Blink-182: Logo #15

Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker designed this icon for their eponymous Geffen album in 2003. Barker credits The Jam and Pop art with the arrows; still, some fans were vexed enough to cry plagiarism and let slip the dogs of blogs, accusing Barker of stealing the happy-face idea from Nirvana's somewhat like-minded logo. Nirvana, however, could well be accused of the same thing, seeing as their happy-face logo was preceded by those of The Weirdos and Social Distortion. Not exactly a brain-busting concept, that happy face. Regardless, it's an effective, simple image, suggesting action in the face of unconsciousness - or, alternately, that sleepwalking through life is just peachy in a post-Reagan reality-TV world.

The Specials: Logo #14

Designed by Jerry Dammers and Horace "The Gentleman" Panter for their Two-Tone label in 1979, the usually nameless Walt Jabsco was based on an album photograph of Peter Tosh. It debuted on the The Specials' "Gangsters" single. Indian-born Dammers played keyboards in the septet; Panter, the bass. One of the first mascots in the survey, it pre-dated even Iron Maiden's Eddie, but Motörhead pre-dated them with their Snaggletooth mascot, which was then pre-dated by Angel Witch. Another story for another time. And while Eddie and The Not Man and Grim Reaper are exciting on a cosmological level, you don't necessarily want to style your life after them. Fangs are rough on dry-cleaning. Two-toned suits - not so much.

Dead Kennedys: Logo #13

Dead Kennedys logo designer Winston Smith recalls, "I created that after I'd met (Jello) Biafra in either late 1979 or very early 1980. I'd done some work with him and come up with a few things and one evening he gave me a call to ask if I could cook up something they could use for an emblem for the band. He explained that since lots of bands just went by their initials (MDC, DOA, DRI, etc.), they usually got referred to as the DKs. I spent the evening going through dozens of different ideas utilizing different geometric shapes. Finally I got it down to the most minimal amount of pen strokes one could make and still have a legible image. I wanted to create something that would be E-Z for anyone to draw quickly and completely. At least, in that regard, it looks like I was successful. I don't think it's any artistic masterpiece but at least it was original. Anyway, when I first showed it to Biafra a week or so later he said "That's IT!," and before I knew it the logo was drawn all over the walls in the back of the club they were gigging at in Berkeley where we were that night. Unfortunately artists usually can't collect any royalties from tattoos or graffiti, otherwise I'd be retired somewhere in the south of France with a really bad drug habit (which is, fortunately, unaffordable in my current economic situation)."

Magma: Logo #12

Interviewed by George Allen and Robert Pearson in 1995, Magma founder Christian Vander remarked on the logo he designed in September 1969, "When I created it, I never thought of (it as) a bird. The idea at the beginning was something like the dress of the Egyptians. It was supposed to be like a piece of cloth or articulated metal sheets that would mold over the body, over the ribcage. It was to be similar to breast-plate armor, but supple, not rigid." Contrary to popular belief, Vander was not the drummer in the forest in Jean-Luc Godard's "Week End." The Magma design is a modern example of a very ancient attitude: that a symbol's meaning borders on the mystical and it's something meant to be integrated into the life of the bearer. It's like a literal brand - or, as it appears on the tombstone that graces the cover of the 2004 Magma album "K.A (Köhntarkösz Anteria)", a totem that helps guide the individual even after death.

Adam and the Ants: Logo #11

Designed by Danny Kleinman in 1980, this underrated, catchy symbol projected the public image for the burgeoning Ant Liberation Front, an unheralded pop meme used by everyone from the Kiss Army to the Insane Clown Posse's Juggalos. Kleinman, the guitarist who in 1971 founded Bazooka Joe (the pub rock precursor to Adam and the Ants), would go on to project other public images whose impact on the psyche of that decade's pop culture is almost like the scent of the campfire to yonder Neandertal. His videos include Thomas Dolby's "Hyperactive!," Wang Chung's "Dance Hall Days," and the extortionately bizarre "Go Insane" video for Lindsay Buckingham, and he's designed the title sequences of every James Bond film since "GoldenEye". Adam and His Ants represented a side of punk that would be mainly exterminated through a trinity of yobs, heroin and conservatism. It was composed of highly literate (and literal), funny, imaginative gestures against the status quo, coming from seemingly nowhere and often of indeterminate sexual origin. That its individuality has been beaten out of the pop landscape with clubs of irony and conformity is everyone's loss and boredom's tirelessly tiresome gain.

7 Seconds: Logo #10

One or two because I missed a day or three.

Straight-edge punk pioneer Kevin Seconds (née Marvelli) designed the 7 Seconds logo in 1980. The cattier dyslexics among us may mistake "sXe" for "sex," but the straight-edge credo - a slightly grumpier Eagle Scout worldview - is concerned with anything but. 1980 was a good year for emblems: Devo's energy dome, The Anti-Nowhere League's spiked fist and mace, and the White Spirit eagle. "The logo first appeared on gig fliers in our hometown of Reno," Seconds remembers - which, having abstained from copious amounts of drink and drugs, is fairly easy to do after 27 years. Here the circle also suggests a mosh pit - which, in an odd way, with its convivial picking up of punks who have fallen to the ground, is comforting in itself. 7 Seconds, having much in common with common-sense Christianity in its core philosophy, cleverly offers a simple yet multi-faceted icon with straight edges that can be seen as either crooked crosses or an overwhelming paranoia from persecution by authority - something inherent in punk from day 12 (it took The Man a little while to catch on).

Blue Öyster Cult: Logo #9

Designed by Bill Gawlik in 1972, this symbol's level of simplicity mirrors Blue Öyster Cult's key innovation: the umlaut. The band's umlaut was suggested by either Blue Öyster Cult keys player Allen Lanier or scribbler Richard Meltzer - ironically, two occupations least associated with maximum weight. And yet for all the controversy that dogs the 35 years of this group, it virtually bleeds tradition: their folkish yet deific subject matter, about Titans as diverse as Kronos and Godzilla, harks back to the days of the wandering troubadour. The hooked cross holds alchemical significance as a logo for lead, one of the heaviest of all possible metals - just as the barber's pole signified the earliest of all possible frontier surgeons, or the giant shoe signified the shortest of all possible cobblers.