Maligned by the more serious areas of rock’s fanbase, Pop-Punk has had to fight for respect over the years. Much like the Nu Metal movement, it’s a scene that has produced hit bands, long careers, and albums that are still beloved by millions. Yet when it comes to 10/10 albums, pop-punk is considered to be severely lacking.
Making the decision to consider the explosion around Green Day’s Dookie as pop-punk’s starting point, this is a list which represents the very best the genre has to offer. Pop-punk offers a broader musical church that it’s given credit for, as shown by this list of era-spanning classics. With that being said, let the greatness begin with these 10 albums.
10
Alkaline Trio – Crimson
Chicago’s Finest Take Pop-Punk To The Dark Side
There’s an ill-fitting accusation from the snobbier members of the music community that all pop-punk music sounds the same. Sneering at that inaccuracy over a cup of dark coffee, the Alkaline Trio brought goth to the Warped Tour-era of pop-punk, and not just by applying their eyeliner properly (though they did so impeccably). From Here To Infirmary was the moment that black rose began life, having an immediate impact on fans the world over, but Crimson was where it reached its full form.
From the very first dark psychedelic riff that powers “Time To Waste,” Crimson is a smart and unpredictable album that shuns genre clichés. Songs about pizza and leaving your hometown are replaced by murder (“Fall Victim”), comparing a relationship to actual hell (“Burn”), and the Manson Family (“Sadie” is about Susan Atkins, who was linked to all nine of the Manson Family murders). It’s a long way from skateboards, and the Alkaline Trio are a unique ray of darkness in this land of sunshine.
9
New Found Glory – Sticks & Stones
The Sound Of Endless Summer
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Leaving underground hardcore kings Shai Hulud, guitarist Chad Gilbert had a vision that New Found Glory would bring hard breakdowns to pop-punk. The result was an instantaneous success for New Found Glory as they signed to the famous and credible Drive-Thru Records and delivered a self-titled album stuffed with hit songs that made them household names on the scene in no time. More impressively, NFG then bettered that album and made a mockery of “the sophomore slump”.
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It helps your cause when you can open an album campaign with a song in the conversation to be the best pop-punk song ever written, but Sticks And Stones is about more than just “My Friends Over You.” It’s fast and can whip up a circle-pit on “Something I Call Personality” or “Understatement,” “It’s Been A Summer” and “Never Give Up” bring immaculate good vibes, and New Found Glory were slightly ahead of the pop-punk-bands-going-emo curve on “Head On Collision” and the devastatingly sad, “Sonny.”
8
Fall Out Boy – Take This To Your Grave
Stump & The Gang Dazzle On Their Scrappy And Sensational Breakthrough
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Before the songs that sounded like they were crafted to be on The Secret Life of Pets movie trailers and transitional scenes on Selling Sunset, Fall Out Boy wrote razor-sharp pop-punk in the early part of their career. Take This To Your Grave is a tour de force of wiry post-hardcore riffing and bubblegum melodies with irresistible gang vocals. Every song on display slaps like King Kong after he catches you stealing his last banana.
More impressive than the livewire musicianship and confidence it’s delivered with, Patrick Stump was special from the beginning. Every song on this record has a hook as comfortable on this underdog pop-punk classic as it would be on a Motown classic. His soulful delivery on “The Pros and Cons of Breathing” remains god-like. No matter how far they drift from the genre, Take This To Your Grave remains undefeated.
7
The Wonder Years – The Greatest Generation
Pop Punk Grows Up Poignantly
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An album that’s loaded with adult themes of isolation, intrusive private thoughts about disappointing the ones you love and, occasionally, some happier stuff, The Wonder Years are an antidote to lazy pop-punk immaturity and The Greatest Generation is their finest hour. Dan ‘Soupy’ Campbell has an authentic vocal that sinks beneath the listener’s skin as he laments “did I f*ck up?” while his friends all have kids and wives on “Passing Through A Screen Door.” It’s a long way from Billie Joe talking about playing with his ding-dong on “Longview.”
Campbell’s ability to craft vivid, relatable stories makes The Wonder Years a special band.
Campbell’s ability to craft vivid, relatable stories makes The Wonder Years a special band, combining it with a sentimental yet strong vocal that echoes Counting Crows Adam Duritz if he’d grown up on Sunny Day Real Estate. “Dismantling Summer” tells tales of love in wartime struggle, and the nearly 8-minute “I Just Want To Sell Out My Funeral” is a masterpiece that calls about the album’s best moments. Defiant in the dust, The Greatest Generation‘s power is in the heart it shows in the bleakest of times.
6
Simple Plan – No Pads, No Helmets…Just Balls
Sometimes, Great Songs Are All It Takes
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There are a lot of albums in this list that take the genre in different directions, but Simple Plan delivered no-frills pop-punk from its golden age. At a time when the stars of Warped Tour were also the stars of fashion, movie soundtracks, and advertisements, No Pads, No Helmets…Just Balls is the album that best sums up that period. They’re songs that sound like summer, enormous radio-friendly guitar tones, and choruses that would conquer any era.
