SONG REVIEW: Scooped Up! - "Joyride"

Scooped Up!’s already bringing This Year’s Summer Bop with “Joyride” 

by Jesse Smith

The Pop Punk genre has shifted and changed so much over the last 20 or so years that I feel in many cases, it has lost its beginnings. Pop vocals and melodies with Punk influenced music and vibe. Early Green Day and Blink 182 really nailed this back in the early 2000s, but there is a band from CT that is still keeping that alive! Scooped Up! is a DIY pop punk band from the northeast that has been embodying the spirit and sound of early pop punk since 2018. Gaining a good fanbase, the band has been more active than ever both on social media and on the road! Last month, the band kicked off the new year with an album drop called “The Runs” but today we are looking at one of the stand alone tracks titled “Joyride”. 

For a Connecticut band, they sure capture the Cali summer vibe! This feel-good, upbeat track is only 2 minutes long which is great for my attention span. But even for a short song, it is fast paced so the energy is at 100 the entire song. This song in particular resembles early Green Day and it feels like they understood the assignment and they knew exactly what they were going for! The video that was accompanied with this song has a 90’s feel and is super simplistic. A couple dudes playing music and riding around in their car with the windows down, you HAVE to love that! That’s where the summer vibe really came across was the music video. 

Again this song is off of their new album “The Runs” which has other bangers like this like “Dislexic” and “Shoelace”. I haven’t heard a band fully embrace this era of pop punk in it’s most organic form. Scooped Up has their branding and vision on lock and it’s no wonder why they are gaining traction around the east coast as a DIY band! Embracing their punk side with house shows and DIY routings while writing infectious hooks. When you see on facebook “Support local DIY music, they could be your favorite band” this is the band they are referring too. The band has a tour coming up, I suggest you go look up if they are coming near you and get your ass to a show so you can feel the 90’s pop punk vibe for yourself. I can already tell “Joyride” will be the song of the summer.