Rock
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Pop-punk isn’t often associated with romance. Bitterness, heartbreak, teenage silliness, railing against conformity – these are the touchstones of a genre that was born in the late ‘70s and never really grew up. Another long-running pop-punk tradition is attracting some of the most awkward kids around; if they’re going to tell their crush how they feel, best to leave it up to a song.
Pop-punk love songs do exist, however, and some of them are even — dare we say — romantic? Pop-punk forerunners like Ramones and the Undertones were really just overgrown teenagers with a secret love of bubblegum pop, so it’s no surprise the genre developed a knack for sticky hooks and lovey-dovey lyrics to match.
By the time the ‘90s rolled around, live wire bands like Green Day and Blink-182 were ready to take pop-punk to the masses. Along with their just-dangerous-enough good looks, their superpowers included the ability to distill mushy teenage hormones into spiky, two-and-a-half-minute guitar pop songs. We still haven’t quite recovered. In the decades that followed, artists like Avril Lavigne, Paramore and 5 Seconds of Summer made sure that pop-punk’s multi-generational pull lives on.
Below, we’ve gathered our picks for the 20 best pop-punk love songs, ranging from genre classics to deep cuts. To keep the list as varied as possible, we capped it at one song per artist; while you might be missing “The Only Exception” or “First Date,” we’re feeling pretty starry-eyed about the anthems we’ve collected here. We can’t bring back the summer or the Warped Tour, but these sure jog the memories.
Neil Young will make his long-awaited return to the stage on April 22 when he joins former CSN&& bandmate Stephen Stills at this year’s Light Up the Blues charity show benefitting Autism Speaks. The show at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles will find Young sharing the stage with his longtime friend Stephen Stills, as well as Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real and Still’s children, Chris and Oliver Stills.
Rolling Stone first reported that the news, with Young telling the magazine in a statement that, “We’ll be there to ‘Light up the Blues’ with Stephen, [his wife] Kristen and the family… doing or first show in four years with old friends for our autistic people around the world.” Stills confirmed the news on Instagram, writing, “Save the date: April 22, 2023. Stills and Young ride again.”
Among the other musicians scheduled to be stage is James Raymond, who will be part of a tribute to his late dad, David Crosby, who died in January at age 81.
“We are so thrilled to be able to come back and support Autism Speaks,” event organizer Kristen Stills told the magazine about the sixth iteration of the show since 2013; in the past the fundraiser has featured sets from Crosby, Stills & Nash, Patti Smith, Brandi Carlile, Beck, Sheryl Crow and others. “The one thing that did not change during the pandemic was the rising rates of autism prevalence in the U.S. They require more funding than ever for the research they do. Stephen and I join them in their mission to create a more inclusive world for people with autism,” added Kristen Stills.
Stephen Stills said the show was originally scheduled for April 2020 — and then called off due to the COVID-19 pandemic — before organizers considered a virtual event in 2021 before that idea was mothballed. “I always hated the idea of a virtual show,” Stephen Stills said. “The only one that pulled it off was the Stephen Colbert band with Jon Batiste. Everyone else tried, but it was a joke.”
More acts will be added in the upcoming weeks, with Kristen Stills promising some “fantastic guests” and “surprise additions,” as well as some big-name hosts. Among the other acts slated to participate are opera singer Amanda Anderson, rapper Soul Shocka and former The Voice contestant Bill Breman, all of who are on the spectrum.
See Stills’ post below.
A new Super Bowl ad from Workday – the enterprise cloud for finance, HR and planning – is taking aim at those in corporate America who throw around the term “rock star” a little too loosely. And they’re getting a clutch assist from a coterie of real-life rock stars who are sick of the term “rock star” becoming as overused (and incorrectly used) as the word “literally.”
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“Hey corporate types, will you stop calling each other rock stars?” pleads KISS legend Paul Stanley at the commercial’s start. “Do you know what it takes to be a rock star?” Joan Jett demands. “I was on the road since I was 16,” she adds, tipping to her time in The Runaways.
