Going Emo

Did you notice what I did with the music reviews last week? The Odds and The Evens? I was very proud of that.

I got the idea from a tweet from Craig Northey. It was just an off-hand comment, but it got me thinking that I might like to put reviews of them back to back at some point. I did it now because Ian MacKaye, for his part in Rites of Spring, is a good launching pad into the realm of emo, and that's where I'm going now.

This path started a year and a half ago, when I first started listening to My Chemical Romance, mainly by bringing up videos on Youtube. I have a bad habit of reading internet comments (more on where that got me Monday). There was an overarching theme with the comments, regardless of the specific video, that would pretty much break down into this:

"Stupid emo!"
"There's nothing wrong with being emo! It just means the music is emotional!"
"They're not even emo! Emo is short for emotional hardcore, and it's completely different from this!"

This may have been the first I had heard of "emo" as a music genre. A coworker had once used the term to describe a former coworker, who had issues with his mother not making him feel special enough. I did see the "Goth Baby versus Emo Baby" on the Humor for Stoners segment of the Spike Feresten show (Goth Baby won by unleashing a swarm of bats at Emo Baby). Still, everything at that point had indicated it was more of a manner of dress and an attitude than anything else.

Now I was seeing it used as a musical term that was being used as an epithet and drawing very strong responses. My first stop was Wikipedia, and while the article was interesting, the bands it mentioned were not at all like the bands that were getting called emo now. Key bands were Rites of Spring, Jimmy Eat World, and Weezer. Where are the black scarves and eyeliner?

The article directed me to a book, Nothing Feels Good: Punk Rock, Teenagers, and Emo, by Andy Greenwald. I added it to my reading list on Goodreads. There was a review there that said the book started out okay, but then it got all hung up on Dashboard Confessional, and if you really want to know about Emo go to http://fourfa.com/.

Again, there was so much passion in her review. And she's right about the book; it feels like Greenwald got a crush on Chris Carraba, but I think it was more that he fell in love with himself being the one who knew about this and could talk to the kids about it. Well, I guess you can have more than one love object.

Genre labels have limited usefulness anyway, I know, but I do like seeing how music develops, and who influences whom, and so delving into it more deeply is good for that. I am going to reread the book, but this time slowly, stopping and listening to the bands as I go, and of course spending time at http://fourfa.com/.

There are things that will be good about this. I have more James Dewees and more Matt Rubano coming up, and of course more Jimmy Eat World. After the concert, I am all primed for that. I don't think I will love Pinkerton, but I do love Weezer; might as well listen to the whole oeuvre.

And I want to see if I can understand the switch. When did "emo" stop meaning dressed like Richie Cunningham and start meaning dressed like Edward Scissorhands? At first I thought the issue was that none of the original emo bands got that big, so the label ended up being applied to better-known bands doing different musical things, but it's still all so illogical.

I've seen a video clip of Tyson Ritter crying to one song, where the roots were humorous, but you could easily see that as more of a natural successor to some of these bands. And if it did switch to meaning wearing black and singing about death and sadness, how did Kill Hannah never get that label?

The first AFI album I listened to, Sing The Sorrow, was 2003, so that's the big year, and I remember thinking it sounded like they had been savagely attacked by vampires and had a lot of anger and torment over it, and this album was the result of that, but they're not emo. Why not? (I am seeing them on Halloween; perhaps I can ask.)

I do have some theories about what happened, and the emotional and societal roles some bands end up filling, and so after the book, which takes us to about 2003, I am going to start in on this other list:

Avenged Sevenfold, Sleeping with Sirens, Of Mice and Men, Pierce the Veil, Black Veil Brides, You Me At Six, Big Time Rush, Heffron Drive, Mayday Parade, Marianas Trench, Lower than Atlantis, All Time Low, Asking Alexandria, Suicide Silence, Lost Prophets, Falling in Reverse, A Day to Remember, We Are the In Crowd, Bring me the Horizon, Blood on the Dance Floor, Janoskians, Boyle Brothers, Paramore, Ice Nine Kills, 5 Seconds of Summer, While She Sleeps, Motionless in White, Ed Sheeran

Some of those things are not like the others. I know. I also am probably missing some. Regardless, these are the bands that keep coming up on Twitter, and they have devoted fans who will argue about what emo is, and whether they are, and affirm that their lives were saved by these bands.

I am starting to know some of them already. I know two All Time Low songs, and I can recognize Austin, Kellin, Oli, Alex, and Jack at this point. There are a lot of them I feel affection for already, because they have helped people I care about, and so I am going to love them no matter how I feel about their music.

We'll see how it goes. One of the most amazing things recently has been the realization that I actually have a chance of getting questions answered if I ask in the right place. I learned something about that eyeliner just two weeks ago.

I am sure there will be thoughts that make it into writing at some point, but that will take some time. Where we're heading now is somewhere different. You see, the reason that I can start listening to emo is I have finally made it through the comments from that 100 Greatest Guitar Songs list. That means what we have coming up is guitar, guitar, guitar.

Contrary to expectations, My Chemical Romance and Fall Out Boy will be more significant here than in the emo section.