GutterPutter

By the 2010s, pop punk was a genre that everyone in the mainstream was sick of. Its endless rambling about getting out of town with a cliche noisy three-power-chord progression is more reminiscent of corporate-funded hacks than sincerely driven youngsters. Its ties with the emo genre through emo pop also further adds to the tarnishing of the genre’s reputation. Through its associations with the edgy, teenage melodrama, to admit to having liked pop punk is a stigma that permeated the underground scene over the last half of the 2000s as a decade. After all, it’s not hip to be a part of the normie crowds.

Much like many genres that were in decline, passionate fans of pop punk strived to keep its spirit alive through an underground scene that’s active since circa 2010. Out of that scene comes the likes of Slate Champs, Neck Deep, and Man Overboard. While most of the bands in the scene might not have garnered much praise outside of their community, they do however remain steady in sticking to their genre. The latter has especially risen to notability through their parody t-shirt that reads “Defend Pop Punk.” Hard Noise recalls from an interview that the shirt itself was supposed to be a tongue-in-cheek commentary on the lack of graphic design skills for making it. They’re even afraid of the potential re-emergence in popularity due to the anti-establishmentism of the genre’s roots. 

Instead, ‘Defend Pop Punk’ became a phenomenon even among the general indie/alt scene with a few articles having been written about ways to keep the scene alive. Some would go as far as to consider it a movement in a similar vein to the Canterbury Scene or the Paisley Underground. What many have noticed about the new wave of pop punk music is that while it retains a certain relatability to the adolescents, its themes align more with mental health and societal abandonment than with romance or escapism. Having aligned itself more with the punchy aggression of hardcore/post-hardcore punk and the sentiments of emo, there’s a real possibility that pop punk could redefine itself as a bridgepoint between mainstream and underground music.

One of the headlining bands within the genre’s flourishing resurgence is the Wonder Years. Fronted by lead singer and occasional guitarist Dan ‘Soupy’ Campbell, the Pennsylvania-based band had its start on some dubious easycore in Get Stoked on It! back in 2007. Leaving behind a scathing critique from punknews.org, it takes three years for the Wonder Years to reinvent themselves to shy away from their schtick. 2010’s The Upsides which explores loneliness and the feeling of being scared. It forms the beginning of a trilogy of releases that generally focuses on the similar theme of youth anxiety with Suburbia I’ve Given You All and Now I’m Nothing the next year. Gaining momentum for consistently polishing up their sound to near-perfection, it takes two years for the Wonder Years to release what would be their magnum opus – The Greatest Generation. 

2013 marks a turning point where pop punk, after years of lurking behind the mainstream scene, has earned back the respect from even larger music sites like Kerrang!. PUP makes their debut as a promising new name with positive comments. The Story So Far emerges with a critically acclaimed sophomore album. State Champs’ debut record passed with flying colours under punk site coverage. However, among the biggest winners of the year is that of a loose concept album that tackles the issues surrounding the youngsters in the US. Having closer ties to emo than ever, the Wonder Years has struck gold in conveying suburbian angst.

With an ironic title after those who fought in the Second World War, The Greatest Generation looks more at mental health, social crises, and general regrets between each generation. At the time of its release, the 2008 financial crash and conflicting social progress has left a severe impact on the millennials and the older zoomers. These consequences include credentialism, mental health negligence, perceived feeling of being ignored, and growing disillusion with the older generations who might not relate to them at all. The circumstances thus allows for a near-perfect opportunity for the album to strike through the heart of many.

Smashing through with the riveting opener in ‘There, There’, Soupy sets up expectations on how the album feels relatable through the lens of social awkwardness. The chorus of “I’m sorry I don’t laugh at the right times” surmises not only the bottling up of feelings, but it also captures the despair of how the difficulties of living have surpassed satire. There’s nothing about endemic depression or constant anxiety that is worth taking a jab at. ‘Passing Through a Screen Door’ pours through the temptation of comparing yourself with your peers years after graduating which can feel like getting hit with a truck if you don’t feel like you’re making progress. Adding in the disintegration of childhood friendship with ‘Cul-de-sac’, you’re left with how time can not only be unforgiving, but it can also be a bitch in how it always hurts to move on from past events or relationships.

Generational differences and bond also takes up the mantle in The Greatest Generation as Soupy had cited his dad and his grandfather as one of the key influences behind the album. ‘Dismantling Summer’ was initially written as a justification to the fans over cancelling the tour as he needs to check up on his granddad after a heart attack incident. However, it morphs into an anxiety-fuelled barrage of guitar over emotive masculinity and fragile nostalgia as he confronts the prospect of mortality. ‘Teenage Parents’ was inspired by the very young age that Soupy’s father had a child which led to him giving up his dreams in favour of looking after his family. Filled to the brim with poverty-linked lyricisms based within the 1990s, it feels like a subversive attack on the decade that was seen as pop punk’s critical peak. This is especially all the more notable in ‘We Could Die Like This’ where Soupy implies that he doesn’t mind repeating the same fate of conformity as his parents do if that allows him to die in peace.

