Pop Punk: A Divisive Genre

**Galefore** · 12-22-2011, 08:11 PM

Blink-182 sure have a lot of haters. And that hate can be defended; to a lot of "discerning" listeners, they're overrated, overplayed, bland, and predictable. Yet they're the poster boys of an entire genre that gets a bad rap solely because the other bands at the tip of your tongue when you think "pop punk" are really bland as well. I mean, your Sum 41s and New Found Glory's have their place in the memories of a 20-something former skater kid, but now the genre is looked to as something of a joke. It's the genre music fans lump anything upbeat and peppy into that the radio happens to pick up, and it's the genre so many people throw a rolled eye at every time it gets brought up in conversation. But is it really all bad?

No, not really. I mean, bands like Motion City Soundtrack, Say Anything, Saves the Day, and Jimmy Eat World (who also could be considered emo heroes) are a lot more thoughtful and lyrical. Yellowcard and even latter-day, non-"Four Score" Relient K show that the tongue-in-cheek genre can lead to a fully developed and mature sound in time, as their last two releases are both thoughtful and epic records that can stand up in any Best-Of list. In a genre full of carbon-copy stuff, it's still possible to find something charming and fun. And thats not to say the more generic stuff isn't fun, because it certainly is. That's what the genre is all about: fun. And in my eyes, it's a refreshing way to wind down and a great style of music to blast out of your car window on a long drive up the highway.

So my question is this... What do you think about Pop Punk? Is it pure fluff, or can it be worthwhile? What bands best exemplify the genre for you? And what's your faaaaaavoritest song?

Keep it clean, kids. And here, have some listening material.

Click to view video.

Dizzy · 12-22-2011, 08:34 PM

Pop Punk is a pretty cool guy.

Panfan · 12-22-2011, 08:35 PM

Agreed with you. Even as a fan of the genre my first thoughts to the term "pop punk" seems to flock right to blink-182 and Fall Out Boy. Doesn't stop the fact that some stuff in the genre flat out rules. I really think the genre is kind of going through a renaissance.The Wonder Years, The Swellers, Fireworks, and Transit are all good-to-great newer bands that really give me hope for the genre.

Some of my favorite pop punk trax yo:

The Wonder Years - Local Man Ruins Everything. The Wonder Years ****ing rule. Suburbia may be the best pop punk album since ...Is a Real Boy

Click to view video.

Four Year Strong - Heroes Get Remembered, Legends Never Die. Okay Four Year Strong are kind of followers of New Found Glory's classic style of pop punk that's not really that good per se, but it's not flat out bad. This song is dope though.

Click to view video.

Jimmy Eat World - Sweetness. Gale doesn't agree because he's a F***ing Chump(tm) but Bleed American is JEW at their best and it marks the perfect melding of Emo Pioneer Jimmy Eat World of Static Prevails/Clarity and Commercially Accepted Jimmy Eat World of Futures/Chase This Light. Sure, "The Middle" is overplayed as all get-out, but songs like "Sweetness", "A Praise Chorus", and "Get it Faster" are classics from pop punk's peak in popularity during the early 00's.

Click to view video.

blink-182 - I Miss You. Blink's entire catalog is hit-and-miss. However, when they hit, they hit the nail right on the head.

Click to view video.

***Cosmonautical*** · 12-23-2011, 01:33 AM

Pop punk is the early mainstream name for emo and power pop, after people mistook it for being the same thing as Green Day and the Offspring. Blink 182 and Sum 41 have a special place reserved in hell.

And yeah, I like early Green Day and Rancid and Offspring and Serial Joe and Eve 6. I think it's cool. All the emo and power pop groups that got lumped into Pop Punk, I don't like. Pretty much the only power-pop group I've ever really liked are occasional fringe groups like the Foo Fighters, and that was pretty short-lived for me. The whole sing-through-your-nose **** isn't really genre-defining, it's usually just symptomatic of a singers with no control and too much bubblegum pop influence.

Click to view video.

Everyone all calls the original Pop Punk stuff "Alt Rock" anymore, which really blew up off of modern rock to contain anything Alice & Chains and REM that had the punk rock edge.

There was some huge misnomer in the 90s that post hardcore was the extension of the hardcore direction in punk, which it really wasn't.

