The Founding Fathers of Pop Punk

When I was five years old, I was sitting in the backseat of my mom’s car wearing a leather jacket and I had just heard the first song I remember falling deeply in love with. It was Minority by Green Day. Littered with f bombs and innuendos, it became the foundation of my music taste. Shortly after my love affair with Green Day began, my dad bought me the hard copy of American Idiot back when CDs were still a thing. I carried that disc everywhere, even after the case cracked due to my incessant need to travel with it everywhere. My love for Green Day later transcended into my love for bands like Weezer, The Killers, Panic! at the Disco, and more. As a college student, filled with angst, I still listen to these bands frequently and as I’ve listened to them throughout the progression of their discography, I have realized something: the bands who are essentially the “founding fathers of pop punk,” are untouchable names in the music genre. 

The Wikipedia definition for “pop punk” is that it is “a genre of rock music that combines influences of pop music with punk rock. Fast tempos, prominent electric guitars with distortion, and power chord changes are typically played under pop-influenced melodies and vocal styles with lighthearted lyrical themes including boredom, rebellion and teenage romance.” It sounds easy, or simple, but for some reason, we as a generation don’t necessarily see a successful emergence of a new pop punk band and the genre still depends heavily on names that have been around since 1986 and even earlier. 

This is in heavy contrast to a lot of other genres of music, such as pop or alternative music; almost every month there is some newly discovered talent that sweeps the Billboard with a one-hit wonder and litters social media with a temporary, but ravenous, acclaim. If we look at “boyband culture,” we can see the steady stream of boy bands through the decades and how new ones can emerge and obtain pretty steady success, such as One Direction and the Jonas Brothers. Their relevance rarely changes even as new bands emerge. 

What is interesting about the pop punk scene is that the predecessors hold the majority of the relevancy. I took to the Internet to do some researching and searched “most famous pop punk bands” and, as one could guess, here were the first ten: Blink-182, Green Day, Fallout Boy, New Found Glory, Sum 41, My Chemical Romance, Paramore, All Time Low, and The Offspring. The “youngest” of those bands is Paramore, which started in 2004. It goes on to show even older roots that are still just as relevant today as they were then, such as The Ramones and The Clash. Despite the popularity of music festivals, such as the Vans Warped Tour, that are meant to promote smaller punk bands, it is still incredibly hard for any band trying to break through this genre to succeed in a way that makes them at the same “level” as the aforementioned acts.

I, biased as I am, would love to focus primarily on the cultural impact that Green Day has had on the music industry and the pop-punk genre, specifically, since their formation in 1986. As I mentioned earlier, I was only five years old when I was introduced to American Idiot. To me, this album was synonymous to the gospel and yet, I was completely unaware of the depth and importance of their previous albums. I was five, okay? Five years old. I figured it out eventually and I’m here to explain, through the example of the holy trinity of Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt, and Tre Cool, why the bands that created the standards for the pop-punk genre are the only ones that are truly here to stay. 

When I was nonexistent, Green Day released an album called Dookie. It was not their first album, by no means, but it was extremely well-received by audiences. It was huge, like, it was a very big deal. I can tell you that as much as I’d like, or I could pull some opinions from other people, who also agree. Reddit user, glenn_stefani, talks about how it’s crazy “that some fans who were introduced through American Idiot don’t even realize how much bigger Dookie was 10 years prior. Dookie is one out of only 100 albums to ever go Diamond. Shit was out of control.” The album is considered to be one of the best albums of ALL TIME as well as extremely relevant and formative of the rock scene in the 90s. At the 2019 AMAs, they elicited an insane reaction from the crowd when they chose to perform Basket Case from Dookie. It’s been 25 years since its release and it is still an important rock song that everyone knows. It is, essentially, the precedent. 

They recently announced their summer tour with Fall Out Boy and Weezer. Big names; big names relevant to the pop-punk genre specifically. Tickets are upwards of $150 (softly weeps) for nosebleed seats and upwards of around $400 for decent seats. This is a big deal to a lot of people and what’s interesting to see is that this reaction and these prices aren’t for some new hot-shot band with a pretty lead singer with long hair and an attitude who will undoubtedly break the band up after either a drug issue or the desire to go solo until he sells out and they have to get back together so they can all pay their rent. No, no, no. These are the originals, the founding fathers of what pop-punk means to us today, and the precedent for what people will think of as pop-punk in the future.

If anything, I think this can bring a very interesting conversation to the surface. Is each genre of music dependent on its demographic rather than its talent? The fans of pop-punk are very loyal to the names that have been mentioned. The first one that comes to mind is Panic! at the Disco, which started off as a band and ended, or is currently, with just the frontman Brendon Urie. People are so unbelievably loyal to him and he still receives the same amount of attention and profit as he did in the beginning of his days, if not more. The demographic, the fans that these artists are resonating with and attaching themselves to, is ultimately in control of who dominates the scene at the time. If a new band emerged and received Beatlemania-like fanfare, then the demographic has allotted for a shift in the music genre and what is considered a “big deal” and good, essentially. What’s interesting to witness through this genre specifically, is that these bands are still dominating the scene and fans are rarely budging to allow for a shift within it. 

Billie Eilish said at the AMAs that “growing up there was no band more important” to her than Green Day. No matter where you stand personally in your “relationship” with Billie Joe, Tre, and Mike, they may be very important to you or they may not be. However, similarly to how people credit The Beatles with changing rock music forever and ever, we have to give credit where credit is due to some of these pop punk bands. These aren’t the only pop-punk bands and they weren’t the first and they won’t be the last, buuuuuut I think it’s safe to say that no new bands will ever reach the critical acclaim that these guys have. Point blank.