Sugar, We’re Goin’ Inside: COVID-19 and the Pop Punk Revival
I am at a friend’s thirteenth birthday gathering. I have smudged my mom’s black pencil eyeliner onto my bottom eyelids, and a pair of black skinny jeans is cutting off the circulation in my legs, even though it’s a slumber party. My friends and I are aggressively decorating (well, no, destroying) a tray of cupcakes as we wail along to “Mama” by My Chemical Romance, violently shaking the sprinkles in time with every screamed lyric (“Ma-ma! Ma-ma!”). By the end of the night, our vocal chords are wrecked, the cupcakes are all eaten, and we are buzzing with euphoria.
In those days, I found catharsis in the loud, fast, and unapologetic flair of pop punk and emo. I carried it with me wherever I went. But as I and other pre-teens moved onto new interests before entering adulthood, my emo phase became not only a thing of the past, but one to laugh at.
Cut to the winter of 2021, nearly a year into the COVID-19 pandemic. I begin to see people my age wearing My Chemical Romance shirts in public. By summertime, We The Kings and All Time Low are infiltrating coffee shop playlists, and nightclubs are hosting sold-out Emo Nites. Pop punk’s sudden revivified presence in the mainstream is more than simply the cycle of generational nostalgia running its course, though. The recipe for its current resurgence has everything to do with COVID-19.
Between the mid-90s and the early 2000s, pop punk emerged from the California underground scene into the American mainstream when bands like Green Day, Screeching Weasels, and blink-182 began to receive widespread attention. The mixture of punk’s hard-hitting guitar riffs and no-nonsense lyrics, with the catchy refrains, crisp vocals, and standard song structures typical to pop music was irresistible to young ears. Rebellious teenagers could feel seen by its “screw this” mentality, while exasperated parents could nod along to the satisfying chord progressions and melodies as they played in car radios and grocery stores. The genre’s presence was carried into the early 2010s by the momentum of the emo subculture, bringing younger listeners like me into the fanbase (for the purposes of this article, I use the term “emo” to refer to the aesthetic associated with pop punk and emo pop music at the time, as the two subgenres had an immense amount of crossover). Hits like Fall Out Boy’s “Sugar, We’re Goin Down,” and Jimmy Eat World’s “The Middle” have become classics since pop punk’s heyday. But the years went on, and radio stations began to favor clean club beats over messy bangers. Pop punk slowly fell out of fashion, instead becoming synonymous with the cringeworthy and needlessly angsty.
Many cultural moments blip out of existence for a brief moment before making nostalgia-fueled comebacks. Every generation or so, upon becoming fully-fledged members of society, young adults begin to yearn for the simpler times and, inevitably, the music that accompanied them. The mid-to-late 2010s, for example, saw the rebirth of 80s fashion trends (hello, mom jeans) and a corresponding rise in synth-heavy, new wave-inspired pop. So, too, was pop punk bound to make a re-entry into the mainstream as former angsty teens and tweens became tired twenty- and thirty-somethings with music tastes that perhaps didn’t evolve as much as they’d like to admit. All it needed was a catalyst to kick its nostalgic comeback into gear.
It came earlier than anticipated. In March of 2020, countless college students and other young people returned to their childhood homes because of the COVID-19 pandemic. For many, returning to the daily frustrations of familial conflict and limited personal freedoms – on top of the constant stress and loneliness inherent to life during a pandemic – meant returning to familiar coping mechanisms. I’ve heard countless anecdotes about how people rewatched their old favorite TV shows, reconnected with long-forgotten hobbies, and logged into their ancient social media accounts. For me, going home meant diving headfirst back into my old pop punk playlists. Brendon Urie’s croons on Pretty. Odd. and Hayley Williams’ punchy vocals on Paramore’s (best) album Riot! accompanied me on my daily quarantine walks, and they helped me get through the hardest months.
I wasn’t alone. Since the rise of social media, music and style trends have become far more susceptible to public attention and rapid spread. TikTok is undoubtedly the current-day pinnacle of this phenomenon; new subcultures, aesthetics, and micro-genres explode into public consciousness almost weekly thanks to TikTok’s fast-learning algorithm and massive user base. “E-kid” fashion is one of these newborn trends: drawing on emo, goth, punk, and scene styles, e-girls and e-boys blend the dark and edgy with the cutesy and colorful, and modern trends with early 2000s nostalgia. There is undoubtedly something about e-kid fashion that serves the same purpose for today’s teens as emo did for kids like me. The movement’s affinity for new musical styles like emo rap and hyperpop – both of which undeniably draw from pop punk influences – indicates a desire for “alternative” music that handles darker, gritter themes but still retains danceable, relatable appeal.
The familiar aesthetics of e-culture created a welcoming environment for slightly older pop punk fans to publicly reconnect with their love for the genre. While today’s high schoolers started buying new gromit belts and ripping band tees, college-aged ex-emos trapped in their childhood bedrooms could dust off the ones they had shoved to the backs of their drawers, and suddenly saw themselves as part of a budding sect of online culture once again. Many made self-effacing jokes on TikTok about “regressing” to former obsessions with pop punk bands and emo trends during quarantine, which resonated with millions of similarly homebound users who had lots of time to create related content. These TikToks were launched further into virality by e-kid audiences who found pop punk and its associated fashion intriguing. The comeback was happening, and there was nothing ironic about it.
As pop punk gained traction in the public eye, it began to make a notable impact on new popular releases. WILLOW and Machine Gun Kelly are examples of prevalent musical figures who have made an explicit pivot towards pop punk in the past year or so. Olivia Rodrigo’s 2021 album SOUR epitomizes the stronghold that pop punk sensibilities currently have on pop music; her songs “good 4 u” and “brutal” both feature Rodrigo’s powerful, anger-fueled belts backed by gritty guitar refrains, fast-paced drums, and listenable chord progressions. It’s been wildly successful; as of October, Sour is the best-selling album of 2021 by a female artist so far.
At their core, pop music and culture have always belonged to young people. When young people faced extenuating circumstances due to the pandemic, equipped with platforms like TikTok, they had the power to collectively choose what was worth public attention. The beginnings of pop punk’s association with the nostalgic and “old-school” laid the groundwork for the genre’s imminent explosion during COVID-19. Is it really so surprising after all? Punk rock was born out of a desire to resist dominant and unjust narratives in mainstream music, media, politics, and society. It’s no shock that during COVID-19, a time of immense political and social turmoil, young people would want an outlet to adequately express anger and disgust at the current happenings in the world around them. It was a perfect storm for pop punk to make the rounds again, and it could be here to stay for a while. I guess I better buy a new eyeliner pencil.
Edited by Jennifer Morse, editor of Bird’s Eye View
Cover art by Daniela Brigatti