Dunno, bruh... I used to listen to pop-punk in the mid 90s, although it was a bit different than what we have now, which is to be expected...
Maybe you're just now noticing it.

I love pop-punk, and none of the bands listed in the OP are pop-punk.

This is pop-punk...

I want to assume the OP means "pop punk" in the same way you call "rock" "rock", even though the comparison between early rock and the shit people call rock now days is barely similar.
Not sure though... I guess, at a certain level, it's just a matter of semantics.

Well I'm of the belief that pop-punk should actually have a fairly noticeable punk element to it. I mean, that is what it's called after all. :p:

It's just not how it is in a lot of cases. Sound styles will constantly change and, dare I use the word promiscuously, "evolve"... and the label itself usually ends up as a variation of the original label, while not really retaining the majority of the defining characteristics of the original sound, after being diluted and filtered by enough perspective and general change.

Is it necessary to make a distinction? Maybe. I personally don't think it matters, especially when what's being questioned is being compared to something that's in the same position, considering its own predecessor.

pop punk=

Fuck right off. :finger:

Not really, I jest, but I tend to shy away from using Buzz****s as a textbook example of pop-punk, because their style of pop-punk is far different from the vast majority of bands, then and now. This has been said a thousand times, but if any of the early bands best represent pop-punk, it's the Ramones. If you listen to Teenage Bottlerocket (posted above), what they are, essentially, is a modern version of The Ramones.

I agree. I even find myself listening to Taking Back Sunday's Louder Now in its entirety because I really loved that album every once in awhile.

I don't know if The Used fits into pop punk as well but Lies for the Liars gets played quite often in my stereo.

I hate to say it but "Boys Like Girls" is pop punk. It may not be a band you like, but yeah it's the same genre as Taking Back Sunday and Blink 182. Other current pop punk bands include We The Kings Hey Monday and Mayday Parade.

I think you're a living example of what I like to call - The Weezer Effect.

Weezer isn't the first, the most guilty, nor the last band to end up in their situation, they just happened to the first I noticed, and by far the most blatant in my youth, so they get the name.

Ultimately what everyone needs to accept and recognize, is that mainstream pop music does not, and has never, actually cared about the listener. It's all about appealing to the commercial demographic that has the largest amount of disposable income while convincing them that their tastes (and not their money) is actually culturally relevant enough to shape the current reflection of society through mainstream media.

So with every major generational shift there's a major shift in the sounds of the pop culture. It's a way for the current generation to distinguish itself from its predecessors. As a grunge kid you better believe we wanted to stand away from the cheeseballs with poofy hair and spandex making all sorts of ooOOOOoo faces while looking 'sensitive' and wailing on some power ballad. But even in the end of that style the mainstream beast still offered up a few new bands from the old style to try holding on to some of the last fans who were stuck between the major style shifts, and it happened again a few years later.

I've got a lot of friends who rank Weezer as one of the main groups from the 90s, one of the Alt-Rock mainstays and originators. I disagree. In fact, Weezer has always sounded like the little kid answer to the Smashing Pumpkins to me but whatever. I had already been taken in by the mainstream, so it's 2nd attempt to pull in more people using the same trick was going to fail on me, but it worked flawlessly on my younger friends (and some have yet to clue in still).

You're doing the exact same thing with these bands. Taking Back Sunday or Fallout Boy were not amazing or pioneering something new. They were the little kid answers to Green Day and The Offspring, which could easily be argued as the little kid answers to The Ramones and The Clash.

Like what you like and don't worry about the rest. If you want more recommendations then click the embedded clips, they're all great - and so is Op Ivy too (but that's more ska than pop-punk but still check them out).