In Defense of the Genre is a column on BrooklynVegan about punk, pop punk, emo, hardcore, post-hardcore, ska-punk, and more, including and often especially the bands and albums and subgenres that weren’t always taken so seriously. Head below for my picks of the 15 best songs of July and late June that fall somewhere under the punk umbrella, in no particular order. It’s also one of the best songs of its kind released in recent memory. hook sounds like a pop punk song you’ve heard 100,000 times already and yet it still crosses that chest-clenching threshold so perfectly. And, in an effort to cover as many bands as possible, I try to just do one single per album cycle in these monthly roundups, so catch up on previous months’ lists for even more:* Best Songs of April* Best Songs of March* Best Songs of February* Best Songs of January* Best Songs of DecemberFor even more new songs, listen below or subscribe to our playlist of punk/emo/hardcore/etc songs of 2026:—Read past and future editions of ‘In Defense of the Genre’ here.