Pop-Punk is not Dead -- Long Live Pop-Punk

So, Green Day is obviously punk. But what about Blink-182?

The issue and the discussion about punk vs pop-punk often has to do with the sound, the commercial accessibility, and the overall ethos of the musicians and scene in which the band operates. It all gets a bit pissy at times. I love the punk music and punk ethos of Husker Du and Bad Religion, and I have also always been a big fan of Blink-182. So, I really enjoyed a piece I read the other day from an excellent Substack newsletter Punk N' Coffee:

"Pop Punk Not Dead: the problem of fitting into the history of punk rock" 

Pop punk always seemed to enter the history of punk through a side door, when the discussion was already underway and someone had set the rules of the debate. It was never a genre that arrived with a solemn proclamation or an aesthetic designed to command respect. For years it was read as a lesser version, a commercial shortcut, an unnecessary deviation, as if accessibility were incompatible with any form of depth. That reading, however, says less about pop punk than about punk’s recurring need to define itself through opposition. Because if this subgenre made anything clear, it was that the youthful experience is not always expressed as organized confrontation or frontal collision. Sometimes it manifests as persistent confusion, as poorly articulated frustration, as the feeling of failing at something that isn’t even fully understood. 

Pop Culture is Culture, ... Isn't It?

Have we reached peak culture? Or did that ship sail long ago?

I've always been a pop culture hound, from consuming 1970s cartoons and sitcoms, amidst the rise of the blockbuster film, ie. Star Wars, to my career as an English teacher where I taught Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice as the original rom-com and introduced Henry Thoreau through the music and ethos of punk rock. So, to be alive in 2025, you might think I'd be as happy as a pig in slop amidst the constant saturation of popular culture. But I do wonder whether it's all just too much these days.

What is popular? And what is culture? And what is pop culture in a quarter of the way into the twenty-first century?

Jocelyn Novek, writing for the Associate Press takes a look back at the year 2025 and ponders "a ring for Taylor, an ill-timed kiss-cam, and something called 6-7":

Dictionaries define things. It’s their job. So when dictionary.com pronounced “6-7” as their 2025 word of the year, you’d think they would have, well, defined it. But no. “We’re all still trying to figure out exactly what it means,” they told us of this year’s “linguistic time capsule.”

But that’s just how pop culture works, isn’t it? Who’s to explain why parents alone in their cars were suddenly singing “up up up” from that “KPop Demon Hunters?” song? Or why, in the Venn diagram of pop culture and zoology, it was the capybara that emerged victorious and beloved? Goodbye, Moo Deng. You’re adorable, but so 2024.

Despite our new obsessions, though, some things remained constant — by which we mean Taylor Swift and Beyoncé, of course. It seems like every year gets bigger for Swift. But in 2025, she put a bow — or ring — on it with Travis Kelce, announcing “your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married.” As for Beyoncé, the musical goddess finally won that best album Grammy she long deserved — and, on tour, introduced a new force: her daughter, Blue Ivy.

So from the inexplicable to the familiar, here’s our annual, highly selective journey down pop culture memory lane:

Dave Berry & "The Year in Review"

Ah, yes ... the post holiday lull of late December. 

The days between Christmas Eve and New Years Day occupy a strange landscape of time in the middle of nowhere. And, it's these times that bring about reflection and contemplation. How are things? How've we been? Where are we going? I was struck by the blunt honesty of Nicholas Kristoff's annual "Best Year Yet Column," which he puts on hold for a year while he writes a column "In Which I Try to Cheer You Up." 

And he doesn't do a great job, ... which is sort of his point.

Which brings us to Dave Berry. Sometimes to the best thing to do is simply shake our heads and chuckle at the absurdity of it all. Berry, the humorist and whimsical social critic, has been rolling out his "Year in Review" for as long as I can recall reading the paper, and it is one of the most satisfying of traditions. Long writing for the Miami Herald and syndicated in the Washington Post, Berry's work was occasionally challenging to track down. At one time, his column appeared in most papers I read from the St. Louis Post Dispatch to the Chicago Tribune to the Denver Post. 

