poppunk

For a generation raised by Napster and MTV, the video for Sum 41’s Fat Lip is up there with 9/11 news broadcasts and Sonia Jackson’s surprise baby on EastEnders among the definitive footage of the turn of the millennium. Backing one of the band’s sweetly snotty pop-punk songs, handheld cameras capture teens skateboarding with fireworks; girls get Chelsea haircuts; crust punks taunt the police. Strung together like every early 00s Saturday flashing before your eyes on your deathbed, Fat Lip – still with one of the…

T he folder had been sitting unopened on Cassadee Pope’s computer desktop for years when she finally deleted it. It was a collection of photographs taken with mostly male country radio programmers whom she’d been expected to suck up to, snapped every time she went to a station to promote her music or hosted a meet-and-greet backstage at a concert. As soon as she got home, she’d print them out, sign them, and mail them off with a little note.  “That took like a half a year of my life,” Pope says, shaking…

Olivia Rodrigo thinks of herself as a judicious dropper of the F-bomb.“I always try to keep it to just the essential swears,” says the 20-year-old pop superstar. “I try not to throw a frivolous ‘f—’ in there.”Her music bears this out: A little less than three years ago, Rodrigo blew up seemingly overnight with “Drivers License,” an instant-classic break-up ballad that builds to a cathartic bridge in which she sloppily confesses to an ex, “I still f—ing love you, babe.” Her recent sophomore LP, “Guts,” unloads another…

Champions of earnest riffs and long song titles, Fall Out Boy broke into the mainstream in the 00s MySpace era which yielded so many other big American pop-punk successes: Paramore, My Chemical Romance, Panic! at the Disco. Over the past 20 years there have been flickers of R&B, electronica and glam rock in the Chicago band’s evolving catalogue, but their new album So Much (for) Stardust smoothly splits the difference, the perfect opportunity to service current appetites for “elder emo” nostalgia.The big drama of…

Rising pop star Maisie Peters stopped by Rolling Stone to discuss her sophomore project, The Good Witch. Citing her Mount Rushmore of pop goddesses – Lorde, Lily Allen, Kacey Musgraves, Dolly Parton and Sara Bareilles to name a few – Maisie reflects on how those inspirations, along with a passion for literature of yore, have culminated into the synth-bedroom, pop-punk we know Maisie for today. Known for her clever lyrics, buoyant vocals, and heart-thumping hooks, Maisie is relishing the…

On the final night of their UK tour, Paramore singer Hayley Williams playfully asks for a show of hands: those who have never been to a Paramore show before. Half the venue, it seems, raise theirs. Even Williams looks taken aback.She shouldn’t be surprised. The US band’s last appearance here was five years ago; against the odds, a new generation of Paramore fans has come on stream. This has been the much-maligned 00s pop-punk pioneers’ fastest-selling tour ever. Their most recent album, the serrated, punk-funk-tinged This…

‘How did time go by so quickly?” Hayley Williams asks, one foot atop a monitor, her eyes seeking those in the front row. The question forms the backbone of Paramore’s first UK show in five years, which is a fizzing spectacle of angst and charisma that reveals a band in a unique position to answer it.Dressed in a short black suit that is half Twiggy, half Angus Young, with purple mascara tears bleeding from her right eye, Williams high-kicks her way through a set that pairs teenage insecurities from decades-old pop-punk…

Colossal Order has announced the final wave of downloadable content (DLC) coming to Cities: Skylines before Cities: Skylines 2 launches, with the last roadmap including new radio stations and content creator packs. Last week (March 7), Paradox Interactive announced Cities: Skylines 2 and revealed that it was coming this year. Ahead of the sequel’s arrival, developer Colossal Order has published one last roadmap which outlines what’s still to come for the first game. As detailed on Steam, ‘World Tour – The Last Stops’…

Past//Present//Future album artworkGen Z has spearheaded a resurgence in pop-punk – one of the many periodic moments in the sun the sub-genre has enjoyed since its late-70s birth, somewhere between the release of the first Ramones album and Pete Shelley becoming lead singer of Buzzcocks. You can hear it in the work of Willow Smith, Machine Gun Kelly and at least some of Olivia Rodrigo’s Sour, by some distance the biggest pop debut album of recent years.Meanwhile, the sound of Meet Me @ the Altar – a trio of Florida-based…

Surveying the sea of people at his first arena show, Yungblud considers what he’s lost. Pushing sweat-soaked hair from his face, the 25-year-old singer – real name Dominic Harrison – laments being further from his fans than he’s ever been. “I am Yungblud, you are Yungblud,” he says, jumping down to the outstretched arms at the barrier.His sorrow rings true – as the head of a self-styled band of outcasts called the Black Hearts Club, he has attempted to build a fan community based on respect and acceptance. But it could…