“I’ve trashed hotel rooms in 43 countries!” brags Billy Idol. “I’ve done my fair share of bad things,” Ozzy Osbourne muses in the commercial. “Also, your fair share of bad things.”
While effortlessly ripping out an electric guitar solo, Gary Clark Jr. taunts, “Hey Liz in HR! Can you do this?”
The ad ends with the Ozzman himself getting a closer look at corporate life (“Hi, I’m Ozwald”) and Stanley busting into a corporate meeting room to stop someone from dropping the unearned moniker yet again.
Watch here.
Real-life rock stars were far from the only musicians appearing in the Super Bowl 2023 broadcast. There was also Diddy’s Uber One ad (which co-stars Kelis, Montell Jordan, Donna Lewis and Haddaway); Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck’s Dunkin’ Donuts ad; Jack Harlow with Missy Elliott and Elton John in a Doritos ad; John Travolta in a T-Mobile ad; Sarah McLachlan in a Busch Light ad; and Metro Boomin in a Budweiser ad.
Following a four-show blitz of North America in December, U.K.-based indie rock outfit Lovejoy is returning to the U.S. with a 20-date North American tour. Tickets for the trek went on sale Friday (Feb. 10).
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Lovejoy touch down in North America on May 4 at Nashville’s Basement East and will is also slated to play the Shaky Knees festival in Atlanta on May 5, the Novo in Los Angeles on May 16 and Minneapolis’ First Avenue on May 26. The group will end their tour with a show at the Governor’s Ball Festival on June 10.
Formed during the final days of the pandemic by lead singer Wilbur Soot — a well-known Twitch streamer and former Youtube comedian — with friends from Brighton Beach, England, Lovejoy has amassed nearly 1.6 million monthly listeners on Spotify and built a steady following here in the U.S.
In December, the group’s first U.S. shows — two in Los Angeles and two in New York — quickly sold out, packing venues like L.A.’s Moroccan Lounge with a steady flow of 20-something, mostly female, fans marching to the beat of the band’s double kick drum percussion. Lovejoy’s visit would reveal the band’s status as unlikely heartthrobs and showcase their clever banter and mischievous wit.
Along with the tour announcement, Lovejoy has released a video for the band’s hard-charging new single “Call Me What You Like.” Soot has a penchant for casting himself as a hopeless romantic — a “Jim Halpert” from The Office type, replete with entangled numbness and inescapable inadequacy — and yet he refuses to melt into a floor puddle with a kitschy breakup song. As it turns out, “Call Me What You Like” is a surprising and satisfying middle finger to the notion of having it all as it mucks around in the middle phases of an early relationship close to collapse.
Along with Lovejoy singles “Knee Deep” and “It’s All Futile! It’s All Pointless!”, “Call Me What You Like” demonstrates how much progress the group has made in finding its voice, creating and then dissipating density with surprise hooks, lyrical bridges and stop-on-a-dime change-ups. Many of the songs have Soot walking through vignettes of half-memory and snapshots, pushing listeners farther and farther down the trail with only breadcrumbs to find their way back.
“And so I find’s myself in your mum’s bedroom,” Soot sings on the new single. “Fighting with the pink roller blinds. It’s on pay-per-view. Just place your bests on who’s lost their mind.” When asked what the line meant during a brief interview with bandmates Joe Goldsmith, Ash Kabosu and Mark Boardman, Soot laughed and offered up, “I’m not necessarily sure, in that song I just find myself thinking a lot about her mom’s bathroom and going through the drawers.”
Dates for the 2023 Lovejoy tour are listed below. For more information, visit www.lvjyonline.com.