Now, in another sign of the times that I've written about before, he is making the column available on his Substack Newsletter. And it appears it's available for all readers, not just subscribers. So, if you're sitting around the living room with a cinnamon roll and a hot cup of coffee, sit back and enjoy:

Dave Barry's Year in Review 2025. 

The biggest story of 2025, to judge from the number of people who sent it to me, was this raccoon:

In case you somehow missed this story: In late November, this raccoon got into a state liquor store in Ashland, Va., by falling though the ceiling. Once inside, the raccoon ransacked the store, leaving a trail of broken bottles...

...and apparently consuming a large quantity of booze before passing out in the bathroom next to the toilet. That’s where the raccoon was found by a store employee, who called an animal-control officer, who took it to an animal shelter. When the raccoon finally sobered up, it was hired as director of security by the Louvre Museum.

No, seriously, it was released into the wild. But the photo went majorly viral, and the raccoon became a huge celebrity. We, the American people, LOVE this raccoon. And I think I know why: After the year we’ve been through, we can relate to it. We have had way too much of 2025; it has left us, as a nation, lying face-down on the floor of despair, between the wastebasket of stupidity and the commode of broken dreams.

How did we get here? Perhaps it will help (although I doubt it) if we look back on the events of this insane year, starting with...

JANUARY:

Sidney Awards -- Reading the world in Long Form Magazine Writing

I have always been a sucker for a good magazine piece, and I still can't get on a plane without a physical copy of a magazine. My traditional choices include Vanity Fair, GQ, Esquire, and other culture and lifestyle publications. However, I also appreciate the true long form ideas pieces in online magazines that have managed to survive the retraction of the industry. This morning's annual New York Times column from David Brooks that he titles "The Sidney Awards" got me thinking and tracking down some of these articles. Brooks invented the award to honor long form magazine writing:

Every year, I give out extremely nonlucrative prizes, in honor of the philosopher Sidney Hook, celebrating some of the best nonfiction essays of the year, especially the ones published in medium-size and small magazines. I figure this is a good time to take a step back from the Trump circus and read some broader reflections on life. The Sidneys are here to help.

Brooks is a humanities geek and classical liberal who voraciously consumes ideas-based writing and cultural journalism. Thus he regularly checks in with all sorts of journals and news magazines -- everything from Texas Monthly to Aeon Magazine. And that got me thinking about the more esoteric and less mainstream commercial magazine sites I check in with occasionally. Sites like Quillette which fashions itself as the place where "Free Thought Lives." 

Thinking about long form magazine writing reminded me of a quote from Generation X writer Douglas Coupland who started his writing career doing pieces for magazines like Wired. Coupland is an artist fascinated with contemporary pop culture, and he once reflected that he secretly wished to fall into a coma for a year, so that when he woke up, he would have a year's worth of pop culture writing to immerse himself in. It was such a quirky view, but honestly it was one I could relate to in some ways. 

However, Coupland realized in the mid-90s that his wish had actually come to fruition, as there was an almost daily deluge of new writing, more than anyone could read in a lifetime. These days, as I've noted in a couple other posts, the world of long form writing is more accessible than ever with the advent of Substack newsletters. And there are numerous online magazines that are finding ways to survive and even thrive in the saturated world of media. 

I enjoy checking in with sites such as:

The Drift: a Magazine of Culture, Politics, & Literature.

A Quiet Christmas Morning ...

"The closest thing to Heaven on this planet anywhere is a quiet Christmas morning in the Colorado snow."

No compelling links or intriguing stories or big thoughts or deep opinions on societal issues this morning. Just a quiet Christmas morning, our last in Colorado after twenty-three years. The kids aren't home this year for Christmas morning, though our daughter flies in tomorrow, and our son will be here next week for several days together over New Year's and the end of 2025.

Last night, we spent a warm, wonderful Christmas Eve out, enjoying the vibrant scene of Old Town in Fort Collins. A stroll around the shops open for some last minute shopping, a cozy visit to the local speakeasy -- Social -- with exquisite cocktails, fun banter about bourbon, and a simple festive spirit, and then a nostalgic trip to the local arcade, playing Skee-Ball, Ms. Pac-Man, and plenty of pinball.

