Punk wasn’t supposed to be pop. But no one told the Ramones, who mined girl groups like The Ronettes and The Shangri-Las for catchy hooks to sit atop the loud and fast guitar riffs. Pop is short for popular, but that’s not why it’s a dirty word among diehards. The music industry has a history of co-opting music scenes and recycling them in bubblegum form. So “pop” became a synonym for something manufactured. Schemed behind closed doors.
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Most bands don’t easily fit the genres they’re stuck with, but pop-punk gained popularity in the 1990s, and many punk bands were tagged with it. Green Day is pop-punk, but Bad Religion and Social Distortion are not. The Offspring might be, but it probably depends on the record. Then I found a New York Times article from 1977 referring to Tom Petty as “pop punk rock”, so who knows.
By the 2000s, there was no doubt (pun intended) which artists were pop-punk. And here are three hits from the era you couldn’t escape, because your hideout likely had MTV, and your getaway car had a radio.
“All The Small Things” by Blink-182
Blink-182’s second single from Enema Of The State was released in the fall of 1999. But at the start of 2000, you couldn’t escape this song. The music video featured Mark Hoppus, Tom DeLonge, and Travis Barker mocking boy bands at the height of boy-band mania. However, the colossal success of Blink-182 probably gained the trio a shared audience with the pop groups they ridiculed.
“The Middle” by Jimmy Eat World
In 2001, it felt like the radio played “The Middle” every fourth or fifth song. But I didn’t mind it. Jimmy Eat World had both pop-punk and emo vibes, and often those two genres overlap. Jimmy Eat World also had the best album cover out of all these bands. Bleed American features an iconic William Eggleston photograph of bowling trophies displayed on top of a cigarette machine. Also, Jimmy Eat World has a very famous fan. Her name is Taylor Swift, and she once mimed “The Middle” in an Apple Music commercial.
“Sk8er Boi” by Avril Lavigne
Blink-182’s commercial success opened the major label doors to similar bands. But when Avril Lavigne arrived, she burst onto a stage mostly dominated by boys. Lavigne’s music leaned more on pop than punk, but her blockbuster debut, Let Go, created a path for female artists uninterested in dance-pop. “Sk8er Boi” established the Canadian singer, styled skate-punk chic as the antithesis of Britney Spears.
Photo by Jerod Harris/WireImage
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