Enema of the State started it all for me. It came out on my bday. My brother was out all day with his high school friends and picked up their copies at Tower Records in Hollywood in the evening.
One of his friends bought 2 copies since he was a huge fan and that was the copy I got. They listened to it on their way home and his friend forgot it at my house, so my brother ended up giving it to me and that was it.
I also got my PS1 that same day and I remember losing my mind when I found out it could play CDs. Of course Enema was on repeat all year.
I was maybe 13, my buddy Brad let me borrow the EOTS cd. I hid the jewel case in my backpack cause it had a sexy nurse on the cover. I listened to that album front to back for weeks. Found a guitar in the basement a few months after that and I was fully corrupted.
Man being a kid in the early 2000. This is what got me into poppunk despite not knowing what it was. Then again when someone told me about skillet "hero"
I was the same way. We had a big Christian festival near me and those types of bands were always there so it was easy to just be excited to go and hear them.
Tony Hawk games and All The Small Things on the radio pretty much shaped my whole taste in music.
That said, the In Too Deep single by Sum 41 and Green Day's International Super hits were 2/3 of my first CDs, and most of my friends were into similar music at the time
I was 9 and saw the video for Basketcase by Green Day and loved it so I got my mom to buy me the Dookie tape. I got hooked into it and listened to it and Insomniac and after that, pop punk/skate punk started to blow up and I went along for the ride. Personally, I've always seen the peak of pop punk from 1994-2000.
Aye 2000 includes NFG self titled. Quintessential pop punk album right there but I think they are definitely responsible along with Blink bridging the gap between that generation and what came after.
I have a bit of a funny story. This is quite a while ago now, I think I was 19 or 20 at the time. I was really into post-hardcore then, bands like Dance Gavin Dance, Alexisonfire, Chiodos. I'm going to avoid being too specific, but I had a good friend from high school that through someone else began hanging out with Shane Told of Silverstein pretty often. Needless to say, I was also a massive Silverstein fan.
That summer my friend invited me to a pool party that was being held at Shane's family home. I was pretty shy back then, so I only said a few words to him, but it was awesome. I remember the basement of the house led out to the backyard, and I would be going in and out to grab drinks from the fridge, and there were instruments strewn about everywhere and a bunch of pictures of Shane as a young kid or teenager holding guitars and stuff.
Anyways, throughout the party Shane was playing music off his iPod that was docked on a speaker. At some point a new track came on and I heard the intro to this song and I was hooked. It was fast, had tons of energy, almost scratching the post-hardcore itch I had, but it was different, catchier. I was mid-conversation with a couple friends and went "hold on, I have to go see what this is". Walked over to the speaker and looked at the iPod screen - it said Beatdown in the Key of Happy by Four Year Strong. I'd never heard of them, but that intro was so killer, I'd heard enough. Went home later and listened to the entirety of Rise or Die Trying and there was no going back from there.
So shoutout to Shane for by happenstance introducing me to the genre, and just being a cool dude on top of having great taste. Went to a Silverstein show a couple years later and stuck around after to say hey and I was surprised he remembered me.
Paramore as well!! First heard all the singles from All We Know Is Falling, then I listened through Riot. I was also already an Avril fan (Let Go, Under My Skin) but I think Paramore was the one that got me to really commit and dive into the genre because I think I didn’t really understand genres at the time and mostly grew up on Radio Disney lol 😂
When I was in year 7, probably 12 or 13 years old, my best friend had a poster of good charlotte in her locker. I used to say that Benji looked like a freak, in the poster he had his giant spiky mohawk and heaps of black eyeliner on. She really wanted me to see that they weren’t freaks and that they were awesome, so she burnt me the good charlotte self titled album, simple plans first album, as well as a mixed cd full of her favourite pop punk artists like mest, mxpx, dashboard confessional, new found glory. I went home that night after school and played those cds on my blue stereo. I fell in love and I will forever be grateful for her and those burnt cds.
Very Canadian reference here. I was given big shiny tunes 4 (much music rock compilation) from my mom and it had what’s my age again on it. Later bought enema of the state and completely changed my life.
My brother realized he no longer liked Green Day, so he gave me his American Idiot CD, and the moment he stopped liking them I started loving them. I had enjoyed some of their songs (we listened to a lot of music in the car and road-trips), but I didn't want to like them just because my brother did (I was 7ish).
I listened to the American Idiot album for a few years, until I was 12ish, until I started discovering their other songs. After that it was mainly songs from tv-shows and movies, early 00's tv had some great music. Somewhere along the way I found Rise Against, I have no memory of how it happened, but I'm happy it did
When I was a kid, I often went skiing in Austria with my family. One time, I found an iPod in the snow that had Simple Plan songs on it. That's where it started.
Napster + Blink 182 + The Ataris + The Impossibles = Nonstop listening in 2000 and burning CD’s and learning about life as a junior in high school. What a time to be alive.
I had MTV playing while I was folding laundry or something, all the sudden they started playing the video for Sugar We’re Going Down and I was just in a trance. It was all 11 year old girl obsession from that moment on. I dug into TTTYG and EOWYG. Listened to everyone on FBR, went to as many shows as I could.
By the time I was graduating high school the scene was sort of phased out. I kind of scrambled for a while trying to find new stuff I liked until I started listening to The Front Bottoms and got similar artist recommendations on Apple Music for TWY, neck deep, moose blood. Now I’m back into all the old stuff and having fun finding the new stuff. Currently can’t stop listening to Hot Mully.
Maybe the jungle fury phineas and ferb and what’s new scooby doo themes or the paper jamz guitar I had as a kid then hearing blink 182 causing nostalgia maybe
Blink-182 was the first band I discovered on my own. I discovered them on the CD Now 4 which had All the Small Things on it and I just kept listening to it over and over. Also my sister had NFG Sticks and Stones CD. So those two and SUM 41 have always been my favorite since. Going to see all 3 of them again this year. NfG for the 4789926th time and still love it every time!
One of my friends in my sisters year at school was really into music, I was still a bit of a teeny bopper although I was starting to listen to more indie/alt stuff. She introduced me to Green Day and NOFX and Offspring. Then I went to America on holiday to visit family and heard Lit, Eve 6 and Blink 182 in a shop so we bought a whole load of cds. My dad introduced me to Paramore, he was asking my opinion on some songs his covers band were thinking about doing and one of them was CrushCrushCrush. They didn't do it but I'm pretty sure I still have his copy of Riot somewhere
2001 the very first week of 5th grade our music teacher had us make up a dance to a genre of music we picked out of a hat. my group got r&b so we did destiny's child- stronger. my crushes group got pop punk and they did these cool handstands and flips to blink 182- all the small things. I was hooked, not sure if it was the song or bc he looked so cool or a little of both 😂 downloaded their whole discography, made my sister take me to see them at the pop disaster tour the next year, got hooked on the other bands on the lineup, and the rest is history.
*edit to add* I'm pretty sure I listened to pop punk earlier but didn't understand the concept of "genres" or whatever. I just kind of listened to what was on the radio or what my sister played in her room when I'd bother her. I know I'd heard green day earlier bc it was my dad's favorite band but I didn't like them until I saw them live
Rock Band Green Day, Sum 41's Fat Lip and all the teen movies of the late 90s and early 00s.