And, this morning, though there's no Colorado snow down here on the Front Range this year, we are enjoying our "quiet Christmas morning," sipping coffee with eggnog and chilling by the fireplace.

Millennials hit Middle Age ... kind of ... and Boomers get old

 I am a believer in generations and generational tendencies. And, so I found it rather amusing that when I opened the Denver Post this morning, I found an article on the oldest Baby Boomers turning 80 this year. And that article followed a piece in the New York Times yesterday from a thirtysomething writer lamenting how she and her fellow Millennials "are officially old now." --  Opinion | Millennials Are Officially Old Now - The New York Times. 

And, the Gen Xers just sit in the middle watching the two groups gripe.

Being part of a generation means at its most basic the idea of shared experience from a similar or common point on life's spectrum. Experiencing something defining like, say the Challenger Disaster in 1986, is a different when it hits at age 16, as opposed to 46, or even 86. And Gen X writer Douglas Coupland was always insistent that the "Generation X" designation wasn't about a specific age group, as much as it was about a "class of people" who by choice live outside of the norm. This concept -- which was rooted in a sort of contemporary bohemia -- came from the book Class by Paul Fussell.

So, the Millennials are getting older:

The moment crystallized a sentiment many millennials have been feeling recently: that 2025 is the year we officially got old. This reality has been creeping up for a while now, but it’s become impossible to deny it any longer. The youngest of our cohort are about to turn 30, and the oldest are pushing 45, meaning that we’re all now inhabitants of the life phase that the psychologist Clare Mehta has called “established adulthood,” a demanding period that can involve juggling careers while caring for kids and aging parents.

Our generational avatars are doing corny, middle-aged things: Lena Dunham wrote a “Why I Broke Up With New York” essay; Taylor Swift got engaged and wrote a song about her fiancé’s reliable penis; Ryan from “The O.C.” made a documentary about the dangers of crypto. If one of our generation’s athletes is still dominant, he’s considered a medical marvel. We are old enough to experience a type of millennial entropy in which our icons collapse in on themselves. (See: Justin Trudeau and Katy Perry’s relationship.) We were the generation that first embraced mining every aspect of our inner lives for content, but we don’t even enjoy posting on social media anymore. Thanks to medical miracles like Botox and Mounjaro (and Solidcore reformers), millennials are still physically hot, but culturally, our goings-on provoke less fascination, less hand-wringing, less societal anxiety. When they talk about young people, they aren’t talking about us anymore.

And the Boomers are just flat out old:

The oldest baby boomers — once the vanguard of an American youth that revolutionized U.S. culture and politics — turn 80 in 2026. The generation that twirled the first plastic hula hoops and dressed up the first Barbie dolls, embraced the TV age, blissed out at Woodstock and protested the Vietnam War — the cohort that didn’t trust anyone over age 30 — now is contributing to the overall aging of America.
Boomers becoming octogenarians in 2026 include actor Henry Winkler and baseball Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson, singers Cher and Dolly Parton and presidents Donald Trump, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

And, there are, of course, many economic and sociological considerations related to the generations and their individual needs. For example, the latest projections on Social Security are that it won't be able to meet its payouts in 2036. And that is suddenly seeming pretty close. All the while, the economy appears to be just rolling along with all its perplexing contradictions. 

American Girls are Turning 40

My college-age daughter caught the American Girl wave somewhere around its peak or shortly thereafter, and it was more of accident, as she inherited a couple dolls from the older sister of her older brother's best friend (that's not as convoluted as it sounds). And while we never signed on to the type of hysteria that led to elaborate tea parties with the dolls and friends at the local "American Girl Boutique" -- yes, we had one in suburban Denver -- we certainly had a bit of a run with the biggest doll craze since Barbie and, of course, "Cabbage Patch" dolls in the 80s. 