May 4th – Nashville, TN @ The Basement East
May 5th – Atlanta, GA @ Shaky Knees Music Festival
May 8th – Dallas, TX @ Granada Theater
May 9th – Austin, TX @ Scoot Inn
May 12th – Phoenix, AZ @ Crescent Ballroom
May 13th – San Diego, CA @ Music Box
May 16th – Los Angeles, CA @ The Novo
May 17th – San Francisco, CA @ Bimbo’s 365 Club
May 19th – Portland, OR @ Hawthorne
May 20th – Seattle, WA @ Neumos
May 23rd – Salt Lake City, UT @ The Complex
May 24th – Denver, CO @ Ogden Theatre (Venue Upgrade)
May 26th – Minneapolis, MN @ First Avenue (Venue Upgrade)
May 27th – Milwaukee, WI @ Riverside Theater (Venue Upgrade)
May 28th – Detroit, MI @ Royal Oak Music Theatre (Venue Upgrade)
May 30th – Toronto, ON @ Danforth Music Hall
June 2nd – Boston, MA @ Royale
June 3rd – Philadelphia, PA @ Theatre of Living Arts
June 6th – Washington, D.C. @ Howard
June 10th – New York, NY @ Governors Ball Music Festival
Everyone from Taylor Swift to Paramore dropped new music just in time for Valentine’s Day, and Billboard wants to know which release you plan on having on repeat going into the holiday.
Swift continues riding the wave of her newest single “Lavender Haze” with a dance-heavy remix for the Midnights opener by Felix Jaehn. (Prior to being tapped by the superstar, the German producer was likely most familiar to U.S. audiences for helming Omi’s 2015 No. 1 hit “Cheerleader.”)
Hayley Williams and her bandmates, meanwhile, deliver their long-awaited comeback album This Is Why. The pop-punk trio’s first follow-up to 2017’s After Laughter contains singles “This Is Why,” “The News” and “C’est Comme Ça.”
Elsewhere, Lizzo teams up with her bestie SZA for a new remix of “Special,” which finds Billboard‘s newly revealed Woman of the Year preaching, “Woke up this mornin’ to somebody judgin’ me/ No surprise they judgin’ me, don’t know who I’m ‘posed to be I’m just actin’ up, I’m crass as f–k, and never sayin’ sorry/ Found out in the end that I can only do it for me.”
Dove Cameron also joins forces with Khalid on the sultry new collaboration “We Go Down Together,” Luke Combs follows up his debut on the Grammys stage with”Love You Anyway” off his upcoming album Gettin’ Old, D4vd unveils the heartsick, pleading “Placebo Effect” and Mariah Carey cashes in on the viral resurgence of “It’s a Wrap” by dedicating an entire EP to the Memoirs of An Imperfect Angel fan favorite.
Vote for your favorite new release of the week in Billboard‘s poll below.
Perhaps no album from a band in recent months has been as anticipated as Paramore‘s sixth studio set, This Is Why. The group, which currently consists of lead vocalist Hayley Williams, guitarist Taylor York and drummer Zac Farro, released their poppier, ’80s-tinged LP After Laughter in 2017 and later, took a break that resulted in the trio trading the sadness behind their rose-colored glasses for anger — and for what feels like the first time, political discontent.
“Everything is political, and it’s either politicized to a degree that maybe isn’t fair or it just inherently is political,” Williams said in the group’s recently Billboard cover story. “Even if I tried to not say one word about anything political [on the album], I think it was just in the DNA. It was in every conversation.”
And the group tackles the issues seamlessly, albeit with a new groove that sounds equal parts fresh and familiar to new and old fans alike. This Is Why‘s title track (also the first on the record) establishes the band’s mission statement, critiquing society’s lack of empathy and the human tendency to be unyielding with our beliefs. Follow up singles “The News” and “C’est Comme Ça” expands, with the former heaving an exasperated sigh at current events and the latter taking the aftermath with a resigned shrug of the shoulders. The preliminary songs the band offered — and the album as a whole — cut the weight of their themes with a danceable, punk leaning edge.
While there are no definite skips on the album, certain tracks of the group’s newest offering in years do stand out a bit more than others. Here is a preliminary opinion on every song that appears on Paramore’s This Is Why.