And to some degree Happy Tree Friends due to Fall Out Boy's The Carpal Tunnel of Love
Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Green Day in my YouTube recommendations. American Idiot is still my 2nd fav album, only behind 21st Century breakdown also by GD
Probably cliched, but for me it was when All the small things dropped in 99'. I had listened to Greendays two albums prior to that and Offspring, but yeah it seemed huge once Blink dropped Enema of the State
I grew up in Southern Maryland and in late 2000 my best friend and I came home from school one day and his dad had been gifted a CD with clouds all over the front of it from their neighbor, Paul, who played bass in a band called Good Charlotte. It was a few weeks from being released but we put it in the player and we couldn’t believe what we were hearing. “Waldorf. Naptown. Worldwide”. Someone name dropped our hometown in the first line of a song. We were shook. And I was hooked. Fast forward a few years later, and I meet my now wife in the 2004 in high school. Unbeknownst to me, her brother grew up playing music with GC in their family’s band room. Stars were connecting. 21 years later, and 37 years into life, it’s still my wife and I’s favorite style of music.
My next door neighbor was a cooler, older kid at my high school. He sometimes gave me rides to school and i remember listening to early blink, millencolin, less than Jake and beastie boys. I liked beastie boys but the punk stuff, I wanted to like, i just couldn’t get into it. A couple years later when Dammit landed on a soundtrack for some teen movie (I think it was can’t hardly wait) and all the sudden I couldn’t get enough. Blink started getting popular and I felt cool because I already knew all their old stuff because of my neighbor
I was 6 when The Rock Show was released as a single. My older brother was playing it on our old gateway PC. it hooked me instantly. From there, it was Sum 41, New Found Glory, and Good Charlotte.
American Idiot came out when I was 9, From Under the Cork Tree when I was 10. Riot! when I was 12. Homesick when I was 14. Under Soil & Dirt when I was 16.
Haha wow, such a similar story. Started when my mom played Evanescence's Fallen in the car. Then she got me FOB's From Under The Cork Tree a couple years later. Around the same time, I got both of those same Paramore albums from a friend for my birthday and absolutely loved them. Started sharing albums with my dad after that.
The funniest part to me looking back is that I would not expect either my mom or that friend to be into pop punk at all these days, but it worked for me!
When I was a kid I just listened to whatever. Pop, 80s rock, country. Until one fateful night, I was watching Total Request Live on MTV. Number 2 came up: Sum 41 - Fat Lip. My 12 year old mind was blown. Society was wrong. I don't have to conform. People use *bad words*.
For real though it was legitimately life changing watching that music video. They were my first step into punk and I've stuck with it ever since.
What really got me into pop punk was The Story So Far back in 2012. Blink 182 was huge when I was growing up but I was super young so I didn't pay enough attention to them. In my teens, I was way more into bands like The Devil Wears Prada, Erra, Veil of Maya, etc. But I randomly clicked on Quicksand one day and I was blown away. The following year, What You Don't See came out and that's now one of my favorite albums of all time.
I don't know how it got there but my family PC back in the day had a bunch of pirated songs from BFS, Green Day and some other guys. I vibed to it and I'm still listening to the genre to this day 😂
I was playing Burnout 3 Takedown on my Playstation 2 for the first time and I remember being blown away by the soundtrack.
After that I started looking up the music and trying to get the tracks onto my phone. I would listen to them like crazy. I still do it every once in a while.
The game introduced me to Motion City Soundtrack, which imo is the greatest pop-punk band, period. I'm forever grateful for that game's influence on my music taste.
The short lived UK Sky TV music video channel P-Rock.
It was through that channel that I first heard Alkaline Trio, Rancid, Distillers, American Hi-Fi, Tsunami Bomb, Student Rick and The Starting Line to name but a few.
I always liked the sum 41 scooby doo theme when I was really little and then around 10 I got into fall out boy. From there I took to their pop punk side rather than scene emo
i was 11 years old, playing MX 2002 with my cousin (RIP) during summer vacation. and that’s when i heard “Fat Lip” and “Makes No Difference” by Sum 41 for the first time, and i was hooked. at that point, i was already listening to bands like Simple Plan, The All-American Rejects but with Sum 41, i got deeper and deeper into pop punk. those dudes were just so cool and hilarious and made me excited about the idea of being in a band.
My old band opened up for NFG while they were touring on Nothing Gold Can Stay. I was strictly into skate punk until I saw their set. Definitely opened my eyes and made me a fan.
I was big into Green Day as a kid then my taste in music shifted over to sum 41 and I got into four year strong as well.
For me I don’t remember my first Green Day song I was into but I remember in too deep was my first sum 41 song I listened too and the cover of semi charmed life was the first song from four year strong I heard
I listened to the popular stuff when I was younger, Paramore, green day etc, but what renewed my interest in poppunk was finding moose blood, going to one of their basement shows, and listening to the other bands at those shows. It was great.
*After Laughter* by Paramore, specifically Rose-Colored Boy, Hard Times, and Fake Happy (in that order), despite not being pop punk whatsoever. I started listening to more of their music after hearing those songs, and now I'm really into Paramore, pop punk, alt-rock, and just rock music in general. My first time hearing a song from them was when Rose-Colored Boy played on Nickelodeon's music channel, NickMusic. I didn't listen to anything from them or hear anything about them until much later when my older brother showed me some of their songs.
SSX 3. Autopilot Off’s “Make a Sound” album was the first album I bought for myself with my own money back when I was a kid.
Also liked Yellowcard’s Way Away from that game so it got me into them too.
I was a massive Busted fan, when they split up I was devastated and started desperately searching for someone new to latch on to. My best friend played me some Green Day and that was it. My dad says I also used to lose it whenever Basket Case came on the radio but I don't remember
Green Day, even though don't call themselves pop punk on spotify if you add a green day song to a playlist pop punk songs will show up in the recommended songs and I just started adding them at some point and really enjoying what i was listening to so I went down the large rabbit hole of pop punk for almost 4 years now
The signs were there when In Too Deep came out. I was in preschool at the time and thought it was the weirdest video I ever watched. Then I loved girlfriend (no need to say who the singer is, right?) and then I got into the genre at 16. Still love it at almost 26
Was kinda just born into it, actually!
I'm an 03 kid & according to my mom, I was *fascinated* with Simple Plan's "Perfect" on MTV when I was a baby. My brothers were teenagers already and listened to a lot of emo & pop-punk that was coming out around then (Plain White T's, Panic! At The Disco, Good Charlotte, Green Day, All-American Rejects, etc.) So I kinda just picked it up in my toddler years.
By the time I was 5, I was humming "I'm Just A Kid" on the bus. It was that song & "Hey There, Delilah" for me.
It was Paramore for me as well! I was obsessed for a few years and any other pop punk band was completely secondary. All We Know Is Falling is still my favorite to this day despite being super proud of Hayley Williams growth as an artist throughout the years. I went awhile after without listening to any pop punk (or really music in general) until the love was revived strongly by Hot Mulligan in 2020, now I listen to a lot more bands than I did as a pre teen surprisingly. I'm just getting around to all the older ones I "missed"
My dad bought me Green Day’s Dookie in 1994, when I was 9 years old. He really was oblivious, but I told him I liked the music video(We recently got cable, and obviously I watched MTV haha) and he wanted to connect with me more. The rest, I suppose, is history 🍻
Enema of the state was great. I started listening to pop punk around d 97-98 we moved to a new town and I was about to start high and I met my neighbor Joey who was 2 years older than me. Through him I learned about NOFX, Lagwagon, Guttermouth, basically all the FatWreckchords and Epitaph bands. He played guitar and then I learned and we would play our fav songs together! Good times.