And, I must admit, I was a bit intrigued, even impressed with the "story behind the craze," especially because there was always a story. Behind a doll with a theme written on the box, each doll came with a fully developed narrative in a book. And, amusingly, my son being the voracious reader he was actually read all the American Girl doll books. Truly, the stories weren't mere fluff, and at least for a time, for some, the stories and themes of the dolls were intended to impart decent lessons, history, even culture.

So, I was quite intrigued to read that American Girl is turning forty this year. A couple of culture writers for the WashPost recently delved into the history with the story:  "American Girls are Turning 40: Just like the Millennials Who Loved Them":

Our foreheads aren’t as smooth as theirs, and our eyes crinkle at the edges, but here, in this raspberry-hued temple to girlhood that is the American Girl flagship in New York, we feel 10 years old, too. All of the beautiful dresses, the miniature accessories, the luscious hair to brush and braid: American Girlhood is middle-aged, but it is also eternal.

When we were 10, American Girl and its dolls taught us about loyalty, bravery and moxie. Samantha. Felicity. Molly. Addy. Kirsten. Josefina. If you are of a certain age, just those names will conjure their stories of Colonial Williamsburg, the Underground Railroad and the Minnesota frontier.

“When American Girl was founded, it was really to put girls in the center of the story with characters their own age,” says Jamie Cygielman, global head of dolls at Mattel, which acquired the company in 1998. At the time, the brand was a revelation. Baby dolls made girls into mothers. Barbies were aspirational, fashionable adults. But American Girls were exactly our age, living out their lives in some of the most pivotal moments in history — and doing so with courage, conviction and adorable, collectible accessories.

We’ve been thinking about those girls recently, as a few generational factors have coalesced. Millennial mothers on the cusp of 40 now have children old enough to age into the brand, and those who preserved their dolls are handing them down to their children. Meanwhile, their own childhood nostalgia is being sold as tiny artifacts, thanks to the addition of “historical” dolls from 1999 — the late 1900s, if you wish.

Jim Beam Bourbon/Whiskey Shuttering Production for 2026

Ok, now it's getting personal ... and a matter of American pride.

The trade war and the imposition of new tariffs have come for one of the most distinctly American of products -- as homegrown as the blues, jazz, and rock-n-roll -- bourbon. Bourbon is a uniquely American spirit in that it can only be made within the boundaries of the United States, much like sparkling white wine can only be called champagne if it comes from that specific wine growing region of France. And the world thirsts for American bourbon, most specifically the country of Canada. However, in a shocking news Jim Beam Distillery has announced it will cease new production of bourbon and whiskey for the entirety of 2026:

The maker of Jim Beam bourbon whiskey will halt production at its main site in Kentucky for all of 2026. The company said in a statement it would close its distillery in Clermont until it took the “opportunity to invest in site enhancements”.

“We are always assessing production levels to best meet consumer demand and recently met with our team to discuss our volumes for 2026,” it said.

It comes as whiskey distillers in the US face uncertainty around Donald Trump’s trade tariffs, as well as declining rates of alcohol consumption. In October, the Kentucky Distillers’ Association (KDA) trade body said there was a record amount of bourbon in warehouses across the state – more than 16m barrels.

One of the primary reasons for the halt in production is the Canadian market. Granted, other factors are contributing as well, mainly an overall decrease in alcohol consumption nationally and worldwide. 

"After celebrating a record year for U.S. spirits exports in 2024, this new data is very troubling for U.S. distillers,” DISCUS CEO Chris Swonge said in a press release. “Persistent trade tensions are having an immediate and adverse effect on U.S. spirits exports. There’s a growing concern that our international consumers are increasingly opting for domestically produced spirits or imports from countries other than the U.S., signaling a shift away from our great American spirits brands.” Sales are down, and that’s very bad news for one of the most iconic American bourbon brands, Jim Beam. The 230-year-old brand has decided to close down its distillery, which has been in regular operation since prohibition

• Trump’s trade war has particularly angered Canada, which has led to many Canadians boycotting American products.Swonger said nowhere is this shift more pronounced than in Canada, where U.S. spirits exports plummeted 85%, falling below $10 million in the second quarter of 2025.
• U.S. spirits sales in Canada declined 68% in April 2025, whereas sales of Canadian and other imported spirits rose around 3.6% each.
• Canada removed its retaliatory tariff on U.S. spirits on Sept. 1, but the majority of Provinces continue to ban American spirits from their shelves.
• Canada remains the only key trading partner to retaliate against U.S. spirits.

