#the higher

The Best Kind Of Pop-Punk Is Neon: A Love Letter

There was something special about being a pop-punk fan about fifteen years ago. That was the “defend pop-punk” era, and it was something special, that’s for sure. Bands like Man Overboard, Real Friends, The Wonder Years, The Story So Far, State Champs, and Neck Deep were just starting to hit it big. There was the whole “pop-punk kid” stereotype of that era, and you bet I embodied that. I wore band shirts, flannels, snapbacks, and khakis while eating pizza and hanging out with my friends. It was almost like being in the right place at the right time for a lot of these bands, because at no other point would the genre be so big. Even now, 15 years removed from that scene, pop-punk has faded into the background a bit. It’s not the juggernaut that it once was. The alternative scene itself has gone through quite a few “phases” over the last twenty years, and the “defend pop-punk” era was one of them, but it all started in the early00s when pop-punk become mainstream. Bands like Fall Out Boy, Jimmy Eat World, My Chemical Romance, Panic! At The Disco, Paramore, and many more were selling records and doing big numbers, and that was another moment of “being in the right place at the right time.” Everything came together in the right combination to make that music popular for a handful of years.

History tends to repeat itself, as I’ve mentioned many times in my reviews, because we’re seeing a nostalgic renaissance of the early 00s in alternative music today. There are a lot of bands that are influenced by the acts that got that style of music popular to begin with, so it almost comes full circle. I’ve talked about nostalgia recently, especially with the new Silverstein record and how a lot of bands in this scene rely exclusively on nostalgia. That isn’t inherently a bad thing, but there are only so many ways in which you can capitalize on a song that was popular 20 years ago. There are plenty of bands now that are doing something new, interesting, and unique. Bands like Meet Me @ The Altar, Magnolia Park, and Cherie Amour combine pop-punk and metalcore with modern R&B, hip-hop, and pop music, but little do a lot of people know that they’re not truly the first bands to do that. A lot of people are nostalgic for the early 00s, or the “defend pop-punk” era, but I’m nostalgic for the “neon pop-punk” era. I feel as though neon pop-punk isn’t as talked about in comparison to early 00s and early 2010s pop-punk, but maybe it’s because people didn’t like it as much.

The first question that should be asked is what even is “neon pop-punk”? I suppose a simple definition would be that neon pop-punk refers to pop-punk bands that put more emphasis on the “pop” side of the genre, especially with their use of catchy hooks and synthesizers. A lot of bands in that sub-scene, if you want to call it that, had more of a power-pop sound, but they still fell into the pop-punk label. Synths weren’t always used, either, but a lot of the bigger bands in the scene had synths in their music within some capacity (but it depended on the band). Some of the biggest bands in that style of pop-punk were Forever The Sickest Kids, Boys Like Girls, Cobra Starship, We The Kings, and Cute Is What We Aim For. These bands all sounded relatively different, but they had a common thread throughout their music: sounds that put emphasis on catchy hooks, synths used somewhat heavily in their music, and a bright and colorful aesthetic (whether it was in their album covers, artwork, or overall image). Neon pop-punk was an offshoot of the scene subculture, which is an offshoot of emo from the early 00s. Scene was a colorful alternative, although a lot of the same bands, artists, and music was liked by both emo and scene kids. I always self-identified as a scene kid back in that era, because I wore colorful skinny jeans, bright and obnoxious band shirts, had swoopy hair, and liked a lot of these bands. I liked a lot of emo, post-hardcore, and metalcore bands, too, but I always loved the neon pop-punk bands most.

What’s interesting about this style of pop-punk is that it’s the most accessible and the catchiest kind of the genre that existed at the time, but it’s a style that people don’t talk about as much. Like I said, maybe people just didn’t like it as much. Truth be told, the genre got a lot of flack back in the day, whether it was from the mainstream itself or from the scene itself, because this was seen as the “sellout” kind of pop-punk. Bands embraced pop music with this style of the genre, and I think that’s why I loved it back then (and still love it today). I didn’t really care for pop music itself at the time, but I still loved catchy hooks and melodies, so this was a good medium. I got my love of catchy hooks from Fall Out Boy, Panic, and Paramore, who were my “emo trinity” at the time (although I was a big MCR fan, too; I don’t remember being as into them as those three, however), and that’s something I still love today. These types of bands scratched that itch for me, because I could listen to “alternative” music, but also have poppy and catchy hooks to boot. Now that’s not to say that a lot of these bands are extremely underrated, because let’s be real: this is my favorite kind of pop-punk but I can understand if someone hates it, because it goes too far in the “pop” direction of pop-punk and doesn’t have any punk in its sound. A lot of these bands were mainly power-pop and pop-rock, but neon pop-punk retroactively stuck because a lot of those bands were part of that scene.

