EVERY GENRE PROJECT - June 30 - Pop Punk
Genre of the Day - Pop Punk
Album of the Day - The Black Parade by My Chemical Romance (2006)
June 30, 2024
Punk is generally ideologically anti-establishment. Pop is a word synonymous with that establishment for many. These generalities don’t afford much nuance, from the intensity of punk being leveraged into virulent, racist hatred to pop being a driver in social change such as Motown’s pioneering efforts in Black visibility in media through crafty pop-soul smash hits. So even if some punk fans dismiss pop punk on a haughty dogmatic basis, intertwining the two does not equate to minimizing their potential impact on listeners. The poser conversation is one I am not qualified to entertain, but my general take is that as times evolve, so do audiences, and the music changes with the audiences’ attendant desires and interests.
Bringing in punk aesthetics and sonic flair into pop contexts has circulated since punk’s inception, such as the Ramones’ and Undertones’ hooky tunes with all the heaviness of punk guitar and punk’s looks. Their main deviation towards that oh-so-taboo word pop lay in less vocal aggression and more accessible and cleaner melodies and riffs. Throughout each decade, a variety of pop punk acts pop up from Green Day to the latest rise of acts like WILLOW, Olivia Rodrigo, and Machine Gun Kelly, leaning on pop and rock trends while attempting to shake them up with punk sonic infusions and lyrical approaches. For today’s album, we glimpse into the 2000s’ manifestation of the phenomenon. The aughts were arguably pop punk’s heyday. As a new generation cynical about the rise of American nationalism or the flashy materialism that afflicted pop culture came into their own, many young folks sought a cathartic alternative to react to these cultural shifts. Traditional punk having fallen by the wayside over the years as the American musical umbrella had expanded, pop punk had a bigger platform than ever to voice that catharsis.
If punk is like a thick musical concentrate of anger, pain, and protest, pop punk’s role is like adding soda to the concentrate to make it a potentially more appealing drink. Punk is still there, it’s just been mixed in to something more readily consumable. Whether this is a negative phenomenon obscuring punk’s social protests or an element that can electrify pop is a matter of opinion, and people certainly have many. Where pop punk gets the most approval is among bands who can most faithfully incorporate punk’s calling cards in impassioned, hard drumming and blistering guitar.
It’s not often that I talk about this project in real life. It’s mostly an introspective endeavor, a meditation on music that I work on in my spare time. Today, though, I got lucky by getting to go see the Pixies and Modest Mouse for free thanks to a friend of a friend’s friend who dropped out. As we were driving home, I turned to my friend who had had an emo phase of her own, knowing she’d be entertained by the fact I’d listened to My Chemical Romance for the first time for this project today. She pointed out that I’d missed the chance to be a young teenager experiencing it, as the music would’ve hit harder. It underscores pop punk’s importance, even if the artists at hand don’t intend it. Young teenagers unquestionably don’t belong in hardcore punk’s mosh pits, but having their emotional anxieties addressed through music that has a sense of edge and willingness to go to heavier lyrical places while retaining catchiness and shine is gratifying. My Chemical Romance will forever be that band to many people, and 2006’s pop-punk-ex-rock-opera The Black Parade the genre’s holy scripture. Showy guitar work is the punk centerpiece here besides the general bleakness and range of emotions infused across this conceptual narrative about a cancer patient reflecting on the eve of his life. There’s plenty of punk vitality on other instrumental lines, though, from the blistering bassline of “House of Wolves” and its glimpse into hell and the drums’ insistent presence on the eternal “Welcome to the Black Parade.” Gerard Way’s biting snarl brings it all together, from the youth-affirming “Teenagers” to the deeply angsty cabaret number “Mama.” It proves that pop punk can expose a listener to a prism of dejected emotions better than standard-fare pop or punk could through the greater emphasis on lyrics, and provide catharsis and hope in the process.