Hanukkah -- Eight Crazy Nights

This evening is the final night of Hannukah. 

So, in the words of Adam Sandler, "If you're the only kid in town without a Christmas tree, here's [two lists] of people who are Jewish just like you and me."

Green Day is Punk -- come at me

In reading the book, Smash! Green Day, The Offspring, Bad Religion, NOFX, and the '90s Punk Explosion by Ian Winwood, I was struck by the significance of 1994 in the history of punk, and I was reminded of just how animated people can be by discussions of punk. 

For example, when I posted about Green Day and punk, a friend quickly scoffed, "Pop-punk, maybe." That qualifier was clearly meant to demean and undercut any credibility of the band is being somehow inanthentic and truly "punk." In that regard, the slight seemed to be about the melodic, radio-friendly, and pop-based tone to the music. So, I countered: is Green Day's sound any more melodic than the Ramones? Or the Sex Pistols? Or the Clash? I'd argue not.

The primary criticism of a punk band not being authentically punk is rooted in the idea of "selling out." And that criticism is primarily based on the decision to sign with a major record label, which Green Day did in 1993 when they left Livermore's Lookout Records, where they recorded two albums, for Reprise Records whose release of Dookie went on to sell more than 20 million copies.

However, Green Day's roots in coming up the DIY way, cutting its teeth in the historic Gilman Street, discounts the petty criticism of major label signing. Obviously, the seminal punk bands like the Ramones, Sex Pistols, Clash, and more all worked with and released on major labels. And while the indie label scene wasn't as developed then, it still existed. And, of course, I think the definitive position on that issue comes from NOFX singer and founder of Fat Wreck Chords Fat Mike who asserts:

"Green Day didn't sell out. None of those bands did. They were playing their style of music, and it finally got popular. There was no selling out. Selling out is when you change your style to play music that people might like."

Finally, I would argue that Green Day put down one of the most politically charged punk rock manifestos when it released the pivotal 2000's protest LP American Idiot, which is nothing short of a scathing indictment of the hollow actions of the W Bush administration.

 

Can GenX Save the World?

Oh, Generation X. The forgotten middle child of the 20th century. Sandwiched between the Boomers and their offspring the Millennials, alongside the rise of Gen Z (a Generation X derivative, by the way), it has almost become a sport to note how many times GenX is overlooked in generational sociological writing, news, advertising, and more. 

And, yet, despite potentially being the first generation to not over attain the White House (oh, Paul Ryan, what happened to you?), Generation X is now in prime middle age, accounting for majorities in Congress and in state-level politics, yet yielding far fewer CEO's and name brand business leaders. That's the theme of a recent piece in the Washington Post from opinion writer Theo Johnson who suggests, that, for the first time since they were the first latch-key kids, "Gen Xers Have the Keys to the Kingdom Again":

For Gen X, few things signaled coming of age like a house key. It was a symbol of after-school autonomy beyond the watchful eyes of authority figures. This newfound independence was as much a gift as it was a necessity; the simultaneous rise of two-income households and divorce rates in the 1970s and ’80s meant empty homes on weekday afternoons, turning a generation of children into latchkey kids.

In our formative years, Gen Xers such as myself learned to handle matters on our own and became experts in tending to our parents’ things. Freedom came with responsibilities — the chores and homework, the watching over siblings and the not breaking stuff. But for a little part of each weekday, we had the keys to the kingdom.

Now middle-aged, this generation is increasingly in charge of a country in which just 17 percent of Americans have faith in government. More than 80 percent of Americans believe democracy is in crisis or facing serious challenges. The sensible step for a nation feeling this way is to undertake fundamental reforms and improve the government’s design and structure, which generations before us have done and the majority of Americans support. Instead, there’s a crippling deference to authority, the status quo and the long-standing structures of democracy, which are behaving like partisan outposts. The country is in dire need of reform and principled leadership. Is Gen X up to the job?