And I'm not a big fan of most Epitaph bands like H20, they took post-hardcore and watered it down into something else. Shouldn't really be in hardcore, pop punk or anything else. Pop post hardcore?

**Galefore** · 12-23-2011, 05:55 PM

^Haha, fair enough. I think power pop is a more acceptable genre tag, or "power punkin'" as our producer called it. I generally just call it pop punk since a lot of it has common traits. I'm personally going through one of my trademark genre phases that by now VGF's music community should be familiar with me having, so I'm diggin' it, but as a whole it's a grating style for most (hence the thread title).

@Panfan: I AM NOT A ****ING CHUMP(TM). I do agree about Bleed American. I just think Futures is better. :<

1-up Salesman · 12-27-2011, 12:49 AM

I like a lot of pop-punk that I've heard.

These days, pop-punk is more of a tool for bands like A Day To Remember and such. It's gotten to the point that pop-punk/post-hardcore is normal these days.

As for stuff like Saves the Day, yeah, I like that stuff. I really liked what I heard of 'Through Being Cool' by them, due to the lyrics involving shoving needles in a jerk named Nick's face.

I've only really heard 'The Middle' by Jimmy Eat World, thus for right now I hate them bitterly. Hopefully that will change if I hear some more by them.

Bomby · 12-27-2011, 01:10 AM

I can't tell 90% of pop punk bands apart. Their singers all sound exactly like the guy from New Found Glory. The first thing I thought when I first heard a New Found Glory song was, "man, that guy's voice and enunciation are irritating."

Glux · 12-27-2011, 07:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by the Octopus

Blink 182 and Sum 41 have a special place reserved in hell.

And yeah, I like early Green Day

I can't help but find this slightly contradictory.

***Cosmonautical*** · 12-27-2011, 07:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Glux

I can't help but find this slightly contradictory.

Green Day - Brain Stew/Jaded [Official Music Video] - YouTube

blink-182 - All The Small Things - YouTube

Yeah it's like the same thing right.

Glux · 12-27-2011, 08:30 PM

In all honesty, that's not the best blink-182 video to use, because that video is purposely making fun of other bands/artists/singers. 98degrees, Britney Spears, etc. It wasn't meant to be a serious video.

What's My Age Again, now THAT I could see.

I never said it was the same thing, but Green Day's done their share. Have you seen Green Day live? He (not literally) "masturbates" on stage, humps the ground, etc. Green Day's not the cleanest act either. Granted not as bad as blink-182.

Panfan · 12-27-2011, 08:42 PM

^ I don't think he's comparing how clean their music is...

Glux · 12-27-2011, 08:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Panfan

^ I don't think he's comparing how clean their music is...

I know he's not, I was talking about the videos and their stage antics. I assumed that's what he's talking about as well.

And if he's talking neither about the music nor the videos/stage antics, then hell if I know what he's talking about.

EDIT: I'm not trying to start an argument or anything, I'm just curious and wish for an expansion of your thoughts.

***Cosmonautical*** · 12-29-2011, 06:02 AM

Green Day had a lot more mutes and dynamic rhythm emphasis, especially on the songs I prefer. Their vocals sit at a lower spot in the mix. They are much acquainted with drop tuning and fuzz.

The Blink 182 I'm familiar with is strictly Power Pop - it's a straightforward E-standard rhythm that mostly rides a single successive chord with strict 4/4 timing and no emphasis on syncopation leaving very little breathing space or room for imagination- they generally just carry a melody in the simplest fashion imaginable. The vocals are barely comparable - Blink's vocals have always fallen back on the sinus passage to control tone, as do most boybands and some RnB singers, and they don't just use it as a once-off gimmick to parody.

If I wanted to compare their images, I would, but I'm not about to bother because it has absolutely nothing to do with their music and all to do with their corporate label contracts.

Glux · 12-30-2011, 02:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by the Octopus

Green Day had a lot more mutes and dynamic rhythm emphasis, especially on the songs I prefer. Their vocals sit at a lower spot in the mix. They are much acquainted with drop tuning and fuzz.

The Blink 182 I'm familiar with is strictly Power Pop - it's a straightforward E-standard rhythm that mostly rides a single successive chord with strict 4/4 timing and no emphasis on syncopation leaving very little breathing space or room for imagination- they generally just carry a melody in the simplest fashion imaginable. The vocals are barely comparable - Blink's vocals have always fallen back on the sinus passage to control tone, as do most boybands and some RnB singers, and they don't just use it as a once-off gimmick to parody.

