The Punch Line

This article is about the Minutemen album. For the comedy club, see The Punchline. For other uses, see Punch line (disambiguation).
The Punch Line
Studio album by
Minutemen
ReleasedNovember 1, 1981
RecordedJuly 1981
StudioMedia Art Studio
(Hermosa Beach, California)
GenreHardcore punk[1]
Length15:00
LabelSST (004)
ProducerSpot
Minutemen chronology
Joy
(1981) 		The Punch Line
(1981) 		Bean-Spill
(1982)

The Punch Line is the debut studio album and third overall release by American punk rock band Minutemen, and the fourth-ever release from SST Records. After their previous release, Paranoid Time, sold out its 300-copy pressing, Greg Ginn invited the band to record again.[2] Less than half the length of most LPs, the total playing time for all 18 songs is a mere 15 minutes. The album was an early milestone release for the band and SST. The Punch Line hit record store shelves three months after the release of Joy, although Joy was recorded after The Punch Line.[3]

The Punch Line also appears on the My First Bells cassette and the Post-Mersh Vol. 1 CD. The opening track, "Search", represented Minutemen on the second Rodney on the ROQ compilation album on Posh Boy Records, while four other songs, including the title track, were featured on the compilation cassette The Future Looks Bright Ahead, jointly issued by Posh Boy and SST in 1981. "Boiling" and "Games" were featured on the seminal SST compilation The Blasting Concept.

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference am was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Azerrad, Michael (2001). Our Band Could Be Your Life : scenes from the American indie underground 1981 - 1991 (1. ed.). Boston [u.a.]: Little, Brown. ISBN 0-316-06379-7.
  3. ^ Ibarra, Craig (2015). A Wailing Of A Town: An Oral History of Early San Pedro Punk And More 1977-1985. END FWY. pp. 101–102. ISBN 978-0-9860971-0-2.