Exclaim!

In 2016, Rolling Stone observed that “punk rock began as a kind of negation — a call to stark, brutal simplicity.” The magazine was referring to the frenetic, raw sound developed by the Ramones in the late 1970s: loud guitars converging with anti-authoritarian and anti-establishment lyrics. Over the following two decades, the movement splintered into dozens of subgroups, including hardcore, riot grrrl, and post‑punk. Without getting too caught up in the definition of the genre, Matt Bobkin and Adam Feibel consider yet another offshoot — pop punk — with In Too Deep: When Canadian Punks Took Over the World.

Bobkin and Feibel look at nine angsty acts, including chart-topping Sum 41 and business-savvy Simple Plan, and their palatability to mainstream audiences. “You could be popular in Canada or outside of Canada,” they write of industry assumptions, “but rarely both.” Bobkin and Feibel also profile seven other artists who defied the odds and made it...