Grab your skinny jeans and spike that hair! Join us as we count down our picks for the pop punk one-hit wonders that defined an era but never quite reached those heights again. Our countdown includes anthems from Fountains of Wayne, Lit, Metro Station, and more! Which of these catchy tunes still has you singing along after all these years?
00:00Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for those pop-punk artists that
00:11struck gold in the charts with songs that became defining to their careers.
00:2110. I Just Wanna Run, The Downtown Fiction
00:25I just wanna run, hide it away, run because they're chasing me down
00:32The official definition of pop-punk, like many musical genres, is often debated and contextualized over the course of different decades.
00:40I Just Wanna Run by The Downtown Fiction was a hit for the band back in the 2010s, incorporating a strong melodic core that never backed down from its pop roots.
00:49I just wanna run, throw it away, run before they find me out
00:56This desire for commercial success didn't stop The Downtown Fiction from doing some interesting things musically within the song,
01:03particularly during the chugged-out part prior to its repeated choral outro.
01:07These young chaps clearly had some chops behind the pop, as evidenced by just how well I Just Wanna Run still works today.
01:159. Love Me Dead, Ludo
01:23Breakup songs are nothing new, yet St. Louis' Ludo managed to seriously up the ante back in 2008 with this single from their second LP,
01:41You're Awful, I Love You. Frontman Andrew Volpe shines on the video for Love Me Dead, vamping for the camera while singing venomous lyrics that compare his ex to, well, just about everything bad, really.
01:53Love Me Dead, Love Me Dead, Love Me Dead, love me dead, love me dead, love me dead.
02:01Ludo did achieve a locally relevant hit, Hum Along, early in their career, but it was the association,
02:07Love Me Dead had with the TV show, House, that likely helped expose Ludo's theatrical sound to more and more people.
02:14High maintenance means you're a gluttonous.
02:18House, shut up.
02:198.
02:20The Boys of Summer Hey, a hit is a hit, right?
02:34It doesn't really matter whether or not said hit happens to be a cover of another famous
02:38song.
02:39Indiana pop-punk group The Ataris earned a lot of success back in 2003 with their fourth
02:44album So Long Astoria.
02:46That LP included the Ataris' take on Don Henley's 1984 hit The Boys of Summer, which went on
02:52to assist So Long Astoria in achieving Gold album status.
03:03The decision of the Ataris to stick relatively close to the original arrangements of The
03:07Boys of Summer was a good one, although the switching up of the lyrical choice of stickers
03:11on the song's Cadillac was a nice touch.
03:217.
03:22Flavor of the Week American Hi-Fi
03:24To paraphrase the old adage, pop-punkers never die, they just fade away.
03:36Or do they?
03:37Boston's American Hi-Fi continued on long after their major chart success with 2001's
03:42Flavor of the Week.
03:44That tune was taken from the band's self-titled debut album and featured a video that paid
03:48a nice homage to the cult 80's video clip for heavy metal parking lot.
03:52Flavor of the Week feels right at home within that world, actually rocking hard with a killer
03:56groove, a strong pre-chorus and a sing-alongable anthemic vibe.
04:00Meanwhile, some members of American Hi-Fi went on to collaborate with Miley Cyrus' band years
04:12later, proving their musical muscle wasn't just a flash in the pan.
04:156.
04:16Right Now, SR-71
04:22Hey, did you know that Bowling for Soup's hit tune 1985 was actually a cover song?
04:39Yep, the OG was actually written by SR-71, although their version didn't achieve the
04:44same sort of chart success.
04:46Don't feel bad for SR-71, however, since their tune right now did pretty well for the band,
04:52reaching the second spot on Billboard's modern rock tracks.
05:03This allowed for the accompanying album Now You See Inside to reach number 2 on the Heatseekers
05:09charts.
05:10Subsequent touring couldn't really ignite any real flames of momentum for SR-71, however,
05:15and the band broke up in 2009 before a brief reunion in 2010 resulted in a third LP of new music.
05:315.
05:32Just The Girl
05:35Everything old seemed to be new again with the Click Five, a pop-punk band with
05:48seriously retro inspirations.
05:50Their visual aesthetic initially seemed to intentionally mimic a vintage 60s pop style,
05:55complete with Beatles-esque haircuts.
06:05Just The Girl was much more contemporary to the mid-2000s sonically, although the synthesizer of Ben
06:12Roman's felt like a nice, unique touch to their sound. The tune is poppy and melodic, but not really
06:17snotty or saccharine in any way some of the Click Five's contemporaries were during this time. And Just
06:22The Girl actually aged quite well, if you ask us.
06:314.
06:32Scotty Doesn't Know
06:34Lustra
06:35Scotty Doesn't Know
06:36That Fiona and me do it in my van every Sunday
06:40Scotty Doesn't Know wasn't the first song written about infidelity, but it's perhaps one of the more
06:44crass examples to hit the Billboard Top 200 chart. Lustra were a Boston-based band that decided to do a
06:50deep dive into being the other man in a relationship while the titular Scotty presumably has no idea
06:56what's going on behind his back.
07:03The tune has a lot of fun with the premise rockin' and rollin' with some keen aggression to offset the
07:08melodies at play. Meanwhile, the lyrical content is sleazy in that millennial way, and that allowed for
07:15Scotty Doesn't Know to be featured prominently within 2004's sex comedy flick, Eurotrip.
07:20Scotty Doesn't Know
07:21Scotty Doesn't Know
07:23Scotty Doesn't Know
07:24So trust Scotty
07:26Scotty Doesn't Know
07:273.
07:29Shake It
07:30Metro Station
07:31I'll take you home if you don't leave me at the front door
07:35Leave me at the front door
07:36There's a nice, danceable, electronic vibe to this single from the Los Angeles,
07:42California-based pop-punk band Metro Station and their song, Shake It. This combination of clubby
07:47vibes, scene-kid haircuts, and legitimate pop hooks essentially made Metro Station difficult to ignore
07:53back when Shake It hit the charts in 2007.
08:03This was a song that felt like it could work just as well on the dance floor as it could a rock club
08:07or a mosh pit, although Metro Station struggled to recreate the success of Shake It on future singles.
08:13The band continued to reconvene and record off and on throughout the 2010s and even into the 2020s as well.
08:272. My Own Worst Enemy
08:30Lit
08:36The jury seems to be out. Was Lit actually a pop-punk band or a post-grunge rock act
08:42that occasionally worked within this genre and space? It basically depends on who you ask,
08:46but there's no denying how well My Own Worst Enemy worked for Lit back in 1999.
08:51The song was a smash hit, reaching the number one spot on Billboard's modern rock chart. My Own
09:04Worst Enemy is still a staple on rock radio today as well, while its nebulous genre position has allowed
09:10its airplay on everything from classic rock stations to retro alternative channels.
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09:401. Fountains of Wayne
09:52The reasons for the success of this video clip were more than a little obvious back in 2003.
09:58Fountains of Wayne should thank their lucky stars that supermodel Rachel Hunter agreed to star in
10:02Stacey's Mom, although we honestly forgot how much innuendo was going on within the video.
10:08The song is a mixture of pop, punk, and new wave that's clearly indebted to the cars,
10:21while also paying a little homage to a certain scene from Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
10:25Stacey's Mom is undeniably catchy, however, capturing a throwback sound with cool keyboard, nice vocal harmonies,
10:32and, well, yeah, that video.
10:40Which decade had the best pop, punk acts? Sound off in the comments.
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