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater was the first exposure but it really took off when my mom bought me blink’s untitled album for my 9th birthday. She had no clue who they were, just that they were “cool”
Definitely neck deep, I was scrolling through YouTube and their mv for can’t kick of the roots popped up, I watched it and I was hooked ever since, thinking about it makes me so nostalgic
Whatever came on the radio in the late 90s/early 00s. I think the first real one was Blink, probably All the Small Things, or maybe Green Day… but I’m going to say that Story of a Girl by Nine Days was a sleeper pop punk song.
I always really dug it as a kid. blink, Green Day, Good Charlotte, etc ruled the airwaves when I was growing up! It wasn't until HS where my friend showed me "Wow, I can get sexual too" by Say Anything that I really started to indulge. I had the "Is A Real Boy" album on repeat all of 2015.
For me it was actually just a few months ago. I’ve been going through a really hard time and struggling to stay positive and avoid going into despair. I was listening to music casually but I had never connected deeply to anything before until I discovered Simple Plan. Listening to their music has really been helping me and introduced me to the genre.
Not pop-punk, but I fell in love with Rob Zombie songs when I was just 4 years old (year 2000; troubling, i know) and Linkin Park when I was 9 (2005). So I grew up liking rock music.
Then few years later, when I first heard Hey Monday - How You Love Me Now and Green Day - 21 Guns (same day), I was immediately hooked and started jamming to other bands, mostly Paramore and All Time Low.
And the rest is history~~
Besides Blink 182, I had never really heard any other pop punk bands. It wasn't until a year after I graduated(1999) that I heard the band that got me super into pop punk, That band was New Found Glory! They changed my life and still remain one of my all time favourite bands.
The one rice krispies commercial where they were a pop punk band. I think I still know most of the lyrics lol
"Everyday I hear myself i hope out of bed. Cuz rice krispies cereal is singing in my head. A sound so irresistible I want to have it all. Just a glass of ice cold milk and (then I don't remember the rest)
My dad was a huge punk fan, the Ramones were his favorite. I always enjoyed it, however I didn't officially delve into pop punk until 2018! I was a fan of the Maine among many other artists in their realm since I was old enough to download my own music, but it took until my 20s to start really getting into it and try something new.
My dad has been putting pop punk on his playlists as long as I can remember. My first exposure to Green Day was long car rides with my father when I was like 3 years old
1. Green Day - Dookie - The spring of 1994. I was 11 years old. Time flies...
2. Then Blink, Enema kicked it to another level and the rest was history.
My brother showed me Good Charlotte and he was a fan of The Young and Hopeless record. I slowly started liking them and then I was introduced to Green Day, MxPx, Sum 41, Simple Plan and New Found Glory thanks to MTV and VH1.
I heard "Bedroom Talk" by The Starting Line at 14 and it was over for me
I listened to Blink 182 before that but I think TSL was what cemented the genre for me
Bands like The All-American Rejects and Green Day were what I was into in elementary and middle school. Didn't really know the term pop punk back then. It wasn't until I really got into Blink as a freshman that it took off for me.
As many have said Enema Of The State was an eye opener as a kid but i will say the album that really solidified pop punk for me was All Killer No Filler. There was no turning back after hearing that.
My cousin loved blink 182, another Good Charlotte, and my parents always listened to Green Day, (as well as 80s/90s alternative- the cure, nirvana, the smiths, oasis, smashing pumpkins, yellowcard, etc.) so I was exposed since birth. 😆
Green Day’s American Idiot album was what really got me into pop/punk.
I was really into the Tony Hawk games and they had a lot of pop/punk music in the soundtrack as well. So I would look up the bands.
The first pop/punk band that was “mine” (meaning no outside influences) would be Simple Plan’s Still not getting any… album.
As a teen I got into the more heavier stuff as well (Bring me the Horizon, Bullet for My Valentine, The Used, Aiden, Hawthorne Heights, etc) but I’ve always seemed to go back to pop/punk
4th or 5th grade I received a burned copy of Good Charlotte’s “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” been hooked since. Along with Blink, Simple Plan, and My Chemical Romance
U started obsessing over Green Day last year which led me into bands like The Offspring, blink-182, Sum 41, and MCR. All those big names and I discovered the name of the genre and I just really started to dive deeper into it. So glad I did because I absoloutley love it.
I was in 3rd grade and heard the nimrod album by green day for the first time. I think it was good riddance and hitchin a ride.
Then when I was indoctrinated it was my older brothers friend who let me borrow EOTS when it came out. I was 9 yrs old. the rest is history.
Thanks blink.
Green Day's *Dookie* was the first cd I bought with my summer neighborhood job in '94. Then blink-182's EotS, NFG's self titled & The Ataris' *Broken Skies, Broken Hearts* roped me in for good. Came for Green Day, stayed for blink, NFG & The Ataris. Been a fan ever since.
It's also cool that my kids have "discovered" a lot of these bands after growing up listening to me play pop-punk on car trips. My daughter has also got me into bands like Hot Mulligan and some others. Im 41 and don't wanna be part of the statistic of others my age who stop discovering new bands/artists. My daughter and I will be in the pit for blink in June & in the pit for Green Day/Rancid later in Aug!
Green Day with a combination of Dookie and American Idiot started it all for me just after the American idiot release. From there bands like ATL, YMAS and most of the Kerrang radio tracks from the period kinda drove me in deeper
New found glory, I remembered borrowing the self titled CD from a friend and the intro riff from better off dead instantly got me hooked. Never looked back since
I believe it was some kids passing around a Good Charlotte CD on my bus when I was in sixth grade. Also my parents listened to Alternative radio so I heard some on there too. After I bought Ocean Avenue I was hooked
Honestly I think I heard sugar were going down on something like KISS FM in Chicago. We were at the JCPenney parking lot at the Fox Valley Mall in Aurora Illinois. This was maybe 2006-07. I was literally listening to Ne-Yo and Ludacris and Rihanna on the radio. (Which I still stand by as a phenomenal pop music year) And I had no idea what they were saying so I had no idea how to search for the song. My friend who knew more about this said I think the band is called Fall Out Boy.
With my limited internet access, I looked them up. Or maybe I went to the library to get their CD. Yes I think that's what it was. I would get the CD and import it into iTunes! I did this with all their stuff and fell in love. I think Infinity on high was new by then. I couldn't get enough. I would watch all of their interviews on YouTube and BuzzFeed. I bought and downloaded all of their music videos to my video iPod.
I would go to BuzzFeed or I think Pete Wentz had his own offshoot called Friends or Enemies. I subscribe to AP magazine. I saw a picture of his dick somehow. I would read teen magazines in the library and steal pages that had Fall Out Boy posters. I started listening to the AP podcast. They introduced me to new bands. This was all in '07-08.
I stopped wearing Abercrombie and Fitch and Hollister (but not their jeans damn it) I started exclusively wearing Converse, I got contacts and I started straightening my hair. For zero reason I could never get the emo swoop but no one told me I had to brush my hair the wrong way.
I watched the videos of the Honda Civic tour and fell in love with the Academy is and Cobra starship and All Time Low. All Time Low was my next obsession. (Pretty much 9th through 12th grade they were my absolute favorite because they put out videos and were funny and accessible and I saw them nine times in 5 years and I finally saw them for the first time in 10 years for the 10th time in 2023 and they were just as good as they'd always been. Anyways I remember the AP podcast would ask what are some really important songs to you and in Atl's interview they played Reckless Abandon. I fell in love. I said this is the best shit ever, It's phenomenal music and the lyrics are hilarious. Then my friend lent me her Take Off Your Pants And Jacket CD and blink-182 has been my all-time favorite band since.
