All Ages

All Ages spans the first 10 years of Bad Religion’s existence, 1982 to 1992. It was the flagship band of Epitaph, the label founded by guitarist/songwriter Brett Gurewitz. Though this contains one song from Bad Religion's youthful 1982 debut (the brilliant “We’re Only Gonna Die”) and a few live tracks from a 1994 European tour (“Do What You Want” and “F*ck Armageddon…This Is Hell”), the bulk of All Ages is devoted to the group’s masterful trilogy of Suffer, No Control, and Against the Grain, which were written, recorded, and toured during a burst of creative energy between 1988 and 1990. The partnership of Gurewitz and singer Greg Graffin was at its peak, with each man pushing the other into bolder and more complex forms of punk lyricism. Bad Religion was well known for having some of punk's most erudite lyrics, but its grad-school philosophy would have been meaningless were it not delivered with the force of “Against the Grain,” “Do What You Want," and “Change of Ideas.” Smart but never nerdy, enraged but never clichéd, this collection commemorates one of the great runs in punk rock history.