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Willow, Olivia Rodrigo and Pop Punk’s Long, Weird Legacy

1
Rob Sheffield
·5 min read
olivia_rodrigo_PDX_22c - Credit: SAMUEL GEHRKE
olivia_rodrigo_PDX_22c - Credit: SAMUEL GEHRKE

“Nobody likes you when you’re 23,” as Blink-182 used to sing on MTV — 23 summers ago. But all these years later, pop punk isn’t merely all grown-up. In 2022, pop punk is back from the dead, more popular and influential than ever — suddenly, it’s the Teenager of the Year. It’s a massive resurgence for the music style that always fetishized the ideal of permanent adolescence, turning a bratty sneer into a way of life. But now, pop punk is downright respectable. How the hell did this happen?

It’s beautifully bizarre, since pop punk was never about aiming for cultural significance. The whole artistic goal was encouraging listeners to take off their pants and jacket. But nobody could have predicted this music’s weird legacy, whether that means Avril Lavigne making her comeback as the ultimate scene queen, or Travis Barker ascending to the showbiz throne of America’s Drummer. Olivia Rodrigo is even covering Avril’s “Complicated” on her debut tour — a true passing of the torch.

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Pop punk has evolved into a ubiquitous music language, especially as female audiences and performers have claimed this voice as their own. No other pop noise does a perfect job of snarling the timeless question “Where’s my fucking teenage dream?” There’s Paramore inspiring a whole generation. Willow teaming up with Travis and Avril to vent her teen angst. Olivia scoring an instant-classic Number One hit with “Good 4 U,” a sociopath-bashing rager that could pass for Paramore, X-Ray Spex, the Buzzcocks, Fastbacks, or countless other beloved bands. Scene moms all over America are raiding their closets for this fall’s When We Were Young Festival, with a slew of pop-punk and emo legends — a festival that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago.

Machine Gun Kelly is a whole story in himself, dropping his new guitar-crazed Mainstream Sellout and getting engaged to Megan Fox with a thorn-covered ring that causes pain if you try to take it off. (Such a pop-punk thing to do.) People love to argue over whether he’s “real” pop punk or not, a debate that would have seemed absurd back in the day — who ever thought this genre would have purists? But the controversy is part of the appeal. “I read a headline that said the age of the rock star is dead,” MGK announced at the American Music Awards. “Looks pretty alive to me!”