I saw Fall Out Boy on The Believers Never Die Tour and pretty much lost my mind. It was my second concert of My Music™ after I saw The Academy Is, We The Kings, Carolina Liar, and Hey Monday at a tour I forget the name of. And then that's all I cared about. All my babysitting money and all my begging was to get my mom to drive me to the House of Blues in Chicago on a school night and she did. I I remember meeting a band member and he said Is this your mom? And I said yes and he said do not take it for granted that your mom takes you to shows because not everyones Mom drives them into the city and takes them to shows. And I've never forgotten that. So I think my mantra is "thank your bus driver, but more importantly thank your mom for taking you to shows"
From then on I was the pop punk emo kid at school. I dyed my bangs pink and then blue and then purple. I exclusively wore hoodies and skinny jeans and studded belts. Glamour Kills was my favorite brand and I even bought some neon green skinny jeans and was dumb and wore them with like a neon turquoise shirt and it didn't work but I didn't care. But I wasn't like the angry kid who cut themselves or anything a bunch of my friends were but I was just the kid who like pop punk, The emo stuff and then the neon emo stuff like Cobra starship etc. I kind of got a lot of shit for it because as a kid I didn't like screamo. And I only sort of do now. So I got flack for not being hardcore enough or being a poser from the other kids at school, That's why when I went to concerts I felt so good.
I'm 30 now And I'm so fucking self-conscious because of all that and I wish I could wear clothes like I did then wait and I'm not confident I see old photos of myself and it makes me curse my double chin.
I still listen to the same stuff from high school and Fall Out Boy will always be the one that started it all. I think my favorite part is that my brother was 5 years younger than me and was exposed to every band I listened to and now in 2024 he's a bigger Fall of Boy fan than I am. But he was never emo. Sorry for the rent but it was really nice to take a trip down memory lame and remember every single thing that led me to who I was in high school.
All right that's my rant. I must being that kid with a personality in a sense of style that was my own and an identity.
My middle school best friend who was originally from Arkansas showed me midwestern emo/punk. She put me on to Paramore, All Time Low, Mayday Parade, Pierce the Veil, Neck Deep, etc and it grew from there. We don’t really talk anymore but I still listen to the music and think of her sometimes.
My friend gave me a burned CD of NFG’s self titled album and said “this will change your life.” Sure enough.
BTW I bought my own legit copy shortly after that.
Tony Hawk 1 2 and 3 had the skate punk soundtrack with lagwagon, nofx, afi, those bands and I also happened to grow up in the 2000s when that stuff was huge
Probably the Burnout 3 soundtrack and Pokémon AMVs when I was younger.
But I got really into pop punk in mid-2016 when I "went emo" (I was never really into the emo scene, but I was a teenager so I didn't really know what I was doing). one of my best friends was really into Bring me the horizon and Pierce the Vail, so I started listening to simple plan and then new found glory. (There was also my HUGE hyperfixation on the Canadian band Hedley at that time but, I don't want to talk about that, if you know, you know)
I remember sitting on my bedroom floor, around 3rd or 4th grade, just waiting for the radio on my purple Durabrand boombox to play The Black Parade by MCR, Fall Out Boy, Green Day, or anything with the Pop-Punk beat!
Let Go album by Avril Lavigne was played constantly in our mini van.
I was raised on a mix Rock. I bit of everything, like the Rolling Stones, Def Leppard, The Cars, Great White, Blink-182, Billy Squire, Metallica. My parents definitely exposed me to the classics. Always looking through my dad's albums. I have always gravitated toward electronic EDM, too. Pop Punk has given all of those elements in the very diverse genre.
Tony Hawk games really introduced me to punk not just pop punk music, then I got heavy into skate/surf videos and all that stuff which lead me to more, but before that I think just heard random songs in movies and cartoons. A lot of movies with references to punk culture. I swear there was some random cartoon with a Ramones song.
I had always heard Blink and Green Day songs from older cousins who I was close with since but once I saw the music video for Sugar We’re Going Down the summer before starting middle school I was hooked
A spanish youtuber called BersGamer! Because of him I got to know Blink-182 in depth, and Man Overboard.
He's not a music youtuber, when I used to watch him he was really into Pop-Punk :)
For me it was Blink-182’s Enema of The State. Not sure if I first saw What’s My Age Again or All the Small Things music video first but since then I’ve been a fan of there’s.
Enema of the State started it all for me. It came out on my bday. My brother was out all day with his high school friends and picked up their copies at Tower Records in Hollywood in the evening. One of his friends bought 2 copies since he was a huge fan and that was the copy I got. They listened to it on their way home and his friend forgot it at my house, so my brother ended up giving it to me and that was it. I also got my PS1 that same day and I remember losing my mind when I found out it could play CDs. Of course Enema was on repeat all year.
Having the same birthday with THAT blink 182 album is honestly so cool.
I was maybe 13, my buddy Brad let me borrow the EOTS cd. I hid the jewel case in my backpack cause it had a sexy nurse on the cover. I listened to that album front to back for weeks. Found a guitar in the basement a few months after that and I was fully corrupted.
Fall Out Boy, Paramore & Panic! I actually got into their pop rock tracks first then shifted to their pop punk tracks
Man being a kid in the early 2000. This is what got me into poppunk despite not knowing what it was. Then again when someone told me about skillet "hero"
Oh man, Skillet and the whole kinda Christian rock scene is a throwback. Thousand Foot Krutch, Hawk Nelson, Skillet were huge for me.
Ngl I didnt do it for the Christian side. It was just really good music. But then I'm also a big fan of owl city and Peabod.
I was the same way. We had a big Christian festival near me and those types of bands were always there so it was easy to just be excited to go and hear them.
Good music is good. As long as the content isn't overly extreme. Just vibe to what's going. And if it's live it's not like you can skip it
Tony Hawk games and All The Small Things on the radio pretty much shaped my whole taste in music. That said, the In Too Deep single by Sum 41 and Green Day's International Super hits were 2/3 of my first CDs, and most of my friends were into similar music at the time
Burnout 3 / Revenge
That shaped my music taste, except Paradise instead of Revenge and also MX vs ATV Unleashed
I was 9 and saw the video for Basketcase by Green Day and loved it so I got my mom to buy me the Dookie tape. I got hooked into it and listened to it and Insomniac and after that, pop punk/skate punk started to blow up and I went along for the ride. Personally, I've always seen the peak of pop punk from 1994-2000.
Aye 2000 includes NFG self titled. Quintessential pop punk album right there but I think they are definitely responsible along with Blink bridging the gap between that generation and what came after.
I just wrote my response. So crazy how similar our stories are!
