Listen to the songs of its representatives and you'll get a generous helping of wailing vocals and diary-derived lyrics. Heavy crash cymbals and fuzzy electric guitars are piled on top.
It's loud and imposing, but it's also sensitive; qualities we might have thought were left behind in 2010. This is not the case. Those who grew up with My Chemical Romance, Green Day, and Sum 41 blasting out of nearby speakers will find this sound back in the mainstream, in an altered state. Why has it returned?
Firstly, consider Estonia's number one pop punk contribtion—Bedwetters—formed in Pärnu in 2004. Initially founded with Joosep Järvesaar on bass and lead vocals, Karl-Kristjan King on drums, Mihkel Mõttus on guitar and vocals, and Oliver Rull on guitar, Bedwetters was not a band obsessed with being “buttoned-up.” Although the band was most certainly a serious, professional undertaking, they embodied the jocular attitude of their scene. They didn't take themselves too seriously, charging ahead with a silly band name they came up with when they were still teenagers.
In their music and the music of other bands like them, human imperfection was allowed. The quality and pitch of singing was not always spot on. What makes it enjoyable, though, is that Joosep Järvesaar's voice was delivered dramatically and characterfully. Underneath, backing vocal lines were sometimes growled. It had unbridled “emo” energy. Bedwetters also added arpeggiated chiptune-esque synthesizers to their recordings and live shows, which is an unexpected touch in guitar-centric punk.
They were physical, moving closer to the audience, jumping up and down in the style of the pogo dance. The guitarists threw their heads down and up and played back-to-back. Frequently, band members would plant a foot up on the stage monitors. These physical mannerisms are trademarks of rock performance.
Off-stage, there's a swooning Tumblr fan page full of goofy band photos of theirs. It's hard to believe now, but at some point, a musician could get away with squishing their face up against a pane of glass in a public photo.
The music of this band, of this movement, offered a place for anyone to fit in. Listeners adored that, and so these friends from Pärnu won over Europe. One big moment in this conquest was when they received the 2007 MTV New Sound of Europe award in Munich, given to them on stage by Nelly Furtado and Snoop Dogg, who expressed that he had a good feeling about them winning.
Later on, the band has clarified how the award triggered growth for their music after the fact. They toured through Austria, Hungary, Poland, and Serbia, and their sound made quite a splash in Latvia (particularly at Positivus Festival) and Lithuania. In 2008, Bedwetters opened for Avril Lavigne at her Saku Suurhall show. They also describe how the video for their song “Long.Some.Distance” went on to receive “…the highest rotation on MTV Baltics…”
In the fall of 2013, the band had reached their conclusion and made a final appearance for their fans in Riga. At this point, the majority of pop punk acts had folded. It seems that vulnerability and humour were not as popular anymore.
Yet, in September 2020, singer and rapper Machine Gun Kelly released Tickets to My Downfall, an album packed with familiar sounds: melodic hooks, sensitive delivery, and heavy guitars. Laying down blistering rhythms just like he did in Blink 182 was drummer Travis Barker. In May 2021, the revival continued with singer-songwriter Olivia Rodrigo's album Sour. Between these two chart-topping albums, songs covered destruction, heartbreak, envy, loneliness, and desperation.
Some critics haven't appreciated this resurgence, asserting, for instance, that Olivia Rodrigo's “good 4 u” plagiarized Paramore's “Misery Business.” However, in situations like these, the musicians involved often cite that similarities are a natural part of the songwriting process. Along these lines, Bassist and YouTuber Adam Neely has produced an excellent analysis of interpolation and similarities between songs in pop music, drawing comparisons between certain Bob Dylan tunes and folk tunes that came before him.
Evaluating the pop punk revival as constructively as we can, though, we should try to look at it as a new generation's own interpretation of an existing style. No doubt, listeners today want to hear from musicians who are in the same place that they are, at the same time that they are.
This article was written by Vincent Teetsov as part of the Local Journalism Initiative.
