page_title: 1990s in music
section_title: Skate punk and pop punk
hierarchical_section_title: 1990s in music / North America / Rock / Skate punk and pop punk
caption_attribution_description: English: Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong performing at their 21st Century Breakdown release party on 7 May 2009.
context_page_description: Popular music in the 1990s saw the continuation of teen pop and dance-pop trends which had emerged in the 1970s and 1980s. Furthermore, hip hop grew and continued to be highly successful in the decade, with the continuation of the genre's golden age. Aside from rap, reggae, contemporary R&B and urban music in general remained extremely popular throughout the decade; urban music in the late-1980s and 1990s often blended with styles such as soul, funk and jazz, resulting in fusion genres such as new jack swing, neo-soul, hip hop soul and g-funk which were popular.
  Similarly to the 1980s, rock music was also very popular in the 1990s, yet, unlike the new wave and glam metal-dominated scene of the time, grunge, Britpop, industrial rock and other alternative rock music emerged and took over as the most popular of the decade, as well as punk rock, ska punk and nu metal, amongst others, which attained a high level of success at different points throughout the years.
context_section_description: Punk rock in the United States underwent a resurgence in the early to mid-1990s. Punk rock at that time was not commercially viable, and no major record label signed a punk rock band until Green Day's breakthrough in 1994. Both these factors contributed to the emergence of a number of independent record labels, often run by people in bands in order to release their own music and that of their friends. The independent labels Lookout! Records, Fat Wreck Chords and Epitaph Records achieved commercial success.
  Skate punk broke into the mainstream in the mid-1990s, initially with the Northern California-based skate punk band Green Day and in the late 1990s with the Southern California-based pop punk band Blink-182 as well who all achieved massive worldwide commercial success. Green Day's album Dookie (1994) sold 10 million copies in the United States and another 10 million copies worldwide. Soon after the release of Dookie, The Offspring released the album Smash. The album sold over 14 million copies worldwide, setting a record for most albums sold on an independent label. 
   Rancid's Let's Go and NOFX's Punk in Drublic were also released during this period and both of them went gold as well. By the end of the year, Dookie and Smash had sold millions of copies. The commercial success of these two albums attracted major label interest in skate/pop punk, with bands such as Bad Religion being offered lucrative contracts to leave their independent record labels. In 1999, Blink-182 made a breakthrough with the release of Enema of the State, which sold over 15 million copies worldwide receiving multi-platinum status in the United States, Canada, Australia, Italy, New Zealand and platinum status in Europe and the United Kingdom. Green Day are seen as the biggest act in punk rock whilst Blink-182 are seen to have the most influence on later bands like Fall Out Boy and All Time Low.
caption: Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day
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