I have a bit of a funny story. This is quite a while ago now, I think I was 19 or 20 at the time. I was really into post-hardcore then, bands like Dance Gavin Dance, Alexisonfire, Chiodos. I'm going to avoid being too specific, but I had a good friend from high school that through someone else began hanging out with Shane Told of Silverstein pretty often. Needless to say, I was also a massive Silverstein fan. That summer my friend invited me to a pool party that was being held at Shane's family home. I was pretty shy back then, so I only said a few words to him, but it was awesome. I remember the basement of the house led out to the backyard, and I would be going in and out to grab drinks from the fridge, and there were instruments strewn about everywhere and a bunch of pictures of Shane as a young kid or teenager holding guitars and stuff. Anyways, throughout the party Shane was playing music off his iPod that was docked on a speaker. At some point a new track came on and I heard the intro to this song and I was hooked. It was fast, had tons of energy, almost scratching the post-hardcore itch I had, but it was different, catchier. I was mid-conversation with a couple friends and went "hold on, I have to go see what this is". Walked over to the speaker and looked at the iPod screen - it said Beatdown in the Key of Happy by Four Year Strong. I'd never heard of them, but that intro was so killer, I'd heard enough. Went home later and listened to the entirety of Rise or Die Trying and there was no going back from there. So shoutout to Shane for by happenstance introducing me to the genre, and just being a cool dude on top of having great taste. Went to a Silverstein show a couple years later and stuck around after to say hey and I was surprised he remembered me.
thats not funny thats a legendary story , probably the best way to get into the genre ahah lucky you!
In 5th grade a crush gave me Dookie on cassette for my birthday, changed the course of my musical life.
Ocean Avenue!
Paramore as well!! First heard all the singles from All We Know Is Falling, then I listened through Riot. I was also already an Avril fan (Let Go, Under My Skin) but I think Paramore was the one that got me to really commit and dive into the genre because I think I didn’t really understand genres at the time and mostly grew up on Radio Disney lol 😂
Same, oh so much the same 🤣
When I was in year 7, probably 12 or 13 years old, my best friend had a poster of good charlotte in her locker. I used to say that Benji looked like a freak, in the poster he had his giant spiky mohawk and heaps of black eyeliner on. She really wanted me to see that they weren’t freaks and that they were awesome, so she burnt me the good charlotte self titled album, simple plans first album, as well as a mixed cd full of her favourite pop punk artists like mest, mxpx, dashboard confessional, new found glory. I went home that night after school and played those cds on my blue stereo. I fell in love and I will forever be grateful for her and those burnt cds.
This story rules. Thats the perfect introduction to the genre.
Haha thanks! That was 20 years ago now. We went to see Simple Plan together last week, told you it wasn’t a phase, mum.
well, I was like 8 or 9 and I heard I'm just a kid and its been all down hill from there
Very Canadian reference here. I was given big shiny tunes 4 (much music rock compilation) from my mom and it had what’s my age again on it. Later bought enema of the state and completely changed my life.
I wish I'd been into Big Shiny Tunes but I was too into the Much Dance compilations at the time 😂
My brother realized he no longer liked Green Day, so he gave me his American Idiot CD, and the moment he stopped liking them I started loving them. I had enjoyed some of their songs (we listened to a lot of music in the car and road-trips), but I didn't want to like them just because my brother did (I was 7ish). I listened to the American Idiot album for a few years, until I was 12ish, until I started discovering their other songs. After that it was mainly songs from tv-shows and movies, early 00's tv had some great music. Somewhere along the way I found Rise Against, I have no memory of how it happened, but I'm happy it did
NHL 2002 soundtrack
When I was a kid, I often went skiing in Austria with my family. One time, I found an iPod in the snow that had Simple Plan songs on it. That's where it started.
Napster + Blink 182 + The Ataris + The Impossibles = Nonstop listening in 2000 and burning CD’s and learning about life as a junior in high school. What a time to be alive.
I had MTV playing while I was folding laundry or something, all the sudden they started playing the video for Sugar We’re Going Down and I was just in a trance. It was all 11 year old girl obsession from that moment on. I dug into TTTYG and EOWYG. Listened to everyone on FBR, went to as many shows as I could. By the time I was graduating high school the scene was sort of phased out. I kind of scrambled for a while trying to find new stuff I liked until I started listening to The Front Bottoms and got similar artist recommendations on Apple Music for TWY, neck deep, moose blood. Now I’m back into all the old stuff and having fun finding the new stuff. Currently can’t stop listening to Hot Mully.
Maybe the jungle fury phineas and ferb and what’s new scooby doo themes or the paper jamz guitar I had as a kid then hearing blink 182 causing nostalgia maybe
Blink-182 was the first band I discovered on my own. I discovered them on the CD Now 4 which had All the Small Things on it and I just kept listening to it over and over. Also my sister had NFG Sticks and Stones CD. So those two and SUM 41 have always been my favorite since. Going to see all 3 of them again this year. NfG for the 4789926th time and still love it every time!
One of my friends in my sisters year at school was really into music, I was still a bit of a teeny bopper although I was starting to listen to more indie/alt stuff. She introduced me to Green Day and NOFX and Offspring. Then I went to America on holiday to visit family and heard Lit, Eve 6 and Blink 182 in a shop so we bought a whole load of cds. My dad introduced me to Paramore, he was asking my opinion on some songs his covers band were thinking about doing and one of them was CrushCrushCrush. They didn't do it but I'm pretty sure I still have his copy of Riot somewhere
I haven’t even read the responses but can tell you that it’s better to ask: When/how/where did blink-182 get you into pop-punk?
Blink-182
2001 the very first week of 5th grade our music teacher had us make up a dance to a genre of music we picked out of a hat. my group got r&b so we did destiny's child- stronger. my crushes group got pop punk and they did these cool handstands and flips to blink 182- all the small things. I was hooked, not sure if it was the song or bc he looked so cool or a little of both 😂 downloaded their whole discography, made my sister take me to see them at the pop disaster tour the next year, got hooked on the other bands on the lineup, and the rest is history. *edit to add* I'm pretty sure I listened to pop punk earlier but didn't understand the concept of "genres" or whatever. I just kind of listened to what was on the radio or what my sister played in her room when I'd bother her. I know I'd heard green day earlier bc it was my dad's favorite band but I didn't like them until I saw them live
Rock Band Green Day, Sum 41's Fat Lip and all the teen movies of the late 90s and early 00s. And to some degree Happy Tree Friends due to Fall Out Boy's The Carpal Tunnel of Love
Phoebe Cates by Fenix TX played on a popular radio station I was listening to. My mind was blown and my taste immediately shifted
Great song!
Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Green Day in my YouTube recommendations. American Idiot is still my 2nd fav album, only behind 21st Century breakdown also by GD
Probably cliched, but for me it was when All the small things dropped in 99'. I had listened to Greendays two albums prior to that and Offspring, but yeah it seemed huge once Blink dropped Enema of the State
I grew up in Southern Maryland and in late 2000 my best friend and I came home from school one day and his dad had been gifted a CD with clouds all over the front of it from their neighbor, Paul, who played bass in a band called Good Charlotte. It was a few weeks from being released but we put it in the player and we couldn’t believe what we were hearing. “Waldorf. Naptown. Worldwide”. Someone name dropped our hometown in the first line of a song. We were shook. And I was hooked. Fast forward a few years later, and I meet my now wife in the 2004 in high school. Unbeknownst to me, her brother grew up playing music with GC in their family’s band room. Stars were connecting. 21 years later, and 37 years into life, it’s still my wife and I’s favorite style of music.
HOW CAN EVERYONE BE CONNECTED TO ALL TJESE GREAT BANDS OMFG
Malcolm in the Middle and PlayStation 1 skateboarding games.