This piece isn’t quite meant to be a history of the genre, but rather a love letter to it, especially coming from a fan of it at the time. I wanted to talk about what the genre is, and why it’s so underrated, as well as talk about some of my favorite bands / albums from the scene. This genre produced some of my favorite stuff from my adolescence, especially albums that I’m still nostalgic about today. I’m more nostalgic about this type of music than early 00s pop-punk, because these were bands and albums that meant a lot for me for my whole high school career. The genre didn’t last very long, but I got lucky by being in high school for the few years that it was popular (which was from 2007 – 2010, give or take a year or two before and after), so these bands and albums were perfect for me. I wanted to talk about a few bands and albums that maybe you know and maybe you don’t. The genre eventually fell off in the early 2010s because the genre became heavily saturated (which tends to happen whenever something gets popular), the fans of the genre got older and weren’t as interested in it anymore, and because people moved onto the “defend pop-punk” movement. The genre got less popular in the mainstream by the early 2010s, and it caused the genre to go underground for a bit, but that resulted in the “defend pop-punk” era. You could make an argument that neon pop-punk was a flash in the pan genre, and it wasn’t all that good in retrospect, but a lot of great bands and albums came out of it, even if they only released a single album or two. To close out this piece, I wanted to highlight a handful of records that are essential to the genre. Some of them I may go back to and write retrospective pieces on, but these are albums that you should hear if you’re a fan of the genre or you want to get into it.

Fall Out Boy – Folie A Deux

To start things off, I wanted to be a bit controversial by talking about Fall Out Boy’s fourth album, 2008’s Folie A Deux. Not because people dislike this album (thankfully, peoples’ opinions on it have improved since its release, and it’s become a cult classic now), but because this album isn’t technically a neon pop-punk album. I’d make an argument that it’s the closest the band ever got to making an album in that vein, as well as influencing a lot of bands in that sound. Their prior album, 2007’s Infinity On High, was very much a poppier affair, but it still featured some heavier guitars and pop-punk songs (despite having some R&B, soul, and flamenco stuff with Babyface on board for production and a Jay-Z feature in the beginning of the record), but the band went fully into pop-rock with Folie A Deux. This is their biggest, catchiest, and most pop-centric album. It doesn’t have a lot of synthesizers on it, but this was Fall Out Boy at the height of their popularity from 2007 – 2009, and this record’s success had to have influenced some neon bands to make emo and pop-punk with a focus on hooks and pop melodies.

The Academy Is… - Fast Times At Barrington High

One major theme you’ll find throughout a lot of the albums I’m going to talk about is that these bands were all signed to the same label: Fueled By Ramen. Fueled By Ramen is the label that arguably helped to bring neon pop-punk to the mainstream, and a lot of the musicians in each of these bands were both friends and collaborators, so you’ll see the same artists pop up on each other’s songs, albums, and even production credits (Patrick Stump of Fall Out Boy produced a lot of stuff during that time). One of those bands were Chicago act The Academy Is, who frequently collaborated with Fall Out Boy (Pete Wentz was the one that introduced FBR to them), but their third and final album, 2008’s Fast Times At Barrington High, is a fantastic neon pop-punk record, although it took me years to fully appreciate it. I always enjoyed it, but I felt as though the record was too vapid, bland, and poppy for its own good, especially in comparison to their first two albums (their debut actually turns 20 this year, actually), but that’s the point. Fast Times is a reference to the 1980s movie, Fast Times At Ridgemont High, and the album’s lyrics are all about being in high school. I always thought that it made the album feel immature, because I didn’t understand why they were doing that, but it was meant as a homage and walk down memory lane, versus because the band wanted to relive their glory days in high school. This record has some of my favorite songs from the band, too, as well as some of their most infectious songs.

Cobra Starship – Viva La Cobra

Speaking of bands that collaborated with each other on Fueled By Ramen, Cobra Starship is another good one, but frontman Gabe Saporta started off as the frontman for early 00s band Midtown. They had some success but found even more with this neon pop-punk crew. I finally listened to their third album, 2009’s Hot Mess, for the first time a couple of weeks ago, and I really like that record, but my favorite album from them is their sophomore album, 2007’s Viva La Cobra. This record was produced by Patrick Stump, and you can tell with how catchy, fun, energetic, infectious, and well-written this thing is. Cobra Starship was always the dumb party band of the genre, so you weren’t supposed to take them seriously. That doesn’t excuse bad music, of course, but their music isn’t bad. I don’t care for their debut that much, because it’s very rough around the edges, but Viva La Cobra smoothed those edges out to make for a great record. While doing some research for this piece, I found out that Bruno Mars wrote and produced some songs for the follow-up album, Hot Mess, before he got famous in the early 2010s. I don’t have anything to really say about that, other than that’s really cool and I felt as though you should know that.

