for pop-punk, where fast, catchy tunes and choppy guitar figures were fused to sarcastic lyrics about life in the teenage nation. The pop-punk explosion led to a new boom of alternative rock, music a few steps away from old-school punk or grunge and aiming for a new market that had embraced fresher sounds following Nirvana's success. Teenage Dirtbags is a two-disc set that offers up 44 songs from the explosion of pop-punk, ska, and alternative rock hits that came in Green Day's wake. Ranging from the ridiculous ("Teenage Dirtbag" by Wheatus) to the imaginative ("Buddy Holly" by Weezer), Teenage Dirtbags includes hits from blink-182, Fountains of Wayne, Sugar Ray, Sublime, Queens of the Stone Age, Hole, Andrew W.K., Evanescence, Smash Mouth, Less Than Jake, and many more.