Smash and Dookie but I didn't know they were pop punk until Enema
My next door neighbor was a cooler, older kid at my high school. He sometimes gave me rides to school and i remember listening to early blink, millencolin, less than Jake and beastie boys. I liked beastie boys but the punk stuff, I wanted to like, i just couldn’t get into it. A couple years later when Dammit landed on a soundtrack for some teen movie (I think it was can’t hardly wait) and all the sudden I couldn’t get enough. Blink started getting popular and I felt cool because I already knew all their old stuff because of my neighbor
I was 6 when The Rock Show was released as a single. My older brother was playing it on our old gateway PC. it hooked me instantly. From there, it was Sum 41, New Found Glory, and Good Charlotte. American Idiot came out when I was 9, From Under the Cork Tree when I was 10. Riot! when I was 12. Homesick when I was 14. Under Soil & Dirt when I was 16.
I was in existence when pop punk had it's moment on top 40 radio.
Haha wow, such a similar story. Started when my mom played Evanescence's Fallen in the car. Then she got me FOB's From Under The Cork Tree a couple years later. Around the same time, I got both of those same Paramore albums from a friend for my birthday and absolutely loved them. Started sharing albums with my dad after that. The funniest part to me looking back is that I would not expect either my mom or that friend to be into pop punk at all these days, but it worked for me!
The teen movie soundtracks of my era
I’m fortunate enough to have been alive, conscious and able to participate in the scene since the mid 90’s.
Tip of the hat to you, what a time to be alive. 40’s are a bitch. I love putting on Falling Apart and laughing.
Lagwagon or zebrahead? Or perhaps you are referring to Falling Apart by ICP? 😆
Enema of the state.
When I was a kid I just listened to whatever. Pop, 80s rock, country. Until one fateful night, I was watching Total Request Live on MTV. Number 2 came up: Sum 41 - Fat Lip. My 12 year old mind was blown. Society was wrong. I don't have to conform. People use *bad words*. For real though it was legitimately life changing watching that music video. They were my first step into punk and I've stuck with it ever since.
as a kid it was fall out boy and sum 41 , as an adult it was blink 182 neck deep and new found glory
What really got me into pop punk was The Story So Far back in 2012. Blink 182 was huge when I was growing up but I was super young so I didn't pay enough attention to them. In my teens, I was way more into bands like The Devil Wears Prada, Erra, Veil of Maya, etc. But I randomly clicked on Quicksand one day and I was blown away. The following year, What You Don't See came out and that's now one of my favorite albums of all time.
I don't know how it got there but my family PC back in the day had a bunch of pirated songs from BFS, Green Day and some other guys. I vibed to it and I'm still listening to the genre to this day 😂
I was playing Burnout 3 Takedown on my Playstation 2 for the first time and I remember being blown away by the soundtrack. After that I started looking up the music and trying to get the tracks onto my phone. I would listen to them like crazy. I still do it every once in a while. The game introduced me to Motion City Soundtrack, which imo is the greatest pop-punk band, period. I'm forever grateful for that game's influence on my music taste.
The short lived UK Sky TV music video channel P-Rock. It was through that channel that I first heard Alkaline Trio, Rancid, Distillers, American Hi-Fi, Tsunami Bomb, Student Rick and The Starting Line to name but a few.
I always liked the sum 41 scooby doo theme when I was really little and then around 10 I got into fall out boy. From there I took to their pop punk side rather than scene emo
Reliant k was my first and transitioned me from Christian music to pop pink
Warped Tour happened right by my place, so it was kind of a crash course lol
i was 11 years old, playing MX 2002 with my cousin (RIP) during summer vacation. and that’s when i heard “Fat Lip” and “Makes No Difference” by Sum 41 for the first time, and i was hooked. at that point, i was already listening to bands like Simple Plan, The All-American Rejects but with Sum 41, i got deeper and deeper into pop punk. those dudes were just so cool and hilarious and made me excited about the idea of being in a band.
My old band opened up for NFG while they were touring on Nothing Gold Can Stay. I was strictly into skate punk until I saw their set. Definitely opened my eyes and made me a fan.
My sister. She bought me Sum 41’s All Killer No Filler cd when I was younger and it really changed my life.
I was big into Green Day as a kid then my taste in music shifted over to sum 41 and I got into four year strong as well. For me I don’t remember my first Green Day song I was into but I remember in too deep was my first sum 41 song I listened too and the cover of semi charmed life was the first song from four year strong I heard
I listened to the popular stuff when I was younger, Paramore, green day etc, but what renewed my interest in poppunk was finding moose blood, going to one of their basement shows, and listening to the other bands at those shows. It was great.
When I was about 10 or 11 my cousin had Now That's What I Call whatever and it had Blink 182 Rock Show and Sum 41 In Too Deep on it and I loved it.
The girl who rejected me in year 9. I hate to think what I would be listening to if she said yes.
My buddy Gelosi.
Blink. NFG. I’d say All time low was the first band I truly fell in love with as kid, saw “Dear Maria” video on MTV in 07, rabbit hole from there.
Mxpx let it happen
I heard the song Blood to Bleed by Rise Against in a Gears of War montage in 2006 and my love for heavier music and pop punk grew from there.
*After Laughter* by Paramore, specifically Rose-Colored Boy, Hard Times, and Fake Happy (in that order), despite not being pop punk whatsoever. I started listening to more of their music after hearing those songs, and now I'm really into Paramore, pop punk, alt-rock, and just rock music in general. My first time hearing a song from them was when Rose-Colored Boy played on Nickelodeon's music channel, NickMusic. I didn't listen to anything from them or hear anything about them until much later when my older brother showed me some of their songs.
SSX 3. Autopilot Off’s “Make a Sound” album was the first album I bought for myself with my own money back when I was a kid. Also liked Yellowcard’s Way Away from that game so it got me into them too.
Madden 02 and 03.
Life.
My older brothers were listening to FOB, MCS, and PATD in the early/mid 2000s and the rest is history
I was a massive Busted fan, when they split up I was devastated and started desperately searching for someone new to latch on to. My best friend played me some Green Day and that was it. My dad says I also used to lose it whenever Basket Case came on the radio but I don't remember
Kingdom Hearts
I generally liked Green Day and Blink, but not necessarily a punk fan. Then I picked up the NFG Sticks & Stones album and it changed my life.
Green Day, even though don't call themselves pop punk on spotify if you add a green day song to a playlist pop punk songs will show up in the recommended songs and I just started adding them at some point and really enjoying what i was listening to so I went down the large rabbit hole of pop punk for almost 4 years now
The signs were there when In Too Deep came out. I was in preschool at the time and thought it was the weirdest video I ever watched. Then I loved girlfriend (no need to say who the singer is, right?) and then I got into the genre at 16. Still love it at almost 26
Was kinda just born into it, actually! I'm an 03 kid & according to my mom, I was *fascinated* with Simple Plan's "Perfect" on MTV when I was a baby. My brothers were teenagers already and listened to a lot of emo & pop-punk that was coming out around then (Plain White T's, Panic! At The Disco, Good Charlotte, Green Day, All-American Rejects, etc.) So I kinda just picked it up in my toddler years. By the time I was 5, I was humming "I'm Just A Kid" on the bus. It was that song & "Hey There, Delilah" for me.
It was Paramore for me as well! I was obsessed for a few years and any other pop punk band was completely secondary. All We Know Is Falling is still my favorite to this day despite being super proud of Hayley Williams growth as an artist throughout the years. I went awhile after without listening to any pop punk (or really music in general) until the love was revived strongly by Hot Mulligan in 2020, now I listen to a lot more bands than I did as a pre teen surprisingly. I'm just getting around to all the older ones I "missed"
Bunch of years ago after coming home from school. My dad stopped me and told me he had a video to show me. Thus introducing me to Ocean Avenue.
Good Charlotte- the young and the hopeless!
Avril Lavigne. Good memories..