The album does include songs that tackles self-improvement as noted in ‘The Bastards, the Vultures, the Wolves’. What looks to be shots fired against critics is revealed to be a journey of fighting against depression, enablers, and self-destructive tendencies against the metaphorical devil. One that’s later explored further in the highlight ‘The Devil In My Bloodstream’ which segues between familial history, the stress of growing up, and depressive inheritance. Amidst the uproar of an instrumental lies a plethora of infectious quotations such as “Two blackbirds on a highway sign / Are laughing at me at four in the morning” or “I’ve got the same blood coursing through my veins / And it’ll come for me eventually”. It’s such a chilling standout for how hard-hitting its depiction of falling down the same pipeline that your ancestors did that I would consider it a centrepiece of the whole album. 

Otherwise, ‘Chaser’ examines the possibility of not going back to the past once you change for the better. One of the strongest points when it comes to the Wonder Years is that their lyricisms are technically remarkable with their metaphors and symbolisms. In ‘An American Religion (FSF)’, the comparison between Soupy’s mistakes and Truman’s infamous decision to use nuclear weapons to end the Second World War draws a darker parallel between the younger generation now and the Greatest Generation then. While there’s no major conflict that we’re involved in now, that doesn’t mean to say that we’re not out of the woods when it comes to pressing problems at hand like whether we’ve the right choice or not early on in our lives. The sucker punch in ‘A Raindance in Traffic’ takes a long deep stare into the possibility of conforming to normalcy or living life on autopilot as an existential crisis; a stark contrast compared to ‘We Could Die Like This’.

The album finishes on a three-track run that records what could be best described as Soupy’s battle to not “let [the devil] in”. Aside from ‘Cul-de-sac’, ‘Madelyn’ is among the most lovestruck in the sense that the subject matter is about someone whose beliefs happened to be in conflict with much of the world. Admitting to having feelings for her because of how similar the two are, Soupy’s narrative voice confesses of not doing enough to help her or even in abiding to the domestic expectations of familism. The fearful reminder of “[knowing] how it ends” foreshadows the grand finale in ‘I Just Want to Sell Out My Funeral’. What a closer it is. 

Beginning with a desire to leave behind a personal legacy of finally defeating your personal demons and vices, the track has what could well be one of the best uses of interpolations. The initial reference to ‘The Bastards, the Vultures, the Wolves” paves the way toward touching the impossibility of the American Dream in ‘A Raindance in Traffic’, ‘There, There’’s lonely social awkwardness, and codependency and family in ‘Passing Through a Screen Door’ and ‘Dismantling Summer’. The motif of war against the rest of the world as shown in ‘Cul-de-sac’ and ‘Chaser’ was mixed with a nice melding of the chorus from ‘Teenage Parents’ to hammer home how relentless life can be. The final interpolation is that of ‘The Devil in My Bloodstream’ ends the semantic field of warfare with a defiant refusal to let the devil overpower Soupy with depression and instead opt to take full control of his life. The final original verse, having torn down the illusory dream of the great man theory, celebrates self-improvement as a continual ride rather than a fairy tale with a happy ending. It’s bittersweet, but it’s such an awesome, heartfelt way to cap the whole album.

The Greatest Generation is now recognised as one of the best pop punk albums of the decade, arguably of all time even. The Wonder Years’ reputation as the harbinger of the genre leaves a mark that highlights emotional maturity and introspection rather than lovey dovey drama. Managing to sell over 50,000 copies in the US in 2015, it received some accolades for its influences. The Rolling Stone mentions the album among its top 50 lists of the greatest pop punk records of all time with the citation of daring to be brave. 

When pop punk re-emerges back into mainstream spotlight in the early years of the 2020s, the Guardian takes note of how the numerous acts aim to deconstruct the controversies and cliches surrounding the genre. It seeks to subvert the conventions of teenage angst by applying them in the mindset of a struggling young adult. What if you have worked hard your whole life only to find yourself isolated by everyone in the whole world? It’s very likely that most of the acts are indebted to the 
There lies what makes the album click hard for so many. It’s a rallying cry for the millennials and the zoomers to work on themselves and become better individuals even if they might never reach the highs they aspire to get. As generations come and go, all we have is their memory to remind ourselves of past occurrences or the legacies we need to uphold. We are likely to see pop punk become one of the mainstays in the alternative scene for years to come. We may however not see albums that hit as hard or have felt as poignant as the Wonder Years’ The Greatest Generation.