Older, possibly wiser and presumably more fully clothed, the torchbearers of the early-'00s pop-punk boom have returned with their knack for tunesmithery intact. The second single from Blink-182's sixth LP, Neighborhoods – the first was the sweeping "Up All Night" – is a melancholy confession about partying too hard: "We'll stagger home after midnight/Sleep on and on in the stairwell/We'll fall apart on the weekend." The midtempo ballad is a bit on the stolid side; it doesn't have the sparkle and fizz of the best Blink. But the sound is comfortingly familiar: the guitar crunch, the tuneful sneer of Mark Hoppus and Tom DeLonge's vocals, and Travis Barker's whip-cracking snare hits. Aughts nostalgia starts right here.

Listen to "After Midnight":

Related:
• Blink-182 Steal fan footage for 'Up All Night'

“Too Close”

Next was formed in Minneapolis when the uncle of Terry "T-Low" and Raphael "Tweety" Brown, who was a gospel choir director, introduced the brothers to Robert Lavelle "R.L." Huggar. Sounds of Blackness singer Ann Nesby groomed the R&B group before handing them over to Naughty by Nature's KayGee, who wrote and produced "Too Close." The idea for the song was sparked "from a conversation we had with several girls at a nightclub," explained T-Low. "It's talking about the club scene, with guys getting out of hand and the female telling him to back up, asking, 'What are you doing?'"