10 Greatest Pop Punk Albums In Rock History
3. Ramones - Ramones
When you look back on the pop punk wave of the early '00s, most of the original punks would laugh it out of the building. From the perspective of someone who was there at the start of punk in '77, hearing that Fall Out Boy is the new heavy band would get a few chuckles out of them. Then again, are we just supposed to forget that the original punk wave was pretty damn poppy too?
As much as the Sex Pistols and the Clash may have taken the genre to new heights in the coming years, the Ramones' self titled record holds up as the litmus test to all good punk rock music that came out around that time. If you listen to the raw songs on here though, there's nothing that dangerous sounding compared to what was on the radio at the time.
If anything, this is exactly the kind of bubblegum pop that many bands were sick of, only blown up to massive proportions with layers of guitar distortion instead of pop friendly instrumentation. Though the more nihilistic stripes of punk fan might sneer at any poppy fare, songs like I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend have that same kind of hopeless romantic side that became commonplace in pop punk. Although this might not be everyone's first choice for pop punk, these four nobodies from Queens were able to create both punk and pop punk together in just under a half hour.