This part of my Post is about music:
See, I am gonna come clean and say that a lot of the band you guys are talking about is TOTALLY news to me. I have spent the last five years Damn damn sure that I knew what emo was, that the Promise Ring was the best band ever, and that Emo started in the mid-Nineties. My mind isn't just blown, it got blown, came, fell asleep, woke up next to all this new music, and blogged about it. I basically just downloaded every band A pack of Wolves has posted about in his last 15 posts, and and pretty pleased with all the results. I am thrilled that my favorite kind of music isn't as hollow as I'd always secretly feared. There is a really cool book out about Emo it's called Everybody Cries. It's all about what and what isn't Emo, and lists all of the subtypes of Emo. It's pretty cool.
The truth is that I'm pretty young, and I grew up in Upstate NY (Kingston, New Paltz Area) and so my musical library was limited to whatever my friends had. I absolutely Fell in love with emo (As it was portrayed then by Taking Back Sunday, Thursday, and Yellowcard's good album) but had no idea it had started as a different kind of music from the 80's. I mean, I can totally see the resemblance between Moss Icon and Thursday (I listened to their albums back to back and was really surprised actually). It's been said before but I'm fairly certain that the very idea of Genre is awfully executed. Terms like Emo and Indie Rock are just too all encompassing, and doesn't the term "Indie Rock" comepletely defeat the purpose of not sounding like other bands.
Record Exec: "We need a way to organize all these hippies with plaid shirts and weird names into one wholly ironic caste system that literally strips them of every individualistic viewpoint and, if at all possible, is more expensive to the consumer that absolutely necessary."
If I may pose the thread a question: What is it about Emo that gets you? That pulls you in?
Personally, with my primary exposure to Emo being Taking Back Sunday, Thursday, Yellowcard, MCR, etc. (My first CD ever was Weezer's Blue Album, because my dad and Rivers Cuomo were friends and Rivers gave me a signed copy when I was little), I was basically totally enthralled that people out there (in the World) felt as shitty as I did. I was overweight, undertall, absolutely TERRIFIED of girls, and lacking in basically every form of applicable confidence known to man, but when I had my headphones, my CD player was full of songs about getting over the bullshit, or being really angry and yelling about it, or songs about *Gasp* suicide!! oooooh!! As I matured into the social Monarch butterfly I am and realized girls were actually not scary, but exactly as cool as boys but with key differences, the music began to hold much more sign significance, because now the majority of the songs on all my emo albums were about dealing with the Inevitable tsunami of teen-drama/horse shit that people deal with in high school in there relationships, and knowing that there were tons of people out there, who'd been hurt real bad, but had survived and not only that, but gone on to turn their pain and experience into a beautiful song. Weezer's "The World has Turned" was my number one breakup song of all time until i got married, hopefully I won't ever need another break up song again =)
This part of my post is 2cents on the MCR/Queen/Attacking hipsters debacle. If this does not interest you, please skip to the next post =):
There is an awful lot of back and forth about a lot of non discussiony Jank, primarily about attacking hipsters. I'm not, nor have I, nor will I ever, attack hipsters for liking or disliking music, and doing so pre-emptively can only lead to some seriously cold posts in the future. Again, Even if they don't listen to Mogwai and beat it to their heavy riff centric stoner rock tones, they might still hate bands like MCR which is marketed heavily to 14 year olds (Who interestingly enough are the kids most likely to identify with any of the lyrics on their first or 2nd album). All i'm gonna say is "If you have never actually taken the time to sit down and investigate a band yourself, then just don't talk about them." As an avid fan, I am pleased that MCR still gets hell of publicity, because hopefully that means more tours, and regardless of whatever criticisms anyone has about MCR, they put on fucking jaw droppingly awesome live shows.
As for comparing them to Queen, anyone who follows MCR can tell you the band is extremely respectful of the band and they all grew up listening to that glam rock that they are trying so heavily to bring back into the limelight. and Jesus, if you took all the cash that MCR and P!ATD last tours made, it would seem that big overly flashy over produced rock shows are back in full swing. I do not think this is a bad thing.