Want more on Paramore’s new album? Click here to read Billboard’s cover story with the band, in which they talk at length about This Is Why.
Twenty years after the release of Meteora, Linkin Park is revisiting their mega-selling sophomore album: Meteora 20th Anniversary Edition will be released through Warner Records on Apr. 7, the band announced on Friday (Feb. 10), and will include multiple previously unreleased songs in addition to several other fan-friendly collectibles.
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One of those unreleased songs, “Lost,” arrives today as a fleshed-out, fully realized showcase for the band’s Chester Bennington, who passed away in 2017. Linkin Park recorded “Lost” for Meteora but the track didn’t make the final track list; while scavenging through hard drives for the 20th anniversary of the album, the group rediscovered the song and Bennington’s intensely riveting vocals that serve as its highlight.
“Finding this track was like finding a favorite photo you had forgotten you’d taken, like it was waiting for the right moment to reveal itself,” the band’s Mike Shinoda says in a press statement. “For years, fans have been asking us to release something with Chester’s voice, and I’m thrilled we’ve been able to make that happen in such a special way. I think they’re going to be floored when they hear and see all the incredible unreleased songs and video footage in Meteora 20.”
“Lost” will be among six unreleased songs on Meteora 20, in addition to demos, live shows, B-sides and previously unaired footage with the band. The project will be available in multiple variations, including a limited edition super deluxe box set, deluxe vinyl box set, deluxe 3-CD and digital download.
The 20th anniversary reissue of Meteora follows the 2020 release of Hybrid Theory: 20th Anniversary Edition, which toasted Linkin Park’s diamond-selling 2000 debut. “It’s a nice time to pause and think and focus on what it took to make that record, the impact it had, and the opportunity it allowed us to continue with our careers,” the band’s Joe Hahn told Billboard at the time. “For me, it’s a testament to the camaraderie between all the guys in the band, to our friendship, to our work ethic, to the values in how we approached not just making music, but the business of making music, and the way we interact with our fans.”
Released in March 2003, Meteora includes some of Linkin Park’s most enduring hits, from “Numb” to “Breaking the Habit” to “Faint” to “Somewhere I Belong” to “Lying From You” — all of which topped Billboard’s Alternative Songs chart — as well as essential fan favorites like “Nobody’s Listening” and “Easier to Run.” Meteora has earned 8.5 million equivalent album units to date, of which 6.5 million are in traditional album sales, according to Luminate.
To celebrate the Meteora 20 announcement and the release of “Lost,” Linkin Park will relaunch their official Discord on Friday, with a Q&A on the Discord Stage. The band is also teasing “more surprises” leading up to the April release.
Watch the official video for “Lost” — which was produced and animated by by pplpleasr and Maciej Kuciara’s Web3 studio, Shibuya — below:
Paramore is finally back. The trio, consisting of Hayley Williams, Zac Farro and Taylor York, returned from their hiatus to their first album together in six years, This Is Why, via Atlantic Records on Friday (Feb. 10).
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“’This Is Why’ was the very last song we wrote for the album. To be honest, I was so tired of writing lyrics but Taylor convinced Zac and I both that we should work on this last idea,” Williams previously said of the album’s title track in a press release. “What came out of it was the title track for the whole album. It summarizes the plethora of ridiculous emotions, the rollercoaster of being alive in 2022, having survived even just the last three or four years. You’d think after a global pandemic of f—ing biblical proportions and the impending doom of a dying planet, that humans would have found it deep within themselves to be kinder or more empathetic or something.”
The last time Paramore released an album as a band was 2017’s After Laughter, which features songs like “Hard Times” and “Rose-Colored Boy.” Since then, Williams dropped her own solo album, Petals for Armor, in 2020 and Farro has unveiled a number of solo works under the moniker Halfnoise.
In January, Paramore appeared on Billboard‘s digital cover, where the trio discussed their return as a band. “At this point, I don’t understand how we’re still doing it,” Williams shared. “Because it just feels like against all odds every single time — which, honestly, I feel like we’re the most annoying band in the world because it’s always like, ‘Oh, we overcame this, and now we’re making this album.’”
