Artist · chart history · #744 in indie & aaa artist polls
The Minutemen
Band San Pedro United States Active 1980–1985 early 80s US hardcore punk band
The Minutemen formed in 1980 in San Pedro, United States and was active until 1985. The Minutemen has 10 chart appearances on 9 radio countdowns from 5 stations on RockLists, spanning 1989–2026. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Corona”, which appears on 3 lists with a best position of #405. The station that charted The Minutemen most often is The Colorado Sound (Fort Collins–Denver, CO), with 6 appearances.
The Minutemen came out of San Pedro, California, in 1980: D. Boon on guitar and vocals, Mike Watt on bass and vocals, and George Hurley on drums. They played punk like a jazz trio with a grudge, cramming hardcore, funk, jazz and anything else within reach into short, tight songs that stopped the moment they'd made their point. Across four albums and eight EPs they never wasted a second. SST Records was their label, and The Punch Line, from 1981, includes "Song for El Salvador".
Their credo was "jamming econo", Pedro slang for doing it cheap. They booked studio time after midnight at bargain rates, rehearsed everything before walking in the door, did the technical work at their own shows, recorded on secondhand tape and cut songs in album order so nobody had to waste time editing later. They all held down day jobs, toured in short bursts and still made money doing it, and they sometimes treated a record as an advertisement for the tour rather than the other way round. Project: Mersh, the 1985 EP, marked the end of that strictly econo era.
D. Boon was killed in a car accident in 1985, and the Minutemen broke up soon after. What they left behind still sounds like a lesson in how much a band can say with a stopwatch running.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by The Minutemen on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Corona | 3 | #405 | – | – | |
| 2 | Cheerleaders | 1 | #170 | – | – | |
| 3 | History Lesson (Part II) | 2 | #694 | – | – | |
| 4 | History Lesson Pt. 2 | 1 | #629 | – | – | |
| 5 | Have You Ever Seen The Rain | 1 | #671 | – | – | |
| 6 | Song for El Salvador | 1 | #1799 | – | – |
Albums with charting songs
Where each song was first released, from MusicBrainz.
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