Pop-punk reborn: A new chapter on the genre

Pop-punk is not dead! In fact, it has been coming back from its ashes almost as strong as it once was. What artists are fuelling this revival? In this article, we’ll look at some artists and songs that have been on the rise.

Travis Barker has been a huge influence on some of these artists, with a special highlight to Colson Baker, whose artist name is Machine Gun Kelly. The artist who is more used to the hip-hop scene (remember his “beef” with Eminem?) released the album Tickets to My Downfall and it shows a complete turn to pop-punk, featuring the Blink-182 drummer in most songs and bangers that take older students back to their childhood. Songs like “title track”, “Bloody Valentine”, “forget me too” featuring the genre-flexible and ex-girlfriend Halsey, and “body bag” with YUNGBLUD and Bert McCracken from the alternative rock band The Used deserve to be mentioned.

YUNGBLUD and MGK have been really close, and “body bag” was not the only song they made together. Songs like “acting like that” and “I think I’m OKAY” have also been produced by both of them, along with Travis Barker, of course. But YUNGBLUD also produces some great songs that resemble pop-punk on his own. One that I personally liked a lot was “teresa”, so I’ll leave a link to it.

Maggie Lindemann is another name to look for. She’s has released an EP called Paranoia and a couple of songs stand out as clearly pop punk songs; a really good example is “Crash and Burn”. It’s good to know she’s going in this direction – this song really shows how talented she is for the genre.

Avril Lavigne was featured in the song “Flames”, with MOD SUN, another artist who has gone from hip-hop to pop-punk. It’s surprising how he manages to absolutely nail the singing in this song, blending perfectly with Avril Lavigne. His new album Internet Killed The Rockstar also has some other songs that resemble the pop-punk genre, such as “KARMA”, directed by Machine Gun Kelly himself.

Despite sounding a little generic, “The Eulogy of You and Me” by the artist LILHUDDY takes me back to those Disney Channel introductions in 2000s shows – and I mean that in a good way. The TikTok influencer begun his pop-punk music career this year, and I’ll be looking forward to what he releases in the future.

Travis Barker hasn’t only been around helping in Machine Gun Kelly’s projects. A fun song by Blink-182 that serves as a rant on quarantine was released in August last year, one month before MGK’s album was released. In their song, they mentioned a Capitol storm – the one that has happened in April regarding protests to the measures put in place to tackle COVID-19. Little did they know…

All Time Low, the pop-punk band responsible for songs such as “Dear Maria, Count Me In” has also released some new songs in 2020 – Wake Up, Sunshine is their latest album that includes songs like “Melancholy Kaleidoscope” that brings me back to their So Wrong It’s Right album, or “Monsters” with blackbear and Demi Lovato. Even international artists such as Bad Bunny have blended pop-punk into one of his songs – “YO VISTO ASÍ” is one of the songs from the artist I’ve enjoyed listening to the most.

In conclusion: pop-punk returning to the spotlight is sounding more and more like a reality, and I’m all in for it.