There’s no more surefire way to stir up controversy or heated discussion amongst serious punk fans than making a bold claim around whether or not you believe Blink 182 is or is not “punk”. If you’ve considered yourself a punk fan for more that a couple years it is absolutely guaranteed you’ve had this discussion yourself at least a couple times. Well, we’re here to tell you that the debate is over. That’s right folks, Blink 182 is undisputedly Punk. At least according to data analyst Matt Daniels.
Daniels has just released a new project that explores the definition of punk. Featuring interactive infographics, the project utilizes Spotify & YouTube playlists to crowdsource the genre’s definition. In the report he writes:
“The impetus for the project was to dig into the subjectivity of what makes a genre. Music like Punk, Metal… [h]ave always been difficult to define. Rather than debate definitions, this data gives us a look at “what the people think. I did a huge amount of research to get this data – roughly five million tracks across tens of thousands of playlists via the two most popular music services: YouTube and Spotify.
After Green Day, there’s no other band as pervasive on punk playlists as Blink-182. Of the thousands of playlists that I found titled “punk” on Spotify, Blink-182 is on half of them. More often than not, Blink-182 and “punk” are synonymous.“
Here are a few more interesting tidbits from his research:
- Green Day was on 51% of all punk playlists, followed by Blink 182 on 50% of playlists
- Many punk subgenres and terms are falling out of use such as, riot grrrl, which was only found on two Spotify playlists
- Some punk bands have transcended time, with Joy Division still synonymous with the post-punk genre (Joy Division was formed in 1976 and post-punk was coined in 1977)
- No Doubt, once a breakthrough success for ska-punk, is barely referenced on punk playlists today
You can check out the whole snazzy report here, which looks to be sponsored by Converse as part of some promotion around their limited-edition Sex Pistols sneaker collaboration that just launched.