The Song Fight Bulletin Board

It pains me to look at what internet youth culture has created. It has created a world where a bisexual cross-dressing goth who listens to techno and takes photos of his "mohawk-for-a-day" is "Emo".

"Emo" is a genre of music! Not a fake lifestyle...

The saddest part is that 99% of the time, these kids on MySpace, LiveJournal and Xanga don't even live the lifestyle they portray themselves as having. When you go outside you don't see 2,000,000,000 kids wearing only black and loads of makeup on your doorstep.

How did this happen? I don't get it. I remember a time when "Emo" was a genre of music. I remember a time when "Emo" bands didn't look like a bunch of cross-dressers.

And I can't stand the fact that the people responcible for dystroying my definition of "Emo" are the major clothing and media corporations.

And even the music is being mislabeled. "Emo" music used to be about coming up with a song that talked about the way you felt inside, usually very directly and to-the-point. Not about "stabbing closed eyes with open scissors" or "stabbing my knife with your heart" or "stabbing stabby stab gory stab".

I still appreciate what I used to call "Emo". I do not appreciate what everybody else is calling "Emo".

It pisses me off.

Does Moore's Law apply to the lifecycle of "Popular Music"?

note the quotes, re: popular

I declare you to be the Official Young Coot of Songfight. Now get the hell off my lawn, ya whippersnapper!

I mean, Rites of Spring will be rad no matter what some fuckwit with a eyeliner and an acoustic guitar says is good music. It's no biggie.

I remember my cousin telling me about emo back when I was in highschool. She has spent a lot of time in D.C., and had a college radio show for a while that played a lot of the stuff. I distinctly remember her synopsizing the evolution of the genre, from Minor Threat to Weezer to the then-brand-new emo band Saves the Day. At the time I couldn't give a rats ass about music, so I promptly forgot all about it.

Years pass.

Suddenly 'emo' is on everyone's tongues, typically spat with snide derision and a helping of homophobia. It took me forever to figure out what happened: when did this term go from meaning "punk - speed - politics + melody + emotion" to meaning "goth - self aware campiness + unintentional campiness"? Who the hell is My Chemical Romance (Great name BTW)? What the fuck is MySpace? Did Ian MacKaye foresee all this, and that's why he looks so glum on that one album cover?

I hope in another 5 years 'emo' will refer to bands that play only Ensemble-Improvisational-Xylophone. Fuck it: starting today I will use the two terms interchangeably. This should confuse... well, most people, I suppose.

Puce wrote:Did Ian MacKaye foresee all this, and that's why he looks so glum on that one album cover?

The only thing better than that pic of Ian is the album itself. Brilliant.

But I wouldn't worry too much about what's become of Emo for two reasons. One, nothing you can do about it. Two, nothing makes you older than when you start complaining about the music the kids are making.

I think I should now officially declare myself an "old fart"

I really have no idea what "Emo" means. I have never heard the term before I saw it on these boards.

Now people seem to be nostalgic for it!

(I wonder if I'm 'Emo'? I hope not - it sounds a bit poofy).

I remember when emo was still being called 'shoe gazer'.

then it got a little bit heavier and emo was born.

I thought emo made a deadly coleslaw.

I think I was Emo years ago, way before I ever heard the term. But I may be wrong. I wrote songs about feeling all "nobody loves me, especially that awesome girl" and "why don't I fit into even my own scene". Is that emo? These new descriptions confuse me. I can't track trends and socially-defined psychosis as fast as they move.

Octothorpe is emo in another dimension.

roymond wrote:I think I was Emo years ago, way before I ever heard the term. But I may be wrong. I wrote songs about feeling all "nobody loves me, especially that awesome girl" and "why don't I fit into even my own scene". Is that emo? These new descriptions confuse me. I can't track trends and socially-defined psychosis as fast as they move.

If college kids could either cry, sing-along or both to the songs, you're emo.