My dad bought me Green Day’s Dookie in 1994, when I was 9 years old. He really was oblivious, but I told him I liked the music video(We recently got cable, and obviously I watched MTV haha) and he wanted to connect with me more. The rest, I suppose, is history 🍻
Enema of the state was great. I started listening to pop punk around d 97-98 we moved to a new town and I was about to start high and I met my neighbor Joey who was 2 years older than me. Through him I learned about NOFX, Lagwagon, Guttermouth, basically all the FatWreckchords and Epitaph bands. He played guitar and then I learned and we would play our fav songs together! Good times.
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater was the first exposure but it really took off when my mom bought me blink’s untitled album for my 9th birthday. She had no clue who they were, just that they were “cool”
Definitely neck deep, I was scrolling through YouTube and their mv for can’t kick of the roots popped up, I watched it and I was hooked ever since, thinking about it makes me so nostalgic
Survival of the Fattest.
Whatever came on the radio in the late 90s/early 00s. I think the first real one was Blink, probably All the Small Things, or maybe Green Day… but I’m going to say that Story of a Girl by Nine Days was a sleeper pop punk song.
I always really dug it as a kid. blink, Green Day, Good Charlotte, etc ruled the airwaves when I was growing up! It wasn't until HS where my friend showed me "Wow, I can get sexual too" by Say Anything that I really started to indulge. I had the "Is A Real Boy" album on repeat all of 2015.
I found FOB, motion city, NFG, and bands like that in video games as a kid and it lead me to the genre!
Blink and no doubt was my first show though too when I was a kid ahahaha
The ska/punk phase in the mid-late 90s got me down this rabbit hole. I eventually phased out the horns and upstrokes by early 00s.
Being forced to listen to Christian only music growing up and discovering Relient K
Blink 182, they are still the best to ever do it, although tssf come close
Ramones to Green Day to Squirtgun (from the "Mallrats" soundtrack) to Screeching Weasel, which led me Blink-182 during their release of "Dude Ranch".
For me it was actually just a few months ago. I’ve been going through a really hard time and struggling to stay positive and avoid going into despair. I was listening to music casually but I had never connected deeply to anything before until I discovered Simple Plan. Listening to their music has really been helping me and introduced me to the genre.
Not pop-punk, but I fell in love with Rob Zombie songs when I was just 4 years old (year 2000; troubling, i know) and Linkin Park when I was 9 (2005). So I grew up liking rock music. Then few years later, when I first heard Hey Monday - How You Love Me Now and Green Day - 21 Guns (same day), I was immediately hooked and started jamming to other bands, mostly Paramore and All Time Low. And the rest is history~~
Dookie in 5th grade. NFG in 6-7th grade, Dammit being played at the skate park, then Enema coming out, H2O and Bouncing Souls, etc.
Dookie.
American Pie 2. All I have to say
Sparks the Rescue—Maine-based band from the aughts. Currently resurging and sounding as good as ever.
Green Day! I had a huge Green Day phase in middle school, lmao.
MxPx - Life in General
Relient K’s “Sadie Hawkins Dance” was my first taste and ohhhhh I never looked back
Besides Blink 182, I had never really heard any other pop punk bands. It wasn't until a year after I graduated(1999) that I heard the band that got me super into pop punk, That band was New Found Glory! They changed my life and still remain one of my all time favourite bands.
The one rice krispies commercial where they were a pop punk band. I think I still know most of the lyrics lol "Everyday I hear myself i hope out of bed. Cuz rice krispies cereal is singing in my head. A sound so irresistible I want to have it all. Just a glass of ice cold milk and (then I don't remember the rest)
My dad was a huge punk fan, the Ramones were his favorite. I always enjoyed it, however I didn't officially delve into pop punk until 2018! I was a fan of the Maine among many other artists in their realm since I was old enough to download my own music, but it took until my 20s to start really getting into it and try something new.
My dad has been putting pop punk on his playlists as long as I can remember. My first exposure to Green Day was long car rides with my father when I was like 3 years old
1. Green Day - Dookie - The spring of 1994. I was 11 years old. Time flies... 2. Then Blink, Enema kicked it to another level and the rest was history.
My brother showed me Good Charlotte and he was a fan of The Young and Hopeless record. I slowly started liking them and then I was introduced to Green Day, MxPx, Sum 41, Simple Plan and New Found Glory thanks to MTV and VH1.
I heard "Bedroom Talk" by The Starting Line at 14 and it was over for me I listened to Blink 182 before that but I think TSL was what cemented the genre for me
Bands like The All-American Rejects and Green Day were what I was into in elementary and middle school. Didn't really know the term pop punk back then. It wasn't until I really got into Blink as a freshman that it took off for me.
As many have said Enema Of The State was an eye opener as a kid but i will say the album that really solidified pop punk for me was All Killer No Filler. There was no turning back after hearing that.
My cousin loved blink 182, another Good Charlotte, and my parents always listened to Green Day, (as well as 80s/90s alternative- the cure, nirvana, the smiths, oasis, smashing pumpkins, yellowcard, etc.) so I was exposed since birth. 😆 Green Day’s American Idiot album was what really got me into pop/punk. I was really into the Tony Hawk games and they had a lot of pop/punk music in the soundtrack as well. So I would look up the bands. The first pop/punk band that was “mine” (meaning no outside influences) would be Simple Plan’s Still not getting any… album. As a teen I got into the more heavier stuff as well (Bring me the Horizon, Bullet for My Valentine, The Used, Aiden, Hawthorne Heights, etc) but I’ve always seemed to go back to pop/punk
4th or 5th grade I received a burned copy of Good Charlotte’s “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” been hooked since. Along with Blink, Simple Plan, and My Chemical Romance
Besides Blink New Found Glory - (Everything I do) I Do it for you
Me
Bowling For Soup, 1985 was on the radio constantly when I was a kid. 20 years later and I still haven't gotten sick of that sound.
U started obsessing over Green Day last year which led me into bands like The Offspring, blink-182, Sum 41, and MCR. All those big names and I discovered the name of the genre and I just really started to dive deeper into it. So glad I did because I absoloutley love it.
Ik this sub hates Waterparks, but they were who got me into the sound
May I ask why? lol I kinda love waterparks.
Not sure, but I've seen many posts dissing them. I love them too don't get me wrong, but we're two of a few
I was about 22-23 at the height of the pop punk scene, so just going to random shows.
I was in 3rd grade and heard the nimrod album by green day for the first time. I think it was good riddance and hitchin a ride. Then when I was indoctrinated it was my older brothers friend who let me borrow EOTS when it came out. I was 9 yrs old. the rest is history. Thanks blink.
Green Day's *Dookie* was the first cd I bought with my summer neighborhood job in '94. Then blink-182's EotS, NFG's self titled & The Ataris' *Broken Skies, Broken Hearts* roped me in for good. Came for Green Day, stayed for blink, NFG & The Ataris. Been a fan ever since. It's also cool that my kids have "discovered" a lot of these bands after growing up listening to me play pop-punk on car trips. My daughter has also got me into bands like Hot Mulligan and some others. Im 41 and don't wanna be part of the statistic of others my age who stop discovering new bands/artists. My daughter and I will be in the pit for blink in June & in the pit for Green Day/Rancid later in Aug!
Green Day with a combination of Dookie and American Idiot started it all for me just after the American idiot release. From there bands like ATL, YMAS and most of the Kerrang radio tracks from the period kinda drove me in deeper
Blink 182 when i was 12. I remember enema of the state coming out and i was addicted.
