Writings
Pondering Emo (and Music in General) » Tue, Jul 5th 2005 10:58 am
Just so we’re clear, I don’t consider myself the foremost authority on music. I listen to songs from every genre you can list, and then some.
I am—-right now—-listening to a song by a band (who shall remain nameless) who has labelled themselves “emo”. It means “emotional” I think. Here’s a taste of the lyrics:
Life is so meaningless There is nothing worth a smile. Everything is worthless No one here wants me to stay. So here’s my goodbye, No one will cry over me I’m not worth any tears
Firstly, I think the fact that life is meaningless is—-in itself—-worth smiling about. Would you really prefer to lead a life that had some profound meaning? Actually, history’s shown that some people have lived meaningful lives. Jesus, Ghandi, even Hitler. We remember them now and we’ll remember them forever. You sort of have the choice as to whether or not your life has meaning. You’d think a song writer would spend a little more time thinking about these things…
The other lines are just trite, hackneyed phrases. What’s bizarre about this particular song is that the lead singer stops everything to get a little serious on us by reciting the suicide hotline’s phone number. This kind of song seems like it’s trying to remind the listener why they were trying to kill themselves in the first place, so why recite the hotline number? Is it required by law when signing about this topic?
I understand how people can become depressed; feel abandoned, worthless, or neglected. What I can’t understand is how this music makes them feel better? Or does it make them feel worse? I don’t think the band members seem all that sad. I mean, certainly they don’t all sit around crying and writing songs (which by the way, sound great). It was this revelation that got me thinking about the possible business motives of these bands…
You remember Sharon, Lois, and Braham? They were a trio of 30-something-year-olds who wrote and performed songs for preschoolers. Their songs were full of happy imagery and cute animals; the things children enjoy listening to. What they didn’t write about was their raging alcoholism and fierce drug addictions or unhappy marriages (not that they were or had these things, but surely their lives weren’t that great). Emo bands remind me of that. What if an emo song-writer had a really good day? A really good month? Would the band just go under, or would he just cut onions and try to write songs about how his girlfriend of three weeks dumped him? Are they just monopolizing on teenage angst?
The whole concept of music genres kind of bugs me. It’s gotta bug the artists too, I’m sure. They’re restricted to a certain few topics and styles because that’s what their fans are used to hearing. Few bands really mix up their styles, from what I’ve heard. The White Stripes do, I suppose. And they’re pretty popular, if I’m not mistaken. Maybe this is the key?
Emo bands that have achieved any kind of fame must be condescending to their listeners. Could they be that sad with that many fans?
Who knows. I say we do away with specific genres like “emo” and “punk” to relieve the artists of their shackles. Perhaps then we’ll see an explosion of really good bands with really good songs. If a rock star wants to dabble in country, they have to change their name and form a second band.
Bleh. This was pretty unorganized, and I’m sorry. Maybe it’ll spark some kind of debate though.
1 josh on Tue, Jul 5th 2005 2:17 pm
I really question how genuine most of these “emo” artists are. It really does not take much to write lyrics such as the ones Aaron listed.
Twilight comes to pass
I’m alone in my mind
When I come to find
We are lost in the dark
Woo, just made myself a cool million because I’m so disingenuous. These lyrics are not challenging to right because they just take most of the lines from the “emo hand book” for song writing. Words like, “pain”, “blood”, “tear” have become so formulaic you can predict the songs next line without even hearing it before.
I really don’t think these artist are anything different then Marilyn Manson, it’s all just an act. They know that teenagers are stupid and if they play off their most basic emotions they are like lambs. They feel as if they connect to the shallow and accessible lyrics and that they are unique and special because they feel in such an all consuming way. So when Suzy from math class dumps the kids skinny ass no one in the world could possibly understand what its like and that only this song can save him. This kid is 14 what does the girl mean to his life? NOTHING! When he is living with his girlfriend who leaves for milk one morning and never returns, then he has a problem.
2 Jon on Thu, Aug 4th 2005 11:18 pm
Sorry for the late commenting, but I couldn’t agree more on the sentiments expressed. Emo…yeah I really do wonder why we have genres these days. Whatever happened to the days of the Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, Bob Dylan (well…despite the fact half his stuff was folk rock), and so on, when they just wrote good songs, they didn’t keep to a genre but wrote good songs that appealed to everyone, not just a specific group.
Anyway, I couldn’t agree more. I do hope we have a change of musical tastes within the culture soon.
3 Dawn on Mon, Dec 12th 2005 8:44 pm
Hey all,
I completely disagree.. I am 15 and I am emo. Emo kids are the way they are because of the way they were brought up. Most of us have had very bad child hoods. I have.. i grew up poor and used to working very hard.. with just barely enough food on the table to feed the six of us. I now dont even live with my parents I live with my great aunt because every one else in my family is either dead.. or running from the cops. I have a very boring lonely life… and I can relate to a lot of songs because they describe the loneliness and depict a lot of teen angst. I know you arent emo .. and you arent like me so you dont completely understand but if you’d like to chat or have any ? just email me and I’ll keep in touch in here. bye.