Southwest_Statistic wrote: And even the music is being mislabeled. "Emo" music used to be about coming up with a song that talked about the way you felt inside, usually very directly and to-the-point.

That's hardly a genre-specific feature, yet it seems to be what I hear emo described as more often than not. If you just wanted to hear a song that talked about emotions in a to-the-point manner, you could pop in a Patsy Cline CD. What sets emo apart from anyone else singing about their feelings?

jute gyte wrote:If you just wanted to hear a song that talked about emotions in a to-the-point manner, you could pop in a Patsy Cline CD. What sets emo apart from anyone else singing about their feelings?

Isn't emo essentially unapologetically selfish? Patsy Cline is just raw, honest emotion, more simply universal than selfish.

Wasn't Yook our official emo rep? Or was it Ken?

jute gyte wrote:

Southwest_Statistic wrote: And even the music is being mislabeled. "Emo" music used to be about coming up with a song that talked about the way you felt inside, usually very directly and to-the-point.

That's hardly a genre-specific feature, yet it seems to be what I hear emo described as more often than not. If you just wanted to hear a song that talked about emotions in a to-the-point manner, you could pop in a Patsy Cline CD. What sets emo apart from anyone else singing about their feelings?

Sorry. This section should have been worded:

"And even the music is being mislabeled. "Emo" music used to be about coming up with a song that talked about warmth you feel inside, within a punk-rock atmosphere with lots of loud/soft musical interation creating "hard" parts and "twinkly" parts. The genre is characterized by lots of catchy, poppy guitar riffs, happiness or at least melancholy, and a particular fascination with off-key, cutesy boy vocals."

I forgot to add that last part because in my mind "Emo" being a subgenre to "Punk" is an automatic connection. And I forgot to add the word "warm" because in my mind nondescript emotions are positive ones (don't ask).

Caravan Ray wrote:I think I should now officially declare myself an "old fart"

I really have no idea what "Emo" means. I have never heard the term before I saw it on these boards.

Now people seem to be nostalgic for it!

(I wonder if I'm 'Emo'? I hope not - it sounds a bit poofy).

Don't feel bad. You country has it's own fads we wouldnt know about I'm sure. Like, the one where men like to wear Thongs...

Southwest_Statistic wrote: Like, the one where men like to wear Thongs...

Yes - but only during the day. It's usually unacceptable to wear them into clubs, pubs or restaurants after 6pm.

Caravan Ray wrote:I really have no idea what "Emo" means. I have never heard the term before I saw it on these boards.

This might be a good time to mention my friend Andy's What is Emo? website: http://www.fourfa.com/

Ken

This looks cool...

http://www.dailycandy.com/article.jsp?A ... 78&city=11

Tickle me Emo indeed!

Southwest_Statistic wrote:[ "Emo" music used to be about coming up with a song that talked about warmth you feel inside, within a punk-rock atmosphere with lots of loud/soft musical interation creating "hard" parts and "twinkly" parts.

Here's the point where I think you shouldn't worry about what the kids are doing to the music you like. As far as the punk I listened to in high school, emo has pretty much nothing to do with punk. I hear Dashboard Confessional (who I can dig) and I think, yikes, this is the kind of stuff that is passing off as punk these days? Shit, what have the kids done to the music I've loved for 20 years? But bitching about it only makes me older.

Because if I blew up everytime someone used an oxymoronic term like pop-punk, I'd be dead right now.

Southwest_Statistic wrote:It pisses me off.

Put up or shut up. If you think that other people don't know what emo is, then you have to name like 5 emo bands. I'll bet dollars to donuts that someone is going to laugh at what <i>you</i> think emo is.

smalltown mike wrote:Because if I blew up everytime someone used an oxymoronic term like pop-punk, I'd be dead right now.

Pop-punk isn't an oxymoron, it's just an overused and incorrectly applied phrase.

hey, didn't we have some big drawn out dumb argument about what is emo once on dumbrella?

deja vu.