New found glory, I remembered borrowing the self titled CD from a friend and the intro riff from better off dead instantly got me hooked. Never looked back since
Catalyst by New Found Glory set me on the good path (my parents only listened to gospel and country)
Blink and New found glory
I believe it was some kids passing around a Good Charlotte CD on my bus when I was in sixth grade. Also my parents listened to Alternative radio so I heard some on there too. After I bought Ocean Avenue I was hooked
Honestly I think I heard sugar were going down on something like KISS FM in Chicago. We were at the JCPenney parking lot at the Fox Valley Mall in Aurora Illinois. This was maybe 2006-07. I was literally listening to Ne-Yo and Ludacris and Rihanna on the radio. (Which I still stand by as a phenomenal pop music year) And I had no idea what they were saying so I had no idea how to search for the song. My friend who knew more about this said I think the band is called Fall Out Boy. With my limited internet access, I looked them up. Or maybe I went to the library to get their CD. Yes I think that's what it was. I would get the CD and import it into iTunes! I did this with all their stuff and fell in love. I think Infinity on high was new by then. I couldn't get enough. I would watch all of their interviews on YouTube and BuzzFeed. I bought and downloaded all of their music videos to my video iPod. I would go to BuzzFeed or I think Pete Wentz had his own offshoot called Friends or Enemies. I subscribe to AP magazine. I saw a picture of his dick somehow. I would read teen magazines in the library and steal pages that had Fall Out Boy posters. I started listening to the AP podcast. They introduced me to new bands. This was all in '07-08. I stopped wearing Abercrombie and Fitch and Hollister (but not their jeans damn it) I started exclusively wearing Converse, I got contacts and I started straightening my hair. For zero reason I could never get the emo swoop but no one told me I had to brush my hair the wrong way. I watched the videos of the Honda Civic tour and fell in love with the Academy is and Cobra starship and All Time Low. All Time Low was my next obsession. (Pretty much 9th through 12th grade they were my absolute favorite because they put out videos and were funny and accessible and I saw them nine times in 5 years and I finally saw them for the first time in 10 years for the 10th time in 2023 and they were just as good as they'd always been. Anyways I remember the AP podcast would ask what are some really important songs to you and in Atl's interview they played Reckless Abandon. I fell in love. I said this is the best shit ever, It's phenomenal music and the lyrics are hilarious. Then my friend lent me her Take Off Your Pants And Jacket CD and blink-182 has been my all-time favorite band since. I saw Fall Out Boy on The Believers Never Die Tour and pretty much lost my mind. It was my second concert of My Music™ after I saw The Academy Is, We The Kings, Carolina Liar, and Hey Monday at a tour I forget the name of. And then that's all I cared about. All my babysitting money and all my begging was to get my mom to drive me to the House of Blues in Chicago on a school night and she did. I I remember meeting a band member and he said Is this your mom? And I said yes and he said do not take it for granted that your mom takes you to shows because not everyones Mom drives them into the city and takes them to shows. And I've never forgotten that. So I think my mantra is "thank your bus driver, but more importantly thank your mom for taking you to shows" From then on I was the pop punk emo kid at school. I dyed my bangs pink and then blue and then purple. I exclusively wore hoodies and skinny jeans and studded belts. Glamour Kills was my favorite brand and I even bought some neon green skinny jeans and was dumb and wore them with like a neon turquoise shirt and it didn't work but I didn't care. But I wasn't like the angry kid who cut themselves or anything a bunch of my friends were but I was just the kid who like pop punk, The emo stuff and then the neon emo stuff like Cobra starship etc. I kind of got a lot of shit for it because as a kid I didn't like screamo. And I only sort of do now. So I got flack for not being hardcore enough or being a poser from the other kids at school, That's why when I went to concerts I felt so good. I'm 30 now And I'm so fucking self-conscious because of all that and I wish I could wear clothes like I did then wait and I'm not confident I see old photos of myself and it makes me curse my double chin. I still listen to the same stuff from high school and Fall Out Boy will always be the one that started it all. I think my favorite part is that my brother was 5 years younger than me and was exposed to every band I listened to and now in 2024 he's a bigger Fall of Boy fan than I am. But he was never emo. Sorry for the rent but it was really nice to take a trip down memory lame and remember every single thing that led me to who I was in high school. All right that's my rant. I must being that kid with a personality in a sense of style that was my own and an identity.
My middle school best friend who was originally from Arkansas showed me midwestern emo/punk. She put me on to Paramore, All Time Low, Mayday Parade, Pierce the Veil, Neck Deep, etc and it grew from there. We don’t really talk anymore but I still listen to the music and think of her sometimes.
My friend gave me a burned CD of NFG’s self titled album and said “this will change your life.” Sure enough. BTW I bought my own legit copy shortly after that.
my aunt got me into good charlotte, the first song i ever heard was Girls & Boys i was maybe 8 or 10
Dude Ranch and Slowly Going The Way Of The Buffalos.
Grade 7, take off your pants and jacket was at costco and I covered the parental advisory with my thumb.
Tony Hawk 1 2 and 3 had the skate punk soundtrack with lagwagon, nofx, afi, those bands and I also happened to grow up in the 2000s when that stuff was huge
Video games
I didn’t go all in until I was a freshman in college. The wonder years were my introduction. Came out swinging and hoodie weather
Probably the Burnout 3 soundtrack and Pokémon AMVs when I was younger. But I got really into pop punk in mid-2016 when I "went emo" (I was never really into the emo scene, but I was a teenager so I didn't really know what I was doing). one of my best friends was really into Bring me the horizon and Pierce the Vail, so I started listening to simple plan and then new found glory. (There was also my HUGE hyperfixation on the Canadian band Hedley at that time but, I don't want to talk about that, if you know, you know)
I remember sitting on my bedroom floor, around 3rd or 4th grade, just waiting for the radio on my purple Durabrand boombox to play The Black Parade by MCR, Fall Out Boy, Green Day, or anything with the Pop-Punk beat! Let Go album by Avril Lavigne was played constantly in our mini van. I was raised on a mix Rock. I bit of everything, like the Rolling Stones, Def Leppard, The Cars, Great White, Blink-182, Billy Squire, Metallica. My parents definitely exposed me to the classics. Always looking through my dad's albums. I have always gravitated toward electronic EDM, too. Pop Punk has given all of those elements in the very diverse genre.
Tony Hawk games really introduced me to punk not just pop punk music, then I got heavy into skate/surf videos and all that stuff which lead me to more, but before that I think just heard random songs in movies and cartoons. A lot of movies with references to punk culture. I swear there was some random cartoon with a Ramones song.
My dad put the Tony Hawk American Wasteland soundtrack on my iPod
I had always heard Blink and Green Day songs from older cousins who I was close with since but once I saw the music video for Sugar We’re Going Down the summer before starting middle school I was hooked
Probably listening to all the fat wreck chords from the 90's. They had a great mix of punk & some pop punk music.
A spanish youtuber called BersGamer! Because of him I got to know Blink-182 in depth, and Man Overboard. He's not a music youtuber, when I used to watch him he was really into Pop-Punk :)
For me it was Blink-182’s Enema of The State. Not sure if I first saw What’s My Age Again or All the Small Things music video first but since then I’ve been a fan of there’s.
WWE lol specifically Zebrahead. They did the intro song for Maria, "Legs like that"
My auntie playing the American idiot album in her car when it first came out🤘
My dad played aliens exist when i was 9