Pop punk is great and there's NO SHAME in admitting it

[The Mollusk]

NO SHAME AT ALL

I don't know what it says about me that I really properly started loving pop punk once I was in my 30s yet ignored a great deal of it when the genre was in full swing (very appropriately when I was a teenage scrote having my first taste of the immense buzz of discovering ROCK MUSIC) but hey, here I am, approaching middle age and about to tell you how great "From Here to Infirmary" by Alkaline Trio is.

"From Here to Infirmary" by Alkaline Trio is great! I quite liked the song "Private Eye" when it came out but never investigated further, until about four years ago when I suddenly found myself listening to the album loads. Mr. Chainsaw is such a banger.

Of all the music I first discovered in my adolescence, Green Day were one of the very first loves and I gotta say it makes me super happy that I still connect so hard with "Dookie" and "Insomniac", both of which I'd say are 10/10. "Dookie" is pure pop brilliance, almost power-pop at times, and "When I Come Around" is surely one of their best tunes, absolutely perfect slab of '90s angst condensed into 3 minutes. "Insomniac" is the perfect follow-up, the lads whizzing their tits off and chugging out immense, over-produced grunge-pop. It's tight as fuck, Tre Cool is a sensational drummer and he totally bollocks it out on this album.

Shout out to some more obscure bands to round off this OP:

The Ergs! are a band I discovered recently whose 2004 debut album "dorkrockcorkrod" is bloody brilliant, teeming with daft energy, great sense of humour, ridiculously catchy tunes. It's 30 mins long and you can listen to it in full here. I've rinsed it out so many times I know the whole thing pretty much by heart now.

Ovens are maayyybe a little closer to power-pop with their unbridled penchant for OTT wailing majestic riffs, sort of like "Blue Album"-era Weezer except all the songs are about a minute long and pretty much all of them are about getting fucked up on drugs, writing terrible songs, feeling like shit and wasting their lives. Their self-titled album has 40 songs densely packed together into an hour of runtime and it's fantastic. One of my favourite pop punk albums for sure, there's no one else really like them. Listen to it here, you should pretty much fall in love with it right from the first 2 songs.

[chveik]

is Jay Reatard pop punk? the man was good

[cosmic-hearse]

Used to love The Descendents' 'Milo Goes to College', and although the music (which sounds like a perfect blend of their contemporaries / rehearsal space comrades / occasion band mates Black Flag & The Last) still stands up, the incel lyrics are incredibly grim.

I was slightly forgiving as I assumed they were all clueless teen virgins when they wrote them, then I discovered their bassist Tony Lombardo was in his thirties at the time.

[lankyguy95]

Insomniac is about as good as that sound gets. I know many bands completely fall off from previous heights but Green Day's collapse is quite something.

[McChesney Duntz]

If The Buzzcocks aren't pop punk, then no one is. And they're one of the greatest bands of all time.

[BeardFaceMan]

Used to love The Descendents' 'Milo Goes to College', and although the music (which sounds like a perfect blend of their contemporaries / rehearsal space comrades / occasion band mates Black Flag & The Last) still stands up, the incel lyrics are incredibly grim.

I was slightly forgiving as I assumed they were all clueless teen virgins when they wrote them, then I discovered their bassist Tony Lombardo was in his thirties at the time.

Well to be fair, the other 3 members were teens.

[Brundle-Fly]

Toy Dolls were pretty moronic but really had their moments if you're prepared to put Nelly The Elephant aside. Fantastic live show, naturally. And boy can Olga play.

[non capisco]

Insomniac is about as good as that sound gets. I know many bands completely fall off from previous heights but Green Day's collapse is quite something.

I too still have a colossal soft spot for anything up to 'Insomniac'. 'Dookie' is an absolutely unimpeachable collection of gonzoid pop songs about being bored and wanking. I don't think there's a second on the thing that isn't some kind of deft pop classicist hook worthy of Gifford or McCartney but about having a tommy tank or kicking your heels down the shops. It meant a lot to me when I was living in a permanent fug of unenlightened dissastisfaction at age 16, that record. I think about half of 'Nimrod' is still alright. I dropped off with 'Warning' which I bought and thought was pish. Apart from about three songs on '39/Smooth' starting with variations on the 'All Day And All Of the Night' riff they'd never felt like they were massively ripping people off before that but 'Warning' was a continuous piss take that made Noel Gallagher sound like Sun Ra. The title track is unavoidably 'Picture Book' by The Kinks, you oafs! I remember putting it on when it came out and my mate just laughing at the one that is blatantly 'Oliver's Army'. Beyond the unavoidable big singles off 'American Idiot' (all dire) I haven't bothered since and I'm going to go out on a limb and guess I haven't been missing more lightning in a bottle albums like 'Dookie'. Funnily enough I don't really want a new record to relate to about being bored and wanking now I'm 42 despite that being at least 98% of my last year and a half.