If I wanted to compare their images, I would, but I'm not about to bother because it has absolutely nothing to do with their music and all to do with their corporate label contracts.

Most of the time when people say that someone has "a special place reserved in hell" it's because of how they act or what they've done, which is why I was kind of confused.

M'kay.

***Cosmonautical*** · 12-30-2011, 09:31 PM

You would not believe how strongly I feel about music and that industry. Most people seem to have no understanding how negative an impact hearing pop music has on my experience in stores, etc. There's a lot of it I like or consider tolerable, but take what you feel about any song you dislike and magnify it by 10, that's me.

When I said that, though, I was thinking more of the door that they opened. Alt rock radio was pretty much destroyed IMO by Pop Punk and Rap Metal. They're both genres I liked to start with, but followed through to the end they led to entire styles being ostracized by association. As a person who was at least once heavily vested in music and specific genres, it wasn't easy or pleasant to watch it happen, and the idiots running major labels were all eager to help dig the grave deeper by ignoring the longer-lived talents.

Two things can happen in genres that you like:

Labels can find the groups with the poppiest hooks and least connections to that genre, and foist them on the public. Audiences build skewed associations, groups become pigeonholed for an association to a genre.

or

Artists actually have a career after 5 years.

The labels are by and far responsible for it, but a lot of bands turn their noses up at more realistic deals in favor of big money up front.

Glux · 12-31-2011, 04:38 PM

Just throwing this in here, but why was SUM 41 mentioned in this thread in the first place? I don't believe they were ever POP punk, and even if they were it was only 1 album...

Panfan · 12-31-2011, 05:22 PM

If you listen to All Killer No Filler or Does This Look Infected?, the music is incredibly characteristic of early 00's pop punk.

***Cosmonautical*** · 12-31-2011, 08:00 PM

Blink 182 was never Pop Punk, but that doesn't stop them from holding the crown. *shrug*

As for Sum 41, the radio listeners will remember them for their biggest successes. Most of which leans toward what's now considered Pop Punk.

12-30-2011, 09:31 PM	#15
*Cosmonautical* Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: I rub my tilde all over your asterisk Gender: Posts: 28,100 Thanks: 2,151 Thanked 5,338 Times in 2,433 Posts	You would not believe how strongly I feel about music and that industry. Most people seem to have no understanding how negative an impact hearing pop music has on my experience in stores, etc. There's a lot of it I like or consider tolerable, but take what you feel about any song you dislike and magnify it by 10, that's me. When I said that, though, I was thinking more of the door that they opened. Alt rock radio was pretty much destroyed IMO by Pop Punk and Rap Metal. They're both genres I liked to start with, but followed through to the end they led to entire styles being ostracized by association. As a person who was at least once heavily vested in music and specific genres, it wasn't easy or pleasant to watch it happen, and the idiots running major labels were all eager to help dig the grave deeper by ignoring the longer-lived talents. Two things can happen in genres that you like: Labels can find the groups with the poppiest hooks and least connections to that genre, and foist them on the public. Audiences build skewed associations, groups become pigeonholed for an association to a genre. or Artists actually have a career after 5 years. The labels are by and far responsible for it, but a lot of bands turn their noses up at more realistic deals in favor of big money up front. Last edited by Cosmonautical; 12-30-2011 at 09:40 PM.

12-22-2011, 08:34 PM	#2
Dizzy Podiaphobe Join Date: Oct 2007 Gender: Posts: 19,359 Thanks: 1,764 Thanked 1,161 Times in 804 Posts Blog Entries: 116	Pop Punk is a pretty cool guy.

