Buyer's Guides.

Pop-punk is either soft-core punk or toughed-up pop. Whichever way you look at it, this unlikely yet fashionable fusion has struck a power chord with the masses. There are plenty of punker’s poolrooms lined with platinum sales awards and Grammys, starting with the elders of the movement, Green Day.

Trainspotters could (and would) argue the finer points of who is and who isn’t pop-punk, or even if "pop" and "punk" should be mutually exclusive terms. But there’s no doubt a few bands out of California (including No Doubt) popularised the sound in the early-to-mid-90s. Green Day, Offspring and Rancid matched spiky haircuts and accoutrements with (mostly) fast, fun, short songs and found the cries of "sell-out" from the punk purists drowned out by cries of "encore" from the mainstream.

With their puerile puns and pin-up looks, Blink-182 cornered the teenage market in the wake of Offspring and Green Day’s success, in turn spawning imitators such as Fenix TX and The Ataris. The Ataris took pot shots at Ben Lee on one single, but expect to hear fellow pop-punkers Good Charlotte contributing to Lee’s upcoming album.

It could be argued Avril Lavigne is about as punk as the middle-aged suits who market her as such, but she does have the distinction of being the only poppette among the newest of new-wave of punk. With her marriage to Sum 41 frontman Derek Whibbley, The Lav has cemented her position as first lady of this decidedly laddish movement.