Rock’s Unexpected Savior: The Pop and Hip-Hop Artists Breaking the Genre’s Rules
Just as the age-old genre looked like it was falling out of mainstream favor, it has been revived by none other than some of the biggest pop and hip hop acts. In the words of rock-inspired pop icon Olivia Rodrigo, Good 4 U(s).
Written by Grace Robertson
Photos courtesy of Dana Trippe, Mick Rock, and Universal Music Group
In the 1950s, with a shake of Elvis Presley’s hips, rock and roll captured a generation. Over the course of the next half century, the genre exploded with musical rulebreakers like the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, and Bob Dylan. But like every music genre before it, rock began falling out of style as it naturally progressed to a grungier style. In 1998, the only rock giant to crack Billboard’s top 15 singles was Third Eye Blind. By the 2000s, true rock seemed to have gone nearly extinct.
Just when rock and roll only seemed to live on through Gen X’s old cassette tapes, its saviors hailed from an equally unexpected source: pop and hip-hop stars like Miley Cyrus and Machine Gun Kelly. Not only are artists like these returning to a more classic punk rock style, but their fans began tuning in, too. So far, Olivia Rodrigo released her No. 1 hit, Paramore sound-alike “Good 4 U,” Willow Smith’s angsty alt rock hit “t r a n s p a r e n t s o u l” has soundtracked over 300,000 TikToks, and rapper-turned-pop-punker Machine Gun Kelly’s Tickets to My Downfall was the first rock album to hit the top of the Billboard 200 in 2020.
Throughout its history, rock has thrived when the youngest generation needed a sound to match both its inner and outer turmoil. In the ‘60s, rock gave both a counterculture and a community to the youth protesting the Vietnam War and leading the civil rights movement, while the punk-metal hybrid of ‘90s grunge served as a rebellion against costumes and conformity. As today’s youth confront political upheaval and uncertainty, punk’s cathartic, electric guitar-fueled release has found a new era for it to thrive.
Additionally, rock has always emerged when the world needed resistance. Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” played before Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial. In the early ‘80s, critic Greil Marcus wrote that punk rock band the Sex Pistols were “meant to be a force that would set the world on its ear … and finally unite music and politics,” arguing that the band gave a voice to the working class. The turbulent 1960s and ‘70s gave rise to both artfully composed folk music and Bob Dylan’s transition to rock music, which provided the genre with even more fuel and a place in history as true protest music of the counterculture. Born in an era of social tension, explosive creativity, and young, enthusiastic people (thanks to the baby boom that followed World War II), rock music positioned itself from the start as an outlet for the young and righteously angry. This trend held true throughout the next few decades as rock music branched into everything from electronic rap rock to the gritty frustration of the short-lived riot grrrl movement.
The beginning of the 2000s launched a new sound: pop punk, a genre characterized by catchy pop hooks and aggressive guitars that puts a new spin on traditional punk sonics and aesthetics. In the ‘90s and early aughts, a number of pop punk bands like Jimmy Eat World and My Chemical Romance exploded in popularity, but it was apparent that the punk movement had become unsustainable. Because of how niche the genre became, combined with a wave of new aesthetics like emo and alt, punk splintered into smaller and smaller categories until the genre could not survive the amount of competing bands. The rise of newer, fresher types of music like hip-hop and rap also slowed it down. Today, though, the very same pop and hip-hop stars that edged out punk rock music are bringing it back.
No pop-princess-turned-rock star does it better than Miley Cyrus. She gained fame as a young teenager on Disney Channel, portraying a fake pop singer named Hannah Montana. After the show ended, she went on to launch a pop music career riddled with controversy, as her once wholesome image gave way to a rebellious streak. Cyrus has always been a musical chameleon, but her independent spirit and command of the spotlight is reminiscent of past rock icons. Even Cyrus’s breakout hit, “Wrecking Ball,” has elements of the same rebelliousness and heart-wrenching drama that her music features today. Cyrus has now blossomed into a true rock star, especially on her most recent album, Plastic Hearts. Citing Joan Jett, Billy Idol, and Blondie as influences (she included a cover of “Heart of Glass” on the album), the record is full of crunchy bass lines and a lively rejection of society’s expectations of Cyrus.
Cyrus, though, isn’t the only artist embracing punk rock. Willow Smith, whose mother was in the metal band Wicked Wisdom, released a pop punk album titled lately I feel EVERYTHING. Smith not only challenges the lack of diversity in alternative rock and counterculture movements like punk and metal, but embodies the pent-up, electric energy of the eyeliner-heavy, guitar-toting genre. About her 2021 album, the New Yorker wrote, “Beyond creating the intergenerational lineage of Black mother-and-daughter rock stars, Willow expands upon a niche but growing movement that’s set on diversifying punk and other rock genres and addressing the erasure of their Black roots.” Smith builds on the sounds of punk icons past to spin the genre into something new and optimistic. In the song “G R O W,” featuring Avril Lavigne, Smith sings through her growing pains and extends support to other youth. While the album is filled with the extreme emotions of teenage angst, its general theme is empowerment, as Willow sings about self-love, healthy boundaries, and gaining perspective. This theme holds true even in classic rock acts. Long-established rock band the Strokes achieved mainstream success with its bass-centric hit “The Adults are Talking.” The peppy track is from the band’s Grammy award-winning 2020 album The New Abnormal, which, much like Willow’s album, explores social issues over ‘80s synths and guitar riffs.
The 21st century incarnation of rock has also found its way into hip-hop. Machine Gun Kelly, who started his career as a rapper in the early 2000s, shifted gears to pop-punk in his latest album Tickets to my Downfall, which was met with both critical and popular acclaim. SoundCloud’s favorite emo rapper, Lil Peep, seamlessly navigated several styles throughout his tracks before his tragic death in 2017. A 2017 New York Times article called him the genre’s Kurt Cobain: “His songs find a middle ground between hip-hop bluster and emo’s bulked-up anxiety, a blend that feels eminently of the moment, and inevitable.” In fact, the titular track of his 2016 album Crybaby begins with a sample from the early 2000s rock band Brand New.
The beauty of music is that it is always evolving. It borrows from other genres and finds new fans in inventive ways. Contemporary, wildly popular artists like these are blurring the lines between traditional Gen-X rock and the pop music of today. The social landscape of the present is remarkably reminiscent of the ‘60s and ‘70s in how the push for social justice has grown and is encountering fierce resistance. It is a time of upheaval, just as it is a time of opportunity, to change the world for the better. The world needs new rebels, and rock and roll is always here to give them an anthem.