Skateboarding has seemingly always gone hand in hand with good music but recently things have become slightly ill in terms of the commercialization of the whole deal. Today’s youth have readily available pay-for-punk pushed on them from every direction; it comes from MTV, Hot Topic and even the once credible Tony Hawk video games. But skateboarding once defined an attitude that drove those who took part in the sport to live outside of parameters given to them by society. Whether that meant dressing a certain way or listening to a certain style of music, it seemed that skaters did things different. I’m not even talking about Z-Boys era skaters, I’m talking mid-90s, when things were beginning to be ushered into the mainstream by ESPN and punk had long since been given new meaning. There was still a lot of innovation and underground feeling to things despite the blossoming commercialization of the sport. With that, a recent collection of The 100 Best Skate Photos on Flickr reminded me of a lot of the connection to what was good about this era of skating that many younger skaters might not know about, the music.

The purest look at the sport for those who weren’t out living it was through videos. Often put out to limited exposure in a time when skate shops weren’t in your local shopping mall the videos ushered in new age of hero by giving window to some of the best skaters’ lives and proving their complete dedication to the sport. Often the accompaniment that made this delivery complete and gave character to the athletes was the soundtrack that accompanied their segments. With that, I invite you to check out these photos, clips and songs from a variety of videos from this era that gave a glimpse of the true beauty of skateboarding.

The 100 Best Skate Photos on Flickr

Chris Cole from Dying To Live
Styx “Renegade”

Mike Maldonado from Jump Off A Building
Pink Floyd “Time”

Rodney Mullen vs. Daewon Song Round 2
Rockwell “Somebody’s Watching Me”

Eric Koston from Yeah Right!
Frank Black “Los Angeles”

Tom Penny from Menikmati
Air “Modular Mix”

Bam Margera from One Step Beyond
H.I.M. “Sigillum Diaboli”
W.A.S.P. “Mean Man” (Kris Markovich from One Step Beyond)

Adrian Lopez from Misled Youth
Iron Maiden “Prowler”