I only brought up Kurt Cobain because Avril compared herself to him once and then said she didn’t know who Nirvana was. Which is in a sense shaming him.
Even if he is a mainstream icon. But even so, Kurt never wished it upon himself, Nirvana happened to be the Cool thing at the time. By no means is Nirvana my favorite band, though. They were decent, but I’ve heard people say Nirvana was ahead of their time…and that I disagree with.
My theory on how Nirvana became popular was actually about the time MTV stopped being cool. Kurt(and other people in the Seattle music scene) made up a bunch of words to describe Nirvana’s(as well as other bands) music during their rise to popularity, and the corporations and the record companies ate it up. And spawned the generalization terms such as Alt-rock, grunge and post punk. As well as millions of idiots buying “Grunge” flannels and longjohns at ridiculous prices while the fashion designers cashed in on the idea of grunge. And Round One of the poisoning of minds by MTV and the fashion industry goes to the big money powers.
Sid Vicious, on the other hand was known more for his relationship with Nancy Spungen and the downfall of that than he ever was for his lack of music ability. And then the supposed murder/suicide thing. That brought Sid Vicious into the public eye. I didn’t say Avril Lavigne sucks because of being mainstream, I said she sucks because she doesn’t write her own songs, is a poseur, a hypocrite and a fake who doesn’t even respect her fans. But who am I to say anyone is a hypocrite. In a small way, everybody is. Just not everybody realizes it.
I heard some pretty good emo today… I must say I was surprised.
You’re not supposed to be posting, bitch.
Well, I was still on the genre thing as a whole. I was trying to get people to try to argue what they defined Violent Femmes as. I personally have a very hard time defining their genre as a whole, but some songs do lean towards certain flavors of music (I’d even say a dash of real emo (not meida “emo”) in there).
My hope was that people would argue what type of music the Femmes were, and then I was going to say “But how different are these definitions? Aren’t we all able to understand each other at least on a basic level and therefor, isn’t there validity to some measure of genre description?”
My hope was, of course, in vain.
‘Emo’ is a label applied to music that previously fit no label. From the late eighties to the mid nineties bands were branching out and mixing styles of rock to create different sounds. The creation of what would be ‘Emo’ is credited to Fugazi, who changed their sound and started experimenting with more melodic punk. The term itself was first applied to the band Rites of Spring.
At this point the diversity of the bands considered ‘Emo’ is nonsensical. It fits no specific type of music other than something that doesn’t sound like mainstream but also is clearly not some other genre of music, like perhaps Techno or Metal. Christie Front Drive, my favorite band, is considered one of the forefathers of Emo. Yet they sound quite different from Boy’s Life, Mineral, the Gloria Record, or Rainer Maria, all bands also called Emo. Indie Rock bands seem to change labels from day to day, one critic calls Built to Spill emo, the next classifies them as low-fi Indie rock. Dashboard Confessional is considered a complete emo band, when to be more specific Dashboard is acoustic folk pop.
The style of Emo is just as vague and as often applied to anything Indie as the music, and hell even Indie doesn’t mean independent anymore. I have hair in my eyes but that’s because I had a buzzcut for most of my life and got sick of it, and I wear glasses but that’s because I can’t see for shit. I don’t think I even own a sweater. Am I a prototypical emo posterboy?
I think the conclusion we can come to is that Emo doesn’t exist. People who are Emo don’t know what the hell Emo is. Emo is a poorly defined label applied to any kind of music that seems guitar centric and serious that’s not obviously another kind of rock. That covers a very broad territory, far too large to make sense. I get the feeling if Nirvana came out in the present day they’d get slapped with the Emo label along with Pearl Jam and Soundgarden. So just ignore it and and maybe soon they’ll think of names for all this stuff.
Rock slowly evolved into metal, which slowly evolved into different categorizations. Rap…well, hasn’t had a lot of evolution. Saying that corporate-owned groups such as The Rasmus do the same shit as Sam Roberts (for example) is pretty much differenciating tomatoes and apples. Sure they’re both fruits, but they’re pretty different except for their color, which is red or green.
I guess it’s the same as differenciating Busdriver from Lloyd Banks (for example, I don’t even know anything by both these men except the track that was in THUG, which was absolute kick ass).
Alt-Rock sucks, by the way. A lot of the shit that sells sells because it’s the same as the other guy. Anyone attempting anything different will be snubbed by labels. Hell, it’s the same in poetry, actually. You need to write twee goth shit to be published professionally.
EDITed for clarity, and being completely pwned.
Fuck that one unnamed critic, Built To Spill kicks too much ass to be considered emo.
By the way, I’m still clueless as to what the hell Post-Punk is supposed to mean. Alternative is a little clearer, but Post-Punk really doesn’t mean much.
And I think that genres still have some importance, at least when people are asking you what kind of music you like. When it gets technical, that’s when it isn’t that important anymore. And if you listen to a variety of bands, when someone asks you what kind of music you listen to, just say ‘Lots.’
Post-Punk started in the late 70s after the initial punk movement. It was basically punk music that borrowed elements from experimental and art rock bands. Some bands include Joy Division, Wire, The Fall, Sonic Youth, and a whole bunch of other bands associated with those ones. I hope that cleared it up for you a little.
EDIT: Built to Spill does kick a ton of ass.
Fall = Awesome. Joy Division = Best early techno. Wire = Short, sweet, to the point.
Sonic Youth = Crazy guitar tunings.
Anyways, yeah Emo was basically started by Fugazi and Rites of Spring. However, it could also be said that Minor Threat was the basic blueprint for Emo. Many of the Dischord bands fell in line with the Emo trend. If anything could be said of the original Emo bands, it’s that there was a great deal of emotion in their songwritting. But, that could really be said of many bands.
Edit:This might clear things up, though some people might disagree with the definition
Thanks for the artical on REAL EMO. Those bands can actually be called musicians. I’m glad that you decided to share that with us all, rather than just rant about how poseurs suck.
As for poseurs sucking, I feel that most bands that are dubbed emo these days are actaully crap, and not emo.
Case in point of what has gone wrong:
Back when Jimmy Eat World was first becoming known (think Clarity, not self-titled), I was a pathetic individual, who used AOL chatrooms. Countless people would rant about how they hate emo (in fake 'emo"s first assault on decent music). Then they would say, “I love Jimmy Eat World. They aren’t emo.”
On a similar note: I hate punk rock! Its all a bunch of whiny bitches who think they have problems and/or feel the need to sing sappy like-sings (not lovesongs). I can’t stand punk, or the people who listen to it. Man, I love NOFX and Rancid. They are SO not punk, so shut up.
Yes, that was actually quite an excellent article. Notice all of the band listed there are Emo bands, yet the sounds contained even within that short list differ wildly. I think a lot of them fell into the Emo label simply by experimenting with new sounds. Christie Front Drive for example almost never used a classic song structure, many of their songs appear to be nothing but bridge, and in many of them lyrics are never repeated. The lyrics are also set very low on the mix, often becoming more ambient than the center of the song. It’s these kinds of bands on the list that defy description and can seemingly fall into the indie rock or emo category depending on who reviews them first. The genre as a whole is defined by very blurry lines.
[QUOTE=Amerycinsycho]Joy Division = Best early technoQUOTE]
I fail to see how anyone can see Joy Division as techno. o_O
They’re one of my favorite bands, and they spawned one of my other favorite bands (New Order) as well.
I meant as a precursor to techno. I guess I should have clarified a bit better. She’s Lost Control has early club elements to it. Much like New Order. Blue Monday has those elements. But then again I guess it’s all a matter of opinion.