To be cynical about Simple Plan on their debut album is to miss out on the joy. The Canadians would go on to write more po-faced albums with Metallica and Bon Jovi producer, Bob Rock, but Simple Plan’s earliest days were all about carefree vibes. “You Don’t Mean Anything,” “Addicted,” and the breakout “I’m Just A Kid” is a murderer’s row of singles on your debut album, too.
5
Sum 41 – All Killer, No Filler
Departed Pop-Punkers Bring Rap & Metal To The Party
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Opening the album with a spoken-word passage influenced by Iron Maiden’s Number of the Beast, Sum 41 were unafraid to mess with pop-punk’s musical formula. Announcing themselves as pop-punk royalty straight off the bat, the Canadians were a breath of fresh air when they crashed the party with All Killer, No Filler. That their breakout single felt like an ode to Beastie Boys, Green Day, and Limp Bizkit at once while praising Judas Priest let everyone know that Sum 41 weren’t here to fit in, they were here to show out.
Through their chaotic energy, rubber-faced antics and music, Sum 41 understood the punk part of pop-punk. Unashamed with their major-label sound and appeal, there’s a snotty venom that pulsates through Sum 41’s veins that makes a song like “Rhythms” feel like it could hold its own in a bar fight while sounding like a children’s nursery rhyme. They stuck around for over 20 successful years, but Sum 41 never bettered this masterpiece.
4
A Day To Remember – Homesick
The Kings Of Modern Pop Punk’s Finest Hour
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Florida has provided the world with some of the best that the Warped scene has to offer, and Ocala’s A Day To Remember are the kings of modern pop-punk. Much like their fellow FL brothers in New Found Glory, ADTR were destined to change the sound of pop-punk and used heavier music to do so. NFG came to the party with hardcore, but ADTR embraced the emerging deathcore movement to beef up their sound, perfecting it on 2009’s Homesick.
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Opening the album with “The Downfall Of Us All” and a gang vocal that went down in history, pop-punk needed A Day To Remember. When everyone got serious or was making music that completely left out the punk half of the pop-punk equation, ADTR delivered hit singles, creative ideas, and fun tours at a time when the scene was going through the motions. In a different era, ADTR would have been one of the biggest bands on earth. Nevertheless, Homesick will be 10/10 forever.
3
Blink-182 – Enema Of The State
Pop-Punk’s Most Loved Band Make Their Names
Blink-182 have done so much to give pop-punk its identity that it’s almost inconceivable to think of a time that existed before them. The Ramones, Bad Religion, NOFX, and, most significantly, Green Day all have a spirit that’s connected to the safety pins and tartan trouser aesthetic of punk rock, but Enema Of The State changed pop-punk forever. How you feel about that is entirely your prerogative.
Enema Of The State is a band giving you their vision perfectly, from its artwork to every last excellent second of its content.
What is certain is that Blink-182 made punk a less confrontational place, giving off a slacker feel that was more about poop jokes and goofing off than challenging the status quo. Enema Of The State is a band giving you their vision perfectly, from its artwork to every last excellent second of its content. With Travis Barker completing Mark and Tom’s sound with an animalistic drum-style that’s since seen him become one of the world’s most famous musicians, Enema Of The State continues to grow old disgracefully.
2
Spanish Love Songs – Brave Faces Everyone
Cripplingly Emotional Songwriting From The Frontlines
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At its core, punk rock is meant to cause unity while taking shots at the societal problems of the day. Spanish Love Songs deliver their message with a brick, delivering desperate songs from the breadline of modern living. Talking about the difficulties of trying to find any semblance of happiness in the ever-scaling hellscape that we call Planet Earth, these are songs that are not meant to give you a fun soundtrack for your night out. These songs are detonated to rip a hole in your chest.
The opening song, “Routine Pain,” will let listeners know if they have the stomach for the album straight away. Brave Faces Everyone is not an easy listen, as it attempts to look at everyone and try to make sense of a world losing grip of its humanity on a daily basis. If “I can’t eat with this paycheck, my dreams are quick-drying cement” doesn’t sum up modern living, what does? Brave Faces Everyone is an album to play for anyone who talks about the lack of depth in pop-punk. It’s just not for the faint of heart.
1
Green Day – Insomniac
The Angriest Album Of Green Day’s Career Needs More Love
When Billie Joe Armstrong’s dreams came true, and Warner Bros gave his songs the spotlight that the independent Lookout! Records could not, Dookie going supernova was supposed to be the happiest day of Green Day’s lives. Unfortunately, the band’s friends, peers, bands they toured with, and punk rock’s hardcore fans shunned Green Day, with Armstrong famously seeing “Billie Joe Must Die” scribbled on the wall of the punk rock mecca, 912 Gillman Street. This treatment would result in Insomniac, a wonderful album of punk rock fury and sugar-fueled spite.
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Overlooked at the time for not being as cuddly or radio-friendly as the generation-defining Dookie, Insomniac explodes with grit and passion. It’s an album that’s loaded with pace, attitude, and honest songwriting. Green Day at their nastiest, hardest, and most punk were a devastating combo, and this is their masterpiece.
