Pop punk

Pop punk (also known as punk-pop, pop punk rock or pop-punk) is a genre of rock music that combines influences of pop music with punk rock. Fast tempos, prominent electric guitars with distortion, and power chord changes are typically played under pop-influenced melodies and vocal styles with lighthearted lyrical themes including boredom, rebellion and teenage romance.

Early punk rock bands such as Ramones, Buzzcocks, the Dickies, Stiff Little Fingers, Generation X, the Adicts, and the Undertones all had strong sense of melody, taking some cues from pop rock and power pop. In the early–mid 1980s, punk rock bands such as the Descendents combined punk rock and hardcore punk with pop-influenced melodies and lyrical themes involving humor, girls, and teenage confusion. 1980s punk bands like Husker Du and Bad Religion influenced later pop punk music. Pop punk in the United States began to grow in popularity in the mid-to-late 1980s and early 1990s, especially in California where independent record labels (most notably Lookout! Records) adopted a do it yourself (DIY) approach to releasing music. Lookout! Records signed punk rock and pop punk bands like Green Day, Screeching Weasel, The Queers, Rancid, and The Mr. T Experience.

In the mid-1990s, punk rock broke into the mainstream with the success of Green Day, Rancid, and the Offspring. During this time, these bands sold millions of records and received extensive radio and television airplay. In the late 1990s, bands such as Lit, Eve 6, and Blink-182 became mainstream, with the latter considered a key group in its development, providing a massive influential appeal to countless bands for years to come. In 2011, The New York Times asserted, "no punk band of the 1990s has been more influential than Blink-182". In the early–mid 2000s, pop punk bands like Sum 41, Good Charlotte, New Found Glory, Simple Plan and Yellowcard also achieved mainstream success. In the 2000s, emo pop, a genre that combines emo with pop punk, became one of the most mainstream genres of rock with the mainstream success of emo pop bands like Fall Out Boy, Panic! at the Disco, My Chemical Romance, The All-American Rejects, and Paramore. Although pop punk's mainstream popularity declined in the 2010s, the genre still has had some success with bands like The Story So Far, Real Friends, The Wonder Years, Waterparks, and Neck Deep.