Emo

To borrow the vernacular of the venerable Alan Walden:

I've been pondering emo.

It's not easy pondering. Even more, I'm pondering the strange near-obsession with emo that one finds in so much of the punk/metal/hXc scenes in cities all across the nation, and even the world.

Now, to ponder emo, one must first understand just what emo is. I don't. The whole thing is as clear as Alabama mud to me. Those who hate it tell me it's nothing more than a fashion scene. These people usually come from those camps listed in the last paragraph, which of course are extremely fashion-centric in and of themselves. Think I'm wrong? Then how come you never see kids at Dying Fetus shows wearing Sarah Maclachlan shirts? It's just a shirt, right? Metal's not about what you wear, right? You get the idea. All in all though, I'd say they're right about it being a fashion scene. Like its contemporaries, emo is yet another fashion scene to spring from a genre of music.

The question then becomes, what music? This is where it gets tricky, but I think I've got it narrowed down to three possible answers:

1) Music of a depressing or melancholy tone, played on basic rock & roll instruments, simple in structure, uncomplicated in technique, and charachterized by unaggressive whiney vocals or unintelligible screams/growls delivered by a twenty-something white male. Lyrical content tends to be melodramatic, often to the point of annoying sappiness.

2) Music of any genre or style delivered by any band whose members wear black clothing, eyeliner, and strange haircuts that usually cover most or all of the face.

3) Any music of any genre delivered by anybody who any particular punk, metal or hXc kid doesn't like.

Number 1 seems unlikely. I remember the emo movement of the late eighties and early nineties, charachterized by the likes of Rites of Spring, Husker Du and others who melded punk and pop into ungodly abominations. It fit that bill fairly well. That breed of emo is most certainly dead, even more so than punk.

Number 2 is the most accurate as far as I can tell. Go to any emo based forum page or MySpace group, and you'll find lot's of threads on the various facets of the emo fashion scene (which apparently includes ritual homosex for the amusement of others), and plenty of kids telling you all the bands that emo is not, but little on what emo actually is. There doesn't seem to be much consistency among bands who refer to themselves as emo either. Some sound like punk, some sound like really weak hXc. But nothing I've heard so far in any way stands out so much as to warrant distinguishing it with it's own label of genre. The only constant, among both bands and fans, seems to be the look.

Number 3 is obviously rhetorical. Punk, metal and hXc kids have traditionally wrapped way too much of their identities up in the music they listen to and the fashions that come with the scenes. It's almost tribalistic. And of course those who adhere themselves to a Group (which we all do) have to have an Enemy. Emo seems to fill this void well. I just don't really know why. Nobody else I've talked to seems to either. It's kind of like how Vanilla Ice is the most hated musician of all time, but nobody's ever really given any thought as to why they hate him so much. They just do.

I'll grant that his music sucks, and I'll grant that every self described emo band I've ever heard sucks. But I can't understand how this in and of itself is cause for so much animosity. In my not-so-humble opinion, the aforementioned Dying Fetus sucks. I never could stand their so-called music, which sounds to me more like a simple collection of pointless noise completely lacking in originality/catchiness and topped off with vocals that might as well be performed by the Cookie Monster, just like every single other death metal band in existence. Not only is this my opinion of their music, they know it is, or at least did once upon a time. They're from the same area as I am, and work in the same scene. We have a few friends in common, and periodically wind up in the same room. I've had discussions about music with Sean and Vinny (who I believe has since left the band), and theese conversations have been perfectly civil and even pleasent, despite my low opinion of their music. In fact, they've put me on the guest list each time I've seen them on stage (admittedly few), and back when I ran live shows for a club in Baltimore, most of which were metal shows, their members were always guests at my shows when they came out. I don't know if any of them have heard my current band, but I'll bet they wouldn't like it much. So what? There's no call for bad blood or death threats over it. It's no big deal.

So you can see why I'm slightly confused by the venom and vitriol aimed at emo bands and fans (and to a lesser extent, back from them). One doesn't see this between metalheads and country fans, or between hXc kids and hip-hoppers (in fact, the hXc kids seem more than happy to poorly mimic the whole hip-hop ghetto "street" scene these days), so what's the deal with emo? If emo fans were going to metal shows with five gallon bags of sugar and distributing it int peoples' gas tanks, I might understand the rather pointed dislike. But just because they make crappy music and look like fags?

And there again, it comes back to the look. The look is the only real defining characteristic of emo, and seems to be the focus of almost all dislike of it. It doesn't even matter if a band actually is emo or not: just "looking" emo is enough. For instance, there was a band out of PG county MD, who I believe has packed up and set sail for LA, called Summer's End. Great musicians, and one of my favorite metal bands. Their music style is a sort of Iron Maiden meets Fear Factory sound, with zombie movie lyrics, ala The Misfits. Now, to look at one of their more recent band photos almost provokes laughter: black button down shