For a generation raised by Napster and MTV, the video for Sum 41’s Fat Lip is up there with 9/11 news broadcasts and Sonia Jackson’s surprise baby on EastEnders among the definitive footage of the turn of the millennium. Backing one of the band’s sweetly snotty pop-punk songs, handheld cameras capture teens skateboarding with fireworks; girls get Chelsea haircuts; crust punks taunt the police. Strung together like every early 00s Saturday flashing before your eyes on your deathbed, Fat Lip – still with one of the brightest choruses in punk history – preserves the feel of a subculture gone mainstream.
It was included on 2001 debut album All Killer No Filler, but Sum 41 actually formed back in 1996 in Ajax, a small town just outside Toronto. They were still teenagers when they signed with Island Records, following the same path that catapulted Green Day and Blink-182 out of their local DIY scenes as A&R guys searched for the next poster kids for disaffection; All Killer No Filler’s songs were propagated everywhere from MTV and video game soundtracks to teen dramas and superhero blockbusters. At the band’s commercial height, frontman Deryck Whibley was a paparazzi magnet, dating Paris Hilton then marrying (and later divorcing) Avril Lavigne, prompting relentless tabloid gossip about his personal life.
