 |
 |
| Emo icons Fall Out Boy (above) and Stephenie Meyer's vampire chronicles Twilight (below). Photographs © Fall Out Boy / Summit Entertainment |
| "...peel behind the make-up, skinny jeans and lamppost alluring fringes and there lies some often poetic, catchy stuff." |
Words by Simon Varcoe Emo, that most lambasted and ridiculed of rock music sub-genres, has drawn national and international criticism since its inception more than two decades ago. An article posted on the Daily Mail website in August 2006 described it as a dangerous teenage cult, recklessly leading its members to self-harm and even suicide. Yet it appears that Emo has more to fear than a few fear-mongering and hyperbolic letters from a forgotten generation. Last year, a video was aired on Mexican television showing a large crowd of people physically assaulting three apparently Emo teenagers. The attackers were reported to be followers of other, some might say similar rock genres such as punk and metal. Other similar attacks on Emos are not uncommon. But what is this music and lifestyle that has sparked such physical and verbal outcry not seen since the clashes between mods and rockers in the 1960s? Emo, short for emotional hardcore, originated from punk, adopting aspects of hardcore, metal, goth and even pop along the way. Its high level of emotional outpourings earned it its title though few bands classified as such hold much stead in the name. Lost loves, broken hearts and misunderstanding parents are all covered by a variety of bands with such names as Rites of Spring and Jimmy Eat World, two of the founding fathers of the genre, Brand New, Taking Back Sunday and more recently Fall Out Boy and My Chemical Romance. While some of the music pedalled by these bands has rightfully drawn criticism for being melodramatic and immature, there is as much merit to be found in Emo as any other kind of music. Brand New for instance produced a critically acclaimed album with 2006's The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me (a heavyweight Emo title for an album if ever there was one). The album, the name of which resulted from a conversation between lead singer Jesse Lacy and a schizophrenic friend, is full of crashing guitars, hook-laden riffs and genuinely creative lyrics, commenting on love, beauty, anger and even religion. It even quotes Rudyard Kipling's poem 'If' in the opening track Sowing Season: Is it in you now/ To bear to hear the truth that you have spoken?/ Twisted up by knaves /To make a trap for fools. To doubters, Emo merely serves as training wheels for teenagers not yet ready to branch into other more established tastes, yet peel behind the make-up, skinny jeans and lamppost alluring fringes and there lies some often poetic, catchy stuff. Perhaps Emo doesn't have the same level of Byronic darkness inherent in goth music, nor the androgynous fashion trend setting of the new romantic movement.
But while Pop may eat itself and Rock and Roll is dead (according to Lenny Kravitz), Emo looks set to continue ruffling the feathers of the Daily Mail for some time to come.
Simon Varcoe is usually a business journalist but harbours ambitions of some-day becoming a music reviewer or cultural commentator.
|
The Noughties youth have a lot more on their conscience than previous generations in the 80s and 90s. Climate change and human right issues were reported to be a few of their main concerns. In 2008, MTV’s social responsibility website, Think, described themselves as “the generation who is doing something about it”.
The Emo movement is not unlike the movement started by the Romantics in the 18th century, which expressed “strong emotion as a source of aesthetic experience, placing new emphasis on such emotions as trepidation, horror and awe.”
Just think of Baudelaire, Beethoven and Shelley on Myspace.
- The Editor |
|