12-23-2011, 05:55 PM	#5
Galefore EXPLOSION GOD OF MUSIC Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Some studio somewhere Gender: Posts: 8,275 Thanks: 1,361 Thanked 826 Times in 535 Posts Blog Entries: 5	^Haha, fair enough. I think power pop is a more acceptable genre tag, or "power punkin'" as our producer called it. I generally just call it pop punk since a lot of it has common traits. I'm personally going through one of my trademark genre phases that by now VGF's music community should be familiar with me having, so I'm diggin' it, but as a whole it's a grating style for most (hence the thread title). @Panfan: I AM NOT A ****ING CHUMP(TM). I do agree about Bleed American. I just think Futures is better. :<

12-27-2011, 12:49 AM	#6
1-up Salesman Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: Letting you guys know that I'm planning on continuing Attack of the Spammers soon. Gender: Posts: 4,095 Thanks: 2,162 Thanked 250 Times in 194 Posts Blog Entries: 9	I like a lot of pop-punk that I've heard. These days, pop-punk is more of a tool for bands like A Day To Remember and such. It's gotten to the point that pop-punk/post-hardcore is normal these days. As for stuff like Saves the Day, yeah, I like that stuff. I really liked what I heard of 'Through Being Cool' by them, due to the lyrics involving shoving needles in a jerk named Nick's face. I've only really heard 'The Middle' by Jimmy Eat World, thus for right now I hate them bitterly. Hopefully that will change if I hear some more by them.

12-27-2011, 01:10 AM	#7
Bomby You just freaking blew Joe Biden's mind! Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: WHAT?house Gender: Posts: 19,491 Thanks: 513 Thanked 1,449 Times in 849 Posts Blog Entries: 5	I can't tell 90% of pop punk bands apart. Their singers all sound exactly like the guy from New Found Glory. The first thing I thought when I first heard a New Found Glory song was, "man, that guy's voice and enunciation are irritating."

12-27-2011, 08:30 PM	#10
Glux Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Home Gender: Posts: 7,121 Thanks: 647 Thanked 360 Times in 236 Posts Blog Entries: 3	In all honesty, that's not the best blink-182 video to use, because that video is purposely making fun of other bands/artists/singers. 98degrees, Britney Spears, etc. It wasn't meant to be a serious video. What's My Age Again, now THAT I could see. I never said it was the same thing, but Green Day's done their share. Have you seen Green Day live? He (not literally) "masturbates" on stage, humps the ground, etc. Green Day's not the cleanest act either. Granted not as bad as blink-182.

12-27-2011, 08:42 PM	#11
Panfan AND HE PRAYS Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Grayskull Gender: Posts: 18,806 Thanks: 1,405 Thanked 2,247 Times in 1,337 Posts Blog Entries: 15	^ I don't think he's comparing how clean their music is...

12-29-2011, 06:02 AM	#13
*Cosmonautical* Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: I rub my tilde all over your asterisk Gender: Posts: 28,100 Thanks: 2,151 Thanked 5,338 Times in 2,433 Posts	Green Day had a lot more mutes and dynamic rhythm emphasis, especially on the songs I prefer. Their vocals sit at a lower spot in the mix. They are much acquainted with drop tuning and fuzz. The Blink 182 I'm familiar with is strictly Power Pop - it's a straightforward E-standard rhythm that mostly rides a single successive chord with strict 4/4 timing and no emphasis on syncopation leaving very little breathing space or room for imagination- they generally just carry a melody in the simplest fashion imaginable. The vocals are barely comparable - Blink's vocals have always fallen back on the sinus passage to control tone, as do most boybands and some RnB singers, and they don't just use it as a once-off gimmick to parody. If I wanted to compare their images, I would, but I'm not about to bother because it has absolutely nothing to do with their music and all to do with their corporate label contracts.

12-31-2011, 04:38 PM	#16
Glux Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Home Gender: Posts: 7,121 Thanks: 647 Thanked 360 Times in 236 Posts Blog Entries: 3	Just throwing this in here, but why was SUM 41 mentioned in this thread in the first place? I don't believe they were ever POP punk, and even if they were it was only 1 album...

12-31-2011, 05:22 PM	#17
Panfan AND HE PRAYS Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Grayskull Gender: Posts: 18,806 Thanks: 1,405 Thanked 2,247 Times in 1,337 Posts Blog Entries: 15	If you listen to All Killer No Filler or Does This Look Infected?, the music is incredibly characteristic of early 00's pop punk.

12-31-2011, 08:00 PM	#18
*Cosmonautical* Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: I rub my tilde all over your asterisk Gender: Posts: 28,100 Thanks: 2,151 Thanked 5,338 Times in 2,433 Posts	Blink 182 was never Pop Punk, but that doesn't stop them from holding the crown. shrug As for Sum 41, the radio listeners will remember them for their biggest successes. Most of which leans toward what's now considered Pop Punk.