On September 25th 2020, Machine Gun Kelly dropped an album. Now, to anyone who hadn’t really paid attention to the rapper from Houston, this news probably didn’t raise an eyebrow. After all, MGK had till then mostly been known as that guy who tried picking beef with Eminem. But the album wasn’t for them. No, MGK’s fifth studio album was for an entirely new group, a whole sub-culture that had been dormant for a nigh decade — Pop Punk.
“Tickets To My Downfall” debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, a unique anomaly in MGK’s discography. It’s not a generational masterpiece of an album. It’s hardly much different or better than its predecessors. Hell, most critics would probably (and did) laugh it off as a pale imitation of an era long gone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsE_cq6c1X8
From the sales alone, it clearly didn’t matter to listeners, myself included. After a decade of irrelevance and derision, pop punk is now re-emerging as one of the hottest aesthetics and sounds in mainstream music. In early May this year, arguably the biggest new name in music, Olivia Rodrigo, debuted at the top of the billboard charts with a pop punk anthem of her own in “good 4 u”. In stark contrast to the reception MGK received, Rodrigo’s album was universally adored by critics. I’d go as far as to say you’d have to actively try to dislike it. So, with this year long boom of pop punk now nearing its zenith, how the hell did we get here?
The Resurgence
Of course, millennials grew up on the original pop punk pioneers. From Avril Lavigne and Blink-182 to My Chemical Romance and Mayday Parade, you’d be hard pressed to find many twenty year olds today who didn’t have a special attachment to at least one of them growing up. While the modern adaptations may not live up the same highs the originals set, just hearing the same kind of lyrics and styles again puts a smile on my face. Especially after spending an entire year locked in a room, being able to find new songs to vent that claustrophobic angst became a prerequisite to getting through the day.
But mainstream music isn’t really defined by millennials. Pop punk’s ability to once again capture the cultural zeitgeist lies in the affection it commands in Generation Z. For the past decade, hip-hop has quite comprehensively been the dominant force in music. Similar to rock in the 90s and early 00s, hip-hop’s surge of popularity coincided with multiple divergences within the genre itself. A Lil-Uzi-Vert might have struggled to be considered hip-hop in the 90s, but today his sound is one of the more eminent trends in the genre — emo rap.
Artists like Uzi, Juice WRLD, Lil Peep, and MGK all list pop punk as the music they grew up on. For the former three, their brand of hip-hop was to the genre what pop punk was to rock at the time. Although critics often ascribed the label emo rap to Drake due to his ‘softer’ image, his sound was still well in line with hip-hop at the time. To me, Peep was the voice of the genre — the man who did more to bring 2000s inspired emo subculture back. In his tragically short three year career, Peep crafted a sound that would serve as the blueprint for Uzi, Juice, and innumerable imitations to follow.
In early 2016, XO Tour Llif3, an Uzi song that was initially just released on SoundCloud, slowly climbed to the top of the charts. Three years later, it was named one of the ten best songs of the decade by Pitchfork. At that moment, it was clear that emo was once again dominant. In the late 2010s, a subculture known as E-kids began to emerge on TikTok. They combines a range of styles — hip-hop, K-pop, rave, goth, and anime to name a few. But I can’t help but notice a distinctive emo/pop-punk aesthetic to their getups. Notably, the sadboy music that is often linked to E-kids undoubtedly has its roots in pop punk.
A Love That Never Dies
So, when Machine Gun Kelly — a rapper who had at best fleeting commercial success on a discography of unmemorable rap songs — took the final step to entirely immerse his sound and aesthetic in pop punk, the resurgence had truly started to trickle down. MGK enlisted the help of notable E-boy ‘Yungblud’ in the promotion and release of his album. The operatic music video that goes alongside ‘Tickets To My Downfall’ also cast a renowned E-boy in the starring role. MGK saw the signs and went for it. It got me thinking though, why do we love pop punk so much?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U07VKXydCUw
You see, I’ve had phases — periods where I completely immerse myself in hip-hop, classic rock, indie, folk, whatever it may be. But throughout all these times, whenever I felt a peak emotion, one of either extreme low or high, I always went back to pop-punk. It’s the most cathartic genre because it thrives in excess, in theatrics, in over indulgence. It puts you at the centrepiece of every song, compelling you to reimagine and revel in every moment the song describes. The singing may not be the best, the instrumentals may occasionally feel mundane, but its all worth the purity of the emotion.
Pop-punk isn’t juts for the youth, it’s for you to relive it. When I saw the video of a forty something Gerard Way singing to a sold out California arena in the My Chemical Romance tour, it rekindled a fire in me. I wanted to be there. I needed to be there. Me and my friends hastily checked for ticket availability. Fully aware that we were halfway around the world, we’d have done anything to experience that energy for just a day. Unfortunately, that dream could never materialise not just because of logistics, but because the pandemic shut down the entire tour.
For me, these moments live on in the live performances. They’re the ones I turn back to when I need that injection to truly feel a bout of elation or melancholy. So, as a way to close this haphazard rant/analysis of a genre that never seems to escape me, I thought I’d compile a list of the ten performances that I always find myself going back to. After all, we are the kids from yesterday.
1) Simple Plan – Perfect (Quebec)
2) Green Day – Going To Pasalacqua (Chicago)
3) We The Kings – Check Yes Juliet (Jakarta)
4) My Chemical Romance – The Kids From Yesterday (Roskilde)
5) Avril Lavigne – Complicated (Good Morning America)
6) Blink – 182 – All The Small Things (Reading)
7) Machine Gun Kelly ft Yungblud – I Think Im Okay (Denver)
8) The Anthem – Good Charlotte (MTV)
9) Sum 41 – In Too Deep (Cali)
10) All American Rejects – Dirty Little Secret (Soundstage)