Disclaimer: For the purposes of this article, the defintion of pop-punk is as follows. Pop-punk is a subgenre of both pop and punk, mixing both. Pop-punk is pop music done in the punk musical style and with punk instrumentation. Pop-punk is not used as a derogatory term. I, personally, am a fan of several pop-punk bands. There will be no flaming of pop-punk in the comments. If you don't like pop-punk, tough. It's a part of punk history and will be included in this unbiase history article. Thank you.
In the 90’s, there was a sweeping movement that brought rock, particularly punk, to the mainstream. Pop-punk and grunge broke out onto the scene and, with help from the rising success of MTV, became an unstoppable force in the music industry. Hardcore punk had begun to die away in popularity though, resulting in many subgenres that stretched away from hardcore styles, but much of the scene remained in tact.
Nirvana was a grunge band that started to gain popularity in the early 90’s, led by front man Kurt Cobain. With MTV’s help, Nirvana became one of, if not the, biggest band in modern rock. As a result, grunge became a huge US success, making Cobain and the rest of Nirvana pop icons. Kurt eventually committed suicide, though there is speculation of murder committed by his wife of the time, Courtney Love. Dave Grohl, the former drummer of Nirvana, went on to form his own band, the Foo Fighters, who enjoy much modern rock success. Grohl also performs in the band Queens Of The Stone Age, who has also earned popularity in the modern rock genre. Nirvana were not the only grunge band of the 90’s, Eddie Vedder’s Pearl Jam were another popular grunge band. Today, grunge is mostly considered dead but some bands like Puddle Of Mudd and Nickelback play with a similar sound and feel to grunge.
Grunge was not the only punk subgenre to evolve and enjoy success in the 90’s. Emo, short for emotional or emotional punk, was a melodic, thoughtful, and emotional (har de har har) punk subgenre that began with the 80’s bands Rites Of Spring and Husker Du. Emo is often confused with pop-punk, but has several dissimilarities that set the genres apart. Bands like Dashboard Confessional enjoyed much success as emo started to thrive amidst the “post-punk” 90’s scene.
Ska too, grew large in the 90’s. Ska bands like Reel Big Fish, Goldfinger, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, and Less Than Jake started to receive radio airtime and got large followings during the 90’s. Ska in the late80’s and 90’s was referred to as the “Third Wave Of Ska” or ska-punk. Ska-punk had truly started to come about in the late 80’s, but was largely an underground movement led by bands like Fishbone. Sublime was a 90's ska-punk band that recieved something closer to a cult following at the time. In fact, Sublime were arguably the most famous ska-punk band of the 90's. They are usually grouped with the pop-punk explosion, but had too much of a ska/reggae influence to be considered pop-punk.
Most prevalent of all the punk subgenres of the 90’s, pop-punk began to take the mainstream music scene by storm. Green Day were the first, starting in the early 90’s with hit albums like Dookie. Later in the 90’s and into the new millennium, bands like Blink-182, who emerged with their huge album, Enema of the State, began to share the spotlight with Green Day. This explosion led to a huge amount of punk bands signing to majors, a far cry from the 80’s norms. DIY was still large, but major labels had begun to overpower small indie labels at the time. Pop-punk is and was met with mixed reactions by punk fans. Many punks got into the scene because of pop-punk, but a large majority of punk fans chose not to embrace punk’s rising popularity, regarding pop-punk bands as “sell-outs.” Today, bands like Simple Plan, Sum41, and Good Charlotte lead the genre along with Blink-182.
Punk in and of itself also grew in popularity thanks to a boom in sales for Epitaph records style bands like Pennywise, Bad Religion (a member of which, Brett Gurewitz, started the label in the 80’s), Millencolin, Offspring, and Nofx. Skateboarding had emerged as a popular sport during the time, and these bands represented the musical movement of the sport (with exceptions, of course). For this reason, these bands have been referred to as “skate-punk.”
The skate-punk and ska was coming mostly from the west coast, particularly in the SoCal area. This makes a bit of sense really, seeing as Epitaph, the leading skate-punk label, was located there. The east coast was coming out with more of the emo sound. This, too makes sense, seeing as emo started as a melodic offshoot of the hardcore scene. Do you see how the history flows, children? Good.
To cap it all off, punk began to branch into many subgenres, which had begun to establish themselves in the wide ranging sounds of the 80’s. Hardcore had a slight decrease in popularity, but emo, ska-punk, and pop-punk enjoyed huge success in the 90’s (these trends continue today, with the possible exception of ska-punk, which has fallen slightly). The DIY scene is still quite large, led by bands like Toxic Narcotic. Hardcore street-style punk has also had quite a rise, led by bands like The Casualties and Kill Your Idols. Political messages in music did not stop, but since there was significantly less political turmoil under Clinton (with the exception of “Lewinskygate”), the genre did not have as much popularity, a trend that is changing very rapidly today.
The 90’s were probably the first time that punk rock and its subgenres had maintained a spot on the mainstream music charts. This success continues today, despite the boom in hip-hop that came at about the same time. These trends are continuing now and show no sign of stopping in the near future. In fact, if anything, punk’s popularity is showing sings of continued as the new millennium presses on.
In order to avoid confusion, I will explain the difference between emo and pop-punk. Emo is a very deep, thoughtful, emotional offshoot of punk. It tends not to be as catchy as pop-punk and is very melodic. Pop-punk is really just pop music done with punk instrumentation. The themes sometimes intermingle, but in general (there are always exceptions) emo tends to be much deeper than pop-punk. Pop-punk is much lighter and catchier than emo, and
This concludes the Punk In-Depth series. Next up is Punk in the Third World (if I can gather up enough information). After that… Fu--ck if I know. I’ll think of something.
"It's the only thing that's living to me. I shall live and die and be judged by it." - Joe Strummer (On Rock and Roll)
“Just turn all the knobs to 10!!!” - Joey Ramone.
- Mr. Lucky
No, really. Very good article. Enjoyed the entire series.
