What’s My Age Again

SHOOTS TEAM ON SITE Colby Milchin, Jade Sievers, Emily Cabrera, Val Kolczynski MODELS Brita Bocian, Christian Thompson, Eva Akaishi, Michael Mancari, Lexi McCain PHOTOGRAPHER Katrina Oro, Abby Marcil, Lily Fox WRITTEN BY Sarah Gibson, Gillian Bennet, & Kylee Seaver EDITED BY Karina McCarthy, Breanna Tang, & Lexi Fernandez

BEAUTY Carson Schultz, Katie Russell LAYOUT Taylor Kirby

STRIP T HINGS DO W N

ANGST DOESNT AGE

Punk is all about stripping things down; rejecting the mainstream. It’s fast, it’s aggressive, and at times, it can be a little scary. But when you strip punk music down to gaze past the intimidating facade, it’s incredibly poignant. Punk creates a safe space for people to belong to something meaningful.

The Clash is easily one of the most influential punk bands of all time, and they continue to remain a driving force behind many modern punk bands. The heart of their music focuses on civil unrest in politics and race relations in England throughout the 1970s and 1980s. In an early interview with NME, they made a bold claim: “We’re antiFascist, we’re anti-violence, we’re anti-racist, and we’re procreative”. The collective found no point in concealing their opinions or making pretty music to hide the grit and grime of the world around them. Their unabashed sense of self showed those who followed that it is okay to do the same.

Don’t be fooled: the punk genre is alive and well today. Irish band Fontaines D.C., whose 2020 album A Hero’s Death was nominated for a Grammy, is a perfect example of punk in modernity. The Clash set a keen example of utilizing lyrics and turning music into a weapon against tyranny, and there is still plenty to go around today. Fontaines’ song Boys in the Better Land highlighted the rampant Anglophobia that exists in the Republic of Ireland. In true punk fashion, the lead singer, Grian Chatten, sings “Driver’s got names to fill two double barrels / He spits ‘Brits out,’ only smokes Carrolls”. His words are reflective of honest feelings about the uneasiness existing in Ireland against the Brits, who have long subjected them to remaining silent.

Punk is unique in its ability to be both chaotic and imperfect yet purposeful and personal. It appeals a great deal to young people, too. Our lives are already chaotic and messy, and we are all in search of our sense of purpose to guide us through the world.

The late 1990s served as a testament to how influential the punk genre is on the youth. It marked the beginning of the pop-punk revolution, which shaped an entire generation and served as a gateway for the “young stupid kids” who wanted to be seen. The punk genre relies on mayhem. The bands are edgy, the songs are insanely catchy, and the lyrics wreak havoc in strict households. One iconic punk rock band accelerated to the top and is credited with inspiring a new wave of punk music.

In 1994 in Poway, California, the American punk rock band Blink-182 was formed. Their chaotic energy particularly resonated with rebellious teens. They incorporated chaos into their album covers, song titles, and interviews to establish their very unique energy as a group. The members of the band were known for not taking life too seriously. Their prominent personalities and anarchic wit appealed to the masses and were at the forefront of the music they produced. They took daring risks and frankly didn’t care what anyone thought. As a band, Blink-182 redefined the genre by writing lyrics that perfectly portrayed the angsty feelings teens experience daily.

Blink-182’s third studio album, Enema State of Mind, is truly what opened the pop-punk floodgates, allowing the genre to enter the mainstream music industry. From the controversial cover photo to the album’s final track, Enema State of Mind will forever be iconic in the punk music

scene. The lyrics encapsulate a subtle sense of rebellion and resonate with anyone who has ever been a teen.

The punk rock genre has come full circle, with contemporary works paying tribute to the familiar sounds of prominent bands like Blink-182. You can see sprinkles of their influence in the punk rock genre and beyond, with many notable bands and artists such as Paramore, Avril Lavigne, and Machine Gun Kelly being inspired by their revolutionary take on the music they produced. Punk music has mastered the art of chaos and cultivates nostalgia for many listeners. We often turn toward music to feel sentiments of the past which is why Blink-182’s edgy discography has remained so popular to this day.

As the floodgates of punk music opened in the mid-1970s, the movement quickly became dually about the lifestyle and the music. The music genre was a front for refuting societal ignorance and questioning human nature, making punk a middle finger to the establishment. Young crowds across the globe rallied, singing their opinions through the speakers with a clumsy yet powerful melody. Although it has been fifty years since the birth of punk, the political and cultural climate of today’s society still sparks activist tendencies in the youth, regularly expressed through music.

Olivia Rodrigo is the ideal representation of the modernized punk artist. Seventeen-year-old Rodrigo released her debut album Sour in 2021, and it took the world by storm. The mixture of pop and punk created an undeniably addicting tracklist, whose listeners ranged from young girls to middle-aged adults. Rodrigo was raised listening to Green Day, and their punk rock attributes are evident in the inspiration of her composition style. Olivia also credits Paramore, another early 2000s punk band, with lyrical influence over her song Drivers License.

Rodrigo’s first track on the album, brutal, embodies the short, fast-paced nature of punk music with harsh melodies and stripped-down acoustics. The upbeat tempo and quick lyrical turnaround make for a track that lasts a total of two minutes and twentyfour seconds. The pounding drums and aggressive guitar strumming craft the perfect soundtrack to accompany the lyrical criticisms of adolescence. The line “If someone tells me one more time / ‘Enjoy your youth,’ I’m gonna cry / And I don’t stick up for myself / I’m anxious and nothing can help’’ encompasses the universal struggle of this generation’s youth with chronic anxiety, and the disconnect from the older generations caused by their inability to understand. This messy, angry, exposé style songwriting, along with the nod to punk-era instrumentation, shows how influential original punk still is today.

O WERFUL P