(Along with the two to three great early Green Day albums I would also add 'Shenanigans', the b-sides album from the 'Dookie' through to 'Nimrod' years. Some more pop punk gems on that)

[madhair60]

i love pop punk and never post about it

[Dirty Boy]

Husker Du ftw
Pink Turns To Blue
Girl Who Lives On Heaven Hill
Somewhere
Sorry Somehow
Hate Paper Doll

[Nice Relaxing Poo]

Snuff- Demmamussabebonk is a great pop punk album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1trP4u-4e1E&ab_channel=cultofmisjudgment


Sunny Places is a particularly cheery tune

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7_DTpYK8jE&ab_channel=magicdutchmen

[BeardFaceMan]

Love a bit of Snuff, their cover of Galloping Home is a thing of (Black) beauty.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=9JzG1psdgxA

[Smeraldina Rima]

Another fan of most Descendents and Green Day's Dookie and Insomniac (and "Going to Pasalacqua"). I loved Vandals' Live Fast, Diarrhea and Hitler Bad, Vandals Good. With NOFX, I mostly preferred the emotionally draining songs on the albums up to Punk in Drublic. There's a similar song on the later So long and thanks for all the shoes called "The Desperation's Gone" about what they sensed they had lost and about the feeling of playing early shows at a club called Cathay de Grande. When I was 14 a lot of these albums were well-known at school - more than Britpop - and everyone played covers from them but they were already a few years old and felt like part of history, and then we waited for the new albums - like Warning - which were usually disappointing or marked a big change of style. A few years later, Lagwagon's come back album Blaze made me very pleased as I thought it was just as good as their best when most other punk bands were going downhill. I'm glad I got to see a lot of these bands play: Vandals and Lagwagon especially; never saw Green Day and there wouldn't have been much appeal in that by then anyway. My favourite English punk band was Snuff and I was lucky enough to play in a band supporting them in a small pub once. I've now seen the similar Non Capisco, BeardFaceMan and Nice Relaxing Poo posts.

[PlanktonSideburns]

i love pop punk and never post about it

Thankfully

[BeardFaceMan]

NOFX have really gone downhill for me the last couple of years. They were a big band for me in the 90s, and I was introduced to a lot of good bands through Fat Wreck, but by Christ I find Fat Mike tedious as fuck these days. Yes, I get it Mike, you like S&M sex and doing drugs, you're so wild! He's turned into such a poseur, and his songwriting is just boring these days.

[confettiinmyhair]

I used to be a regular user on Punknews.org back in the day. Pop Punk was a guilty pleasure of mine during my metal days. I liked Alkaline Trio and remember tracking down stuff from Asian Man Records and their split-EPs on vinyl. It's weird how Skiba ended up playing in Blink 182.

Some of my favourite songs were Student Rick's Falling for You and Home Grown's Kiss Me, Diss me, Allisters Somewhere on Fullerton.

[madhair60]

Thankfully

totally unwarranted and frankly i'm quite sick of being treated this way, goodbye

[Kankurette]

I feel less embarrassed about liking Green Day now.

[The Mollusk]

is Jay Reatard pop punk? the man was good

He's certainly the more melodic end of things, but much like Rocket From The Crypt I'm never sure how to class his work. Both acts have undeniable vibes of unhinged rock n roll, which of course is what made a lot of the great early punk stuff so great to begin with.

Husker Du ftw
Pink Turns To Blue
Girl Who Lives On Heaven Hill
Somewhere
Sorry Somehow
Hate Paper Doll

I have a tetchy relationship with them. I feel like for every great song on "Zen Arcade" there's almost an equal number of shite. I love repetitious caterwauling as much as the next person but they're one of those bands for me when half the time I'm just like "alright, I get it."

[madhair60]

"i love pop punk"

me: oh great finally a thread with bands I know

"right anyone else a big fan of aaron s*****c?"

me: (hiding Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge behind my back) -_-

[The Mollusk]

"Three Cheers" is a fuckin GREAT album.

Honourable mention also for Jimmy Eat World. "Bleed American" is a classic in my eyes.

[Steven88]

No blink-182 mentions? I was a bit young when Green Day came out so I always preferred blink, I still regularly listen to their albums now.

[Dirty Boy]

I have a tetchy relationship with them. I feel like for every great song on "Zen Arcade" there's almost an equal number of shite. I love repetitious caterwauling as much as the next person but they're one of those bands for me when half the time I'm just like "alright, I get it."

Repetitive isn't something i'd associate with them, unless you mean Bob Mould's songs which were maybe drifting a bit close to predictable by Warehouse. Zen Arcade is probably my favourite album by them and imo it's all gold, what exactly do you consider shite?

[chveik]

"i love pop punk"

me: oh great finally a thread with bands I know

"right anyone else a big fan of aaron s*****c?"

me: (hiding Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge behind my back) -_-

its a shame free zone mate

[thugler]

Was definitely into a lot of this stuff as a teen, some of it I still like while some of it I struggle with why I liked it at the time. One of the first gigs i went to was millencolin. Was big into nofx (yes they have gone downhill), and whoever mentioned lagwagon's blaze, that album converted me to them massively. Definitely their best. Strung out's older records were a big love of mine too back then.

[madhair60]

its a shame free zone mate

i like fall out boy

[non capisco]

Just slung 'Insomniac' on. 'Armitage Shanks' is definitely the best opening track in musical history named after a pub urinal manufacturer.

Yeah, this album's as good as 'Dookie'. 'Bab's Uvula Who?' 'Brain Stew/Jaded', 'Stuart and The Ave.' These hooks are burnt into me. I'm 17 and down Leo's in Northfleet again.

[Ferris]

I met an ex girlfriend at a greenday concert and (after several years) it ended very badly so pop punk can get fucked, frankly.

[lankyguy95]

Testing how much of a shame free thread this is by stating that Who's David by Busted rules.

[Kankurette]

Do Weezer count?