I NEVER WANTED YOU TO SEE THE SCREWED UP SIDE THAT I KEEP LOCKED INSIDE OF ME.
4 Holly on Mon, Dec 12th 2005 10:09 pm
Well. You said "What I can’t understand is how this music makes them feel better? Or does it make them feel worse?" I don’t think it’s really a matter of making the listener feel better about themselves…except in the sense that the listener (okay, me) feels like they can identify with the music. I, at least am under the impression that I am not alone in the pain I feel - and as a human being that pain I experience is very real (just like everyone else).
I know some of the more cliche emo songs tend to make things (heartbreak, pressure, sex, ect.) seem almost like trivial matters…but can that really be avoided? That definately happens in every genre, it’s not limited excluively to emo.
And as far as "Does it make them feel worse?" Well, yeah. At times…but i think every person has a tendency to flip on the switch to "self pity mode." But in a way, it’s fairly satisfying.
I, like the kid above me, am an emo kid, because that’s where i just fell into place. I didn’t strive to be emo and i don’t try to make my life more depressing than it is. I was just listening to these bands and was like "Wow. What this guy is saying…that’s totally what I feel right now!" And so I chose to associate myself with it…because it DID give me comfort. I wasn’t alone.
I would also just like to remarl on that Jon guy’s comment of: "Whatever happened to the days of the Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, Bob Dylan (well…despite the fact half his stuff was folk rock), and so on, when they just wrote good songs, they didn’t keep to a genre but wrote good songs that appealed to everyone, not just a specific group." Well, you do realize these people (who are amazing) are the inspiration for half (or more) of todays artists, right? It’s not a novel concept…music builds upon itself - that’s just how it is.
5 Aaron on Mon, Dec 12th 2005 10:14 pm
My point is simply that rather than wallow in self-pity and search desperately for someone or something to relate to, why not try to better the situation? Find something to aspire to.
6 Ryan on Fri, Dec 16th 2005 12:11 am
If I remember correctly it was in High Fidelity that a delightful John Cusack asked "did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?". I don’t think myriad songs about heartbreak, depression, angst, pain, and loss are problems plaguing only emo music. Over fifty years of rock and roll music—in the broadest way anyone would like to classify it—has been built on the suffering of a protagonist that people identify with for the simple reason that it is an ubiquitous sentiment; everyone feels that way at some time. I think the only thing emo can really be guilty of is a severe unauthenticity of this. Just look up to the simple lyrics quoted above. Bands building crops upon crops of songs that are all saying the same thing with remotely different shoestring metaphors and canonically common imagery. Of course poorly written songs are nothing new, emo just seems to be the most blatant proliferator in today’s musical zeitgeist. Of course people identify with depression, but there is an ocean of far better bands writing about it far better than most of today’s emo bands. I know that I’m generalizing here, I’m sure there are plenty of emo bands who don’t write suck: I hear early Deathcab is actually good. But if people want to listen to depressing music because it comforts them, there are lots of bands that I would only classify under the broad term of "rock"—which essentially means just not hip-hop, excessively country, excessively pop, or excessively symphonic—who do it much better. It’s simply about looking.
And for that matter, there are also lots of fantastic bands that are, I may daringly venture, happy. Look around the Elephant 6 record label and you’ll find plenty of fantastic bands that turned the tide from the early nineties grunge depression into a mid-to-late nineties indie rock carnival… and it was a happy carnival.
As for abolishing genres, it’s a noble thought if ever there was. I just frankly impossible. As long as there has been art there have been pretentious pricks eating it up with spoons, and they like to discuss their food as if they actually had some insight into its production. Sure it’s restricting, but in some ways the kind of inventiveness you’re begging for depends entirely upon it. If you want to mix genres, a practise which has created some of the most amazing, sublimely transcendent music of the past 50 years (the Stones and Beatles dabbling in eastern music with sitar, nineties roots rock, I could go on but it would hurt me) then you must have genres to do it. You can’t season a tender, juicy steak if every spice in your spice rack has been poured together into a big barrel.
I suppose my only real point here is that emo isn’t the only genre to write about depression, it’s just been the least inventive. Music (differ with me if you will) can and has been an ebulient, glorious celebration of EVERY inch of the emotional spectrum. There are plenty of amazing bands that write fantastic songs dealing with each and every inch. When a band, and in this case (tragically) an entire genre relegates itself to simply the bluest hues in that spectrum, the best word for it is—quite appropriately—sad.
