There's a Good Reason no Pop Punk Band has hit it as big as FOB or Panic! at their Height... You Just Haven't Thought of it Yet

Personally, I think it's the quality of lyricism and risks taken to sound different.

Now, we can admit that the lack of risk comes from backlash of fans in the scene who are terrified of the sound changing/losing heavier guitar riffs for synths. BUT I think that has scared a lot of bands to branch out AT ALL. We lose the creative liberties that made albums like A Fever You Can't Sweat Out and Folie a Deux SO great. They were unlike anything else at the time. You try to make a cabaret punk album now and everyone thinks it's too poppy or not true to the band (as though they know that better than the band itself).

The quality of lyrics,,,, I'm not sure what we can attribute that to. The lack of proper teen angst and vivid descriptions is a bit gutting. We don't get lines like "it's not me, it's you. actually it's the taxidermy of you and me" or "I'm sure you would want to give up the ghost with just a little more poise than that. Or is it God who chokes in these situations?" or "I will never end up like him behind my back i already am, keep a calender this way you always know the last time you came through".

These songs were still about love, loss, revenge, jealousy, etc. but the writing was so much more polished. I'm sure part of that comes from the obsession with seeming dark and introspective, but we don't have bands writing like this anymore (at least not many).

The creativity, brilliance, and risk behind these songs is what keeps them popular today and what made the bands so big in the first place. I'm hoping for a sort of pop-punk renaissance that will re-establish why we all fell in love with the genre in the first place!

Who knows if it will come, but I am hopeful.

Signing off,

Hannah Horror xOxO