Descendents

Descendents formed in the South Bay area of Los Angeles in the late 1970s, built around drummer Bill Stevenson's melodic instincts and the deadpan, self-deprecating lyrics of vocalist Milo Aukerman, a biology student whose academic ambitions gave the band's debut album its title and its central joke. Where much of the surrounding hardcore scene dealt in political fury, Descendents wrote about coffee, girls, suburban boredom, and the particular indignities of being a teenager, set to tempos as fast as anything their peers were playing.

Milo Goes to College (1982) arrived just as Aukerman left the band to pursue his degree, and the record's combination of hardcore velocity and pop hooks became a blueprint that a generation of pop-punk bands would follow directly. Stevenson's drumming, meanwhile, connected Descendents to the wider hardcore scene through a stint in Black Flag and his own band ALL, keeping the Descendents' melodic, self-aware version of hardcore in circulation even during the band's long stretches of inactivity.