The History of Pop Punk - Part 1

Alan Cross (0:00)

Hey, it's Alan, and I just wanted to let you know that you can now listen to the Ongoing History of New Music early and ad-free on Amazon Music, included with Prime.

SPEAKER_2 (0:10)

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Alan Cross (0:15)

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SPEAKER_3 (0:19)

Out there, kill or be killed.

SPEAKER_4 (0:22)

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SPEAKER_2 (0:23)

They need our help.

SPEAKER_4 (0:24)

Shoot first, and inquire afterwards. Margaret Qualley and Guy Pearce.

SPEAKER_3 (0:32)

Arm up.

Alan Cross (0:33)

The Dark Stars, directed by Ridley Scott.

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Alan Cross (0:37)

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SPEAKER_5 (0:39)

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SPEAKER_5 (0:44)

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SPEAKER_4 (0:47)

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Alan Cross (0:55)

Okay, that's fair.

SPEAKER_4 (0:56)

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SPEAKER_5 (1:00)

Not like the lottery at all, actually.

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Alan Cross (1:04)

Offer's worth bragging about.

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Alan Cross (1:09)

Before we get into the topic in hand, I would like to revisit the movie Forrest Gump. Specifically, Forrest's shrimp boat buddy, Benjamin Buford Blue.

But you can just call him Bubba. He knew all the ways one could serve up shrimp.

SPEAKER_2 (1:25)

You can barbecue it, boil it, brawl it, bake it, saute it. There's shrimp kebabs, shrimp creole, shrimp gumbo, pan fried, deep fried, stir fried. There's pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp salad, shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burger, shrimp sandwich.

That's about it.

Alan Cross (1:56)

What Bubba could do for shrimp, other people can do for punk. Punk rock comes in as many different varieties as shrimp does. Let's see, we got hardcore punk, ska punk, cyberpunk, synth punk, anarcho punk. Then we got cow punk, gypsy punk, Christian punk, Celtic punk. There's art punk, garage punk, glam punk, crust punk, horror punk, street punk, melodic punk, afro punk, skate punk, Chicano punk, folk punk, and trawl punk. Although I'm not really sure what that is. There's also punk blues, punk pathetique, punk metal, riot girl, queer core, rap core, straight edge, emo, and oy.

Then we can get into all sorts of subgenres. Just looking at hardcore punk, that includes bent edge, deathcore, porno grind, screamo, power violence, positive hardcore, nardcore, Nintendo core, and that's about all I know about that.

Most of these punk derivatives are pretty niche-y, and none of them have a hope in hell of growing beyond a cult following. But a few have blown up into worldwide phenomenons, including a version that I haven't mentioned, which remains one of the most popular forms of punk rock of all time. This is The History of Pop Punk, part one.

SPEAKER_3 (3:14)

This is The Ongoing History of New Music podcast with Alan Cross.

Alan Cross (3:30)

One of the most popular pop punk bands of all time, Blink-182 with all the small things from their 1999 album Enema of the State, which has sold at least 15 million copies worldwide. Hello again, I'm Alan Cross, and on this program, we're going to look at how the original punk rock of the 1970s, with its angry lyrics laid over two chords played very fast, mutated into the kind of music championed by groups like Blink-182. Now, when you think about it, pop punk should be a paradoxical juxtaposition, an oxymoron just like, well, jumbo shrimp.

When punk was born in the 1970s, it was designed to be the enemy, the destroyer of pop music.

Okay, this needs to be put into context. Back when punk was brewing between 1974 and 1976, the vast majority of people got almost all their music from AM Top 40 Radio. Yes, there were some FM stations that played rock and album cuts, but they were nowhere near as popular as the AM stations were. Now, let me just give you an example of the kind of music people were hearing on the radio in 1974 This was a number one hit on the singles chart around the world.

If you were living in New York, which was an urban hell at the time, or in London where youth unemployment was out of control, this wasn't the kind of music that spoke to you. Punk rose up at least partly because of the awful music on the radio. The mission was to obliterate that schmaltzy, wimpy, sentimental crap.