The Cab – Whisper War

If I had a nickel every time Bruno Mars co-wrote a song for an artist on Fueled By Ramen in the late 00s and early 2010s, I’d have two nickels. That’s not a lot, but it’s weird it’s happened twice. Yeah, while doing more research for this piece, I found that Bruno Mars also wrote a song for The Cab. It wasn’t on their debut album, which I’ll be talking about today, but that’s still weird, especially when I had their debut already written down after Cobra Starship’s Viva La Cobra. Anyway, I promise that not everything here will be a Fueled By Ramen record, but the next couple of them are another pair of records from the legendary label. Whisper War is the debut album from The Cab, and these guys were a very underrated band in the scene at the time, but they were one of my favorites. I was such a huge fan of this record when it came out, and I remember playing it all the time the spring of 2008. These guys were of their time, but they reminded me a lot of Fall Out Boy with how they embraced soul, R&B, and pop music, all the while still being a neon pop-punk band. Vocalist Alex DeLeon is one of the best vocalists of that whole scene; he also reminded me a lot of Patrick Stump (who appears on their debut album, along with Brendon Urie), but that makes sense when you find out that Stump produced a song on the album, as well as co-wrote a few songs (including the song he appears on with Urie). These guys should have been the next Fall Out Boy, but I don’t know what happened. I never listened to any of their other stuff, because they released their next album a few years later, and by that point, neon pop-punk was kind of dead, unfortunately. Whisper War still holds up real well today, and it’s one of my favorite albums from that era.

The Higher – On Fire

The Higher – On Fire

The mid-00s were a hotbed for niche scenes that popped up for a few years, such as neon pop-punk, but I wrote a whole piece on that. I won’t go into detail about what neon pop-punk is, but in short, it’s a niche part of pop-punk where bands put more emphasis on the “pop” part of pop-punk. A lot of these bands weren’t even pop-punk, but they employed more power-pop and pop-rock sounds to their repertoire. Some of these bands even had pop, R&B, and soul influences. I think Fall Out Boy, specifically 2007’s Infinity On High and 2008’s Folie A Deux, helped to influence that sound, because those two records thought completely out of the box within the realms of pop-punk and alternative by having more pop, R&B, soul, and funk elements in their sound. There weren’t too many bands in this vein, but there are two bands that come to mind that encapsulated that sound for me, and I’ve already talked about one of those bands, which is Las Vegas band The Cab and their debut LP, 2008’s Whisper War. I’ve talked about that album already, but it’s a catchy, groovy, and fun neon pop-punk album that has some great vocals and hooks with a tight rhythm section to boot. It's a bit of its time, especially lyrically speaking, but it’s held up quite well over the last 17 years. I was absolutely in love with The Cab at the time, but a year before that, another band from Las Vegas dropped their major label debut (but second album overall) that I really loved. That was The Higher with 2007’s On Fire, and this is one of the first albums in this vein that I found and fell in love with.

These guys weren’t all that popular, despite being on Epitaph for their second and third albums (the latter of which I haven’t listened to, but I really want to sink my teeth into that one), but they left an impression on me, at least. The Cab were fortunate enough to have the co-sign of Patrick Stump and Brendon Urie, because they were signed to Fueled By Ramen and both of them appeared on the album (with Patrick even co-writing and producing a few songs), but The Higher did have a Patrick Stump remix of a song from their debut, 2005’s Histrionics. A few songs from that album show up here, too, but in a re-recorded form. These guys took pop-punk and emo, but they also really liked pop music, so they took elements of R&B, pop, and some soul to make for a catchy, fun, and mainstream sound that a lot of people in the scene didn’t like (because pop music equaled bad at the time), but these were the types of bands that did well at that time. They reminded me a lot of Fall Out Boy, who were the masters of this sound, but On Fire is an album I remember fondly from 2007. I had just gotten into Fall Out Boy that same year, but I remember picking that up when it came out. I haven’t thought about these guys in years, but I’ve been listening to a lot of nostalgic albums from that time, and I saw that On Fire was reissued by Parting Gift Records a couple of years back. They’re having a major spring sale where albums are up to 50% off, so I was able to get it for under $20, and I figured it would be cool to revisit this album. I also picked up The Cab’s Whisper War, Cobra Starship’s Hot Mess, Cute Is What We Aim For’s The Same Old Blood Rush With A New Touch, Motion City Soundtrack’s Even If It Kills Me (another album I need to talk about at some point; such an underrated classic), and a few others, but I’ve been kneedeep in nostalgia for the past couple of weeks.