Summery Pop Punk and Catchiness

I’ve been trying to mention this band already for some time. So, here it is. Definitely the best new pop punk find of my summer of 2008 was Boys Like Girls and their self-titled debut album, released in 2006. This album seems to have been a real success. A deluxe edition of the album has already been released.

I love pop punk. I don’t listen to it very much but almost everything I listen to is so closely connected to it anyway, so it really doesn’t matter.. Boys Like Girls is very emotional, loud and energetic music. The main focus, to me, seems to be on melodies and pop-styled expression with such emotions as angst, melancholy, happiness, and general sentimentality. There is a modern teen-punk vibe in the background, but it’s very different from Ramones or similar music. Also, some people would definitely call this kind of music emo, but that is a bit misleading. The whole concept of emo is all mixed up these days.. So, the best solution might be describing punk-related music in some other ways than (always) saying it’s emo.

This album has been stated to be full of potential hit singles, which seems quite reasonable when you listen to these songs. The songs are all very good, but this hit single-approach might not be the best way to compile an album after all. When every song sounds like a radio hit, listening to the stuff gets a bit heavy. Perhaps it’s because the songs are a little bit too similar in style.

Check out songs like Five Minutes to Midnight, Thunder, and especially the vocal and melodic beauty of Hero/Heroine. Listen, it might even give you goosebumps!

Boys Like Girls at MySpace