The new album feature’s previously released singles “C’est Comme Ça,” “The News” and the title track. Listen to Paramore’s This Is Why in full below.
Depeche Mode unveiled their new single “Ghosts Again” on Thursday (Feb. 9) along with the track’s accompanying music video and new album Memento Mori‘s release date.
In the stark visual directed by Anton Corbijn, Dave Gahan and Martin Gore wield matching walking sticks topped with chrome-plated skulls before sitting down on an urban rooftop to face off in a game of chess.
“Wasted feelings, broken meanings/ Time is fleeting, see what it brings/ Hellos, goodbyes, a thousand midnights/ Lost in sleepless lullabies/ Heaven’s dreaming/ Thoughtless thoughts, my friends,” Gahan sings before his bandmate swoops in to deliver the final lyric of the chorus: “We know we’ll be ghosts again.”
“To me, ‘Ghosts Again’ just captures this perfect balance of melancholy and joy,” Gahan said in a statement. Added Gore, “It’s not often that we record a song that I just don’t get sick of listening to – I’m excited to be able to share it.”
The reflective, mid-tempo jam precedes the duo’s upcoming 15th studio album, Memento Mori, which is set to be released March 24 via Columbia Records. The LP will be the band’s first full-length since 2017’s Spirit, as well as the first since the passing of keyboardist and co-founder Andy Fletcher in May 2022.
The rollout for “Ghosts Again” was fraught with controversy among Depeche Mode’s fanbase. It all started with a countdown clock on the band’s social media accounts and website, seemingly pointing to the track’s release last Friday (Feb. 3), but instead was revealed that eager listeners would have to wait nearly another full week for the song’s grand unveiling.
Watch the stark music video for Depeche Mode’s “Ghosts Again” below.
Linda Ronstadt’s “Long Long Time” tops multiple Billboard charts more than 50 years after its release, thanks to its inclusion in a recent episode of HBO’s The Last of Us.
“Time,” originally released on Ronstadt’s 1970 album Silk Purse, bows at No. 1 on the Rock Digital Song Sales, LyricFind U.S. and LyricFind Global rankings dated Feb. 11.
The LyricFind Global and LyricFind U.S. charts rank the fastest momentum-gaining tracks in lyric-search queries and usages globally and in the U.S., respectively, provided by LyricFind. The Global chart includes queries from all countries, including the U.S. The company is the world’s leader in licensed lyrics, with data provided by more than 5,000 publishers and utilized by more than 100 services, including Amazon, Pandora, Deezer, Microsoft, SoundHound and iHeartRadio.
After its synch in the Jan. 29 episode of the show, “Time” garnered lyric search and usage increases of 3,013% in the U.S and 2,074% globally in the Jan. 30-Feb. 5 tracking week, according to LyricFind.
Additionally, in the tracking period running Jan. 27-Feb. 2, the song earned 6,000 downloads in the U.S., according to Luminate, enough to place it atop the Rock Digital Song Sales ranking. Its jump was 11,181% from a negligible amount the prior week.
As previously reported, “Time” also appears at No. 6 on the Hot Trending Songs chart, powered by Twitter, for Feb. 11.
Its gains weren’t limited to sales, social media chatter and lyric usages. In the U.S., “Time” saw a 1,042% lift in official streams in the Jan. 27-Feb. 2 frame, to 903,000 streams from 79,000 the previous period.
The No. 1s mark the first rule on a Billboard chart for “Time,” which peaked at No. 25 on the Billboard Hot 100 in October 1970.
Its parent album, Silk Purse, also peaked at No. 103 on the Billboard 200 in November of that year.
It’s the second synch success for The Last of Us on the Billboard charts, following Depeche Mode‘s “Never Let Me Down Again,” which returned to multiple rankings after being heard in the series premiere two weeks prior.