7 emosexua-x on Fri, Dec 23rd 2005 9:09 am
ok … listen, if you dont like emo, or anything simalar, or think its just a cheap immation of goth or WHAT EVER! we dont need to know! just approcing people who are proud of who they are, and bitching to them about that, will make an already apathetic kid, even more so. so but the fuck out. so what if you dont like it, and think that it shouldnt be taken seriously! not everyone on this planet will agree with you. its morons like you, who just spit abuse in our faces, trying to change us, and saying you dont like the way we dress or think, well unless you know what that feels like, its kind of really depressing!
so you think we arent "normal" aye? define normal! no one is normal!
and you dont like the way we dress either? chances are, we dont like the way you dress. ever think about that? but, do we come up and spit at your feet, look down out noses to you? NO! i didnt fucking think so!
so what im saying is, just because you dont like it, and think it should be "bannish from the earth" or what ever other bullshit opinions in you minds, doesnt mean your right, and emo isnt about to just fade away, because its becoming a way of life for millions…like it or not
8 Emo.Gangsta on Fri, Dec 23rd 2005 9:13 am
too right….i fucking hate it when people just think they are SO much better than you because they are "normal"! and the faults they find in us, are the faults they fing in themselves!
9 Aaron on Fri, Dec 23rd 2005 9:30 pm
Ok, settle down spaz. I’m not even going to humour you by "defending myself" from your accusations of my being somehow prejudice to Emo-listeners.
It sounds to me like you’re both just looking for a fight. I just asked a few questions; I didn’t say I think I’m better, and I didn’t say I was normal. Thank you, though, for the profound revelation that "normal" can’t be defined. And no, I didn’t think that perhaps you don’t like the way I live. I didn’t have to think it. I can tell by the fact that you don’t live the way I live. I don’t much care, either. I just seek to understand why people would choose to listen to such "obvious" lyrics. I’ve been told (since writing the initial post) that it’s because people can relate. That still doesn’t fully explain what they get out of it, but it’s more than "fuck off for judging us".
Read my post again. If you were addressing someone else, then mention their name(s). Otherwise, I’ll assume you were talking to me.
10 Ryan on Sat, Dec 24th 2005 9:24 pm
emosexua-x: "and you dont like the way we dress either? chances are, we dont like the way you dress. ever think about that? but, do we come up and spit at your feet, look down out noses to you? NO! i didnt fucking think so!"
The funniest part is I don’t think anyone even mentioned clothing. But with rhetoric this scathing? My God, I’m almost TOO convinced!
And Emo.Gangsta is right. I fing faults in myself every day, and it tears my heart out.
11 Travis on Thu, Jan 12th 2006 10:12 pm
I must say that most of you have very good points. Ryan has hit the nail on the head and Aaron asked a lot of pertinent questions.
I myself have been asking myself why do i listen to such blatantly depressing and dare I say unoriginal music, if I am not depressed?
I have the answer (i think), We listen to the music our peers listen to. We are affected by what our friends do, say, and think.
Most of my friends are "Emo" to some degree but why am I?
Dawn put it best "Emo kids are the way they are because of the way they were brought up. Most of us have had very bad child hoods." I know i have, my mother was extremely abusive and then left, my brother is in and out of rehab, and my sister is now pregnant at 14.
but i am not so scared to where I am manically depressed. BUT all my friends listen to Emo (which by the way is short for EMOtive not emotional because all music is emotional).
I also have to wonder, many of these bands tend to go on and on about their originality, but with an open minded listen, they are very much like many other bands.
And their fans go on about their favorite band being original but again they are simply not so.
Aaron asked a good question, "Are they just monopolizing on teenage angst?"
I have a feeling that is exactly what many of them are doing and that is why many are so unoriginal. One band saw that singing about THIS makes kids feel THIS WAY and then a bunch of other bands hop on the band wagon (no pun intended). this has been happening forever. When the Beatles came out, many other bands went to the recording studio simply to emulate their sound. But because of that we had the British Invasion. GOOD MUSIC.
The same thing happened with Nirvana, Kurt created grunge music.
And besides the fact that grunge is known for not having very talented guitarists and Emo generally has decent guitars, what’s the difference between the two? lyrically speaking they’re the same genre.
I am 17 and i play the bass guitar in a band. and you might say were Emo, but if it weren’t for the fad we would be rock and roll.
Theirs a lot of great bands that are ignored and put in the emo umbrella simply because it’s THE fad. Bands like Coheed and Cambria and 3.
Its people like emosexau-x that give people like them bad names, [s]he is incredible intolerant, ignorant, and unintelligent.
"ok … listen, if you dont like emo, or anything simalar[sic], or think its just a cheap immation[sic] of goth or WHAT EVER[sic]! we dont need to know! just approcing[sic] people who are proud of who they are, and bitching to them about that, will make an already apathetic kid, even more so. so but the fuck out."
Many of my friends who are Emo are some of the most intelligent people I know. I/we are not hate mongers like this person. It is a well known fact that the Emo population in southern California is homosexual, so to say that I/we are intolerant would be a misconception.
I realize this was longer than I thought it would be and it is unorganized but I wanted to participate and don’t have much time.
Travis
12 Dawn on Sat, Jan 14th 2006 10:52 pm
Thank you for being so kind travis.. i totally agree… i find nothing wrong with emos seeing as my situation and my make a very blatent point.