5/27/25 ThreeTuneTuesday! 🎸 4 Eighties Punk Rock Bands From 4 Different Regions Of The USA! Tunes & Vlog🎙️ Chicago/NYC/SoCal/Minneapolis 🎸

5/27/25 ThreeTuneTuesday! 🎸 4 Eighties Punk Rock Bands From 4 Different Regions Of The USA! Tunes & Vlog🎙️ Chicago/NYC/SoCal/Minneapolis 🎸

Welcome back to Three Tune Tuesday!
The weekly dive into the songs that hit hard, linger long, and remind us why music still matters. This week’s selections lean gritty, grounded, and unapologetically raw. These aren’t polished pop tunes or background noise they’re the kind of songs that grab you by the collar and demand your full attention. From Chicago punk to New York City hardcore , SoCal road anthems to Minneapolis alternative punk rock , each of these four tracks comes from a different corner of the U.S., painting a picture of what American underground music sounded like in the eighties! Four bands. Four cities. Four very different sounds! All rooted in the same raw urgency that made American punk , Alternative and hardcore in the ‘80s so rad. Whether you’re revisiting these classics or hearing them for the first time, crank them up and let them hit the way they were meant on this Three Tune Tuesday!

Gene Talks Tunes (Ep 135)
(Three Tune Tuesday PunkRock Vlog)

• Eighties Alt/Punk Picks
• 4 Different Regions Of USA
• First Tune (Naked Raygun)
• Second Tune (Cro-Mags)
• Third Tune (Social Distortion)
• Bonus Tune (Hüsker Dü)

Let’s Go! 🎸

Band - Naked Raygun
Song - Treason
Album - Understand? (1989)

Band - Cro-Mags
Song - Hard Times
Album - The Age of Quarrel (1986)

Band - Social Distortion
Song - Another State Of Mind
Album - Mommy's Little Monster (1983)

Band - Hüsker Dü
Song - Something I Learned Today
Album - Zen Arcade (1984)

Thanks for swinging by! Also big thanks to @ablaze for hosting #ThreeTuneTuesday weekly along with his weekly prize giveaway! Go check ‘em out for more info!

Here’s more on each individual tune I picked below ⬇️

“Treason” by Naked Raygun (1989) is an underrated burner from a band that straddled the line between punk ferocity and post-punk melody better than almost anyone. There’s something uniquely Chicago about Naked Raygun — working-class, no-nonsense, and melodic in the most unexpected places. “Treason” mixes anthem-ready choruses with an edge of paranoia and betrayal, and it still feels eerily relevant decades later. The tension in the song is taut, but the delivery is confident, as if the band knew they were onto something timeless.

“Hard Times” by Cro-Mags (1986) hits like a brick wall. There’s no subtlety here, just pure, streetwise aggression and honesty. Coming straight out of New York City’s hardcore scene, this track — from the landmark Age of Quarrel album — is a classic anthem about survival in a hostile world. The Cro-Mags weren’t singing about teenage angst or suburban boredom; they were channeling the chaos of their environment and turning it into something fierce, focused, and unrelenting. It’s the sound of endurance in a collapsing city.

“Another State of Mind” by Social Distortion (1983) gives us the California perspective — all restlessness and road miles. This track captures the disillusionment, longing, and defiant hope that made early Social D so powerful. It’s punk rock, but it leans into storytelling and sentiment without losing any bite. You can hear the engine hum of the tour van, the grit from the floor of a dirty club, and the weariness of chasing meaning in a scene that often offered none. It’s still one of Mike Ness’s most enduring narratives — burnt out, but never burned up.

“Something I Learned Today” by Hüsker Dü (1984) brings us to the Midwest again, this time to Minneapolis, with a song that feels like waking up to hard truths in a world full of noise. As the opening track on their landmark Zen Arcade album, it sets the tone with frantic drums, buzzing guitars, and lyrics that are introspective and sharply observant. Hüsker Dü blurred the lines between hardcore and what would eventually become alternative rock, and this song captures them at that shifting moment. It’s the sound of realization hitting all at once, loud and unstoppable.