I've Figured Out What Emo Really Is And Why I Hate It So
Yeah, you heard me. I figured it out. It's not
"emotional punk." That's stupid. All music has emotion, and punk is no
exception. Here's what Emo really is. Emo is a cross between two genres of
music: 80s Metal and Punk.
80s Metal sucked. The hair looked ridiculous. The screeching overly emotional
vocals were unnecessary. The songs had to be about rock-approved topics or could
never work. It had one redeeming quality. The musicians were often virtuosic,
and by this alone could sometimes put on a great show.
Punk also mostly sucked. The musicians *couldn't* play their instruments, the
singers couldn't sing, and half the songs were about nothing. It was redeemed
though by the songs that were about something, and by the fact that people
related to it (probably because it required no musical training, and so its
emotion was pure and understandable).
Then some people started labeling their music emotional punk, because they
sucked just like punk bands except with a different type of bad singing. They
could at least sort of play their instruments, and poured emotion into the songs
to make up for what was missing elsewhere. They just dropped the tough facade
and pretended they could sing. They were essentially a crappy cross of the two
styles which sucked. They took the virtuosity out of the 80s metal but kept the
whiny and screeching vocals. Then they added the simple crappy instrumentation
from punk. The formula:
Bad Whining Voices + Mediocre Accompaniment = Emo
It was closer to punk than to anything else,
so they called it that, or a kind of it. They still couldn't sing, but now they
acted like they had a right to...Nice work, really.
And hey, don't get me wrong. I will never utter a word against Sunny Day Real
Estate or a handful of others. That said, 90-something percent of what gets
called Emo sucks arse.
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