The eMusic Dozen: Alt-Punk Essentials

"I sail away on a wave of mutilation!" croons Black Francis in his Mighty Mouse tenor in the middle of this sweet tsunami of a record, the most powerful and coherent by the pioneer brats of alt-punk. Maybe by accident, the Pixies had all the elements that brought indie's rawness to the mainstream — a signature sound built around exquisite tension and glorious release; lyrics made of bone and hair, spinning sex and death in a whole new way; and most of all, that glorious feeling of a band continually testing the limits of its formidable interplay. From the nightmare nursery rhyme of "Monkey Gone to Heaven" to the animal magnetism of "No. 13 Baby," this is some deliciously twisted stuff.

Strapping Californians with the grace of summer semi-pros, the boys of Pavement were naturals — they didn't need to neaten up their rambling labyrinths of song to win hearts, nor write a hit single (though this album boasts two, the wistful "Range Life" and the wry "Cut Your Hair") to become pop darlings. On this second album, the band focuses enough to offer choruses that stick like candy melted on a park bench. This may be the sunniest experimental rock ever made, just a bunch of Central Valley dudes — really, really smart dudes — digging in the crates for unexpected elements to shore up their afternoon reveries, from Martin Denny-style exotica to hardcore ranting. Stephen Malkmus was emerging as the band's philosopher-king, but most of the intrigue still lay in the mystery of how Pavement's fragments all fit together to create such a sublime whole.

Polly Jean Harvey just may the ultimate alternative rock star. Her brand of supernatural blues is too classic for punk and too intense to ever settle into the mainstream. With a raw alto veering toward glossolalia and an angle-wise musicality that gave new meaning to the verb "to shred," Harvey, playing in the wiry trio that bore her name, stood up to her idols — Captain Beefheart and Howlin' Wolf — and showed how a woman born in the shadow of such giants (literally — this Englishwoman was raised by amateur blues-rock promoters) could wreak her own divine havoc. In songs full of harpies and goddesses, blood and water, hunger and nausea, P.J. Harvey made a new mythos for the millennium.

Seattle wasn't the only pea patch watered by kids of the ‘80s seeking to escape MTV and make punk their own. Lou Barlow and J. Mascis, two seemingly lackadaisical nerds from collegiate Northampton, Mass., turned their hardcore band into Dinosaur Jr. after realizing that the precision of thrash-and-mosh left little room for the sonic rambling that suited their hazy attitude. The resulting sound embodied one of indie rock's key emotional realities: the hormonal flux of misfit boys bent on claiming their cock rock inheritance, but scared of it as well. (Is there a sadder attempt at a romantic gesture than "In a Jar"?) Running wild with his effects pedal while mumbling insecurities into the mike, Mascis was rock's ultimate loser-hero, while bassist Barlow (who'd later found the equally influential Sebadoh) provided mind-expanding atmosphere. And don't forget the drums by Murph — the band's one unambivalent rocker, who held up its shaky treehouse with basic brute force.

Including pop's proto-robot on an "alt/punk" list might seem wrong at first — synthesizer-dominated pop, after all, was what guitar-crazy American punk (and later "alt") reacted against. But Numan's no Duran Duran; his knob-twisting on tersely-titled anti-rants like "Metal" and "Films" gave shape to chrome-cold landscapes of technophilic futurism, placing Numan strongly within a continuum stretching from Bowie to recent trendies like Interpol and the electroclash groups. The Pleasure Principle is Numan's best-realized work, with drum-punched arrangements that crackle with tension as our flat-voiced guide manifests his Blade Runner

Great rock music makes room for everything, even within one band — high art and low blows, confusion and clarity, elegance and chaos. The Fall is one of those groups that achieves this many-splendored ideal. For 35 years, ranter/genius Mark E. Smith has led a rotating cast of clangers through volumes of experimental pop poetics, from total meltdowns to smash hits and back again. This album, considered by many to be this influential ensemble's best work, is certainly its most accessible — Smith's then-wife Brix, a native of sunny LA, inspired a pop move that put Steve Hanley's percolating bass up front; she also persuaded her vitriolic mate to sing occasionally. That he's singing (and chanting and screaming) imagistic poetry makes numbers like "Spoilt Victorian Child" and "Barmy" all the more engaging.

Ah, emo — the men's movement of punk, in which rough boys whose fathers read Iron John in the bathroom grew sensitive while strumming VERY LOUDLY on guitars. It's the sound of a croon turning into a scream, and vice versa. Chris Carrabba, the driving force behind Dashboard Confessional, is emo's Robert Bly — its popularizer and leading empath. There is really nothing like seeing D.C. live, witnessing thousands of young men (and a few ladies) furiously singing along to Carrabba's hooky updates on singer-songwriter romanticism. This disc is the next best thing. Produced by Gil Norton, alt/punk master of the loud-soft mix, AMABAS makes bedroom-window serenades like "Hands Down" and "Carry This Picture" sound bigger than one guy's little beating heart. And that's how emo became the heart of rock in the new millennium.