As you may know, I've written about Generation X numerous times in terms of its place in the world. And, Amanda Fortini recently published an impressive, well-received, and widely circulated New York Times feature on the sandwich generation, suggesting Gen X might just be "the next greatest generation": 

WHEN YOU CONSIDER all the impressive work Generation X has made, it’s funny that one of the most persistent stereotypes about them is that they’re slackers — an idea perpetuated by the films “Slacker” (1990) and “Dazed and Confused” (1993), both written and directed by Richard Linklater (who has directed more than two dozen feature films, including this year’s “Blue Moon” and “Nouvelle Vague”), as well as other movies in the couch potato genre, like “Clerks,” “Singles,” “Swingers,” “Wayne’s World” and “The Big Lebowski.” Somewhere along the way, cynicism and ironic detachment became conflated with laziness. I’d also argue that Gen X was secretly ambitious for fear of the worst accusation of all: selling out. Rosie Perez, 61, whose debut role was in “Do the Right Thing,” sums up Gen X for me like this: “We didn’t really have the economics to get into certain nightclubs or restaurants or whatever. So we created our own vibe. There’s nothing slackerish about that. You know what I’m saying? And it’s, like, still relevant to this day.”

In our current moment, when artistic compromise no longer carries the slightest stigma, Gen X has some wisdom to impart about how to preserve one’s principles, even when times are hard. Because for a while now, the present has looked a lot like the recent past: Everything is commercialized, it’s impossible to find a job, rents are astronomical and reality kind of bites. But you can always make art. In romanticizing the past — a time not so connected, distracted, corporate and slick, not so bought in to easy answers — perhaps we’re longing for a world more hospitable to its creation.

And, as a Gen X writer and reader, I might also point interested parties to a relevant book from Jeff Gordinier, published quite a few years back: 

X Saves the World: How Generation X Got the Shaft but Can Still Keep Everything from Sucking 

In this simultaneously hilarious and incisive "manifesto for a generation that's never had much use for manifestos," Gordinier suggests that for the first time since the "Smells Like Teen Spirit"breakthrough of the early 1990s, Gen X has what it takes to rescue American culture from a state of collapse. Over the past twenty years, the so-called "slackers"have irrevocably changed countless elements of our culture-from the way we watch movies to the way we make sense of a cracked political process to the way the whole world does business.

Artist Residency in a Penthouse Apartment of Denver's RiNo

Artists are finding it increasingly difficult to afford living and studio spaces in an increasingly large number of metro areas. A recent piece in the New York Times spotlighted the decreasing number of artists living and working in the city.

So, how about living for free in gorgeous penthouse apartment in the thriving art scene of the RiNo (River North) neighborhood in Denver? That's the opportunity with the "Residency at FLORA" program, recently spotlighted in Denver's alt-weekly Westword: Artists Can Live in a RiNo Penthouse Through New Residency 

Denver’s River North Art District is packed with art and opportunities for creatives, but with rent for a RiNo apartment averaging $2,095, most artists can’t afford to live there.

But what if they could? Not in a $1,700-a-month, 300-square-foot studio with one window, but a luxury penthouse overlooking the Platte River? That sounds too good to be true, but it’s what one RiNo apartment building is offering through a new artist residency program.

The Residency at FLORA is described as “a living, breathing creative lab where chefs, designers, writers, filmmakers, musicians and artists are invited to produce, experiment and engage.” Sounds very RiNo. Applications are being accepted through January 16; any artist selected will be awarded a furnished penthouse, a dedicated project space, a $500 stipend and collaboration opportunities with other local artists and businesses.

“It is thrilling to see this creative residency take flight at FLORA — it aligns with RiNo Art District’s mission by centering creatives expansively, and is sure to contribute mightily to the vibrancy of the district,” says new RiNo Art District Executive Director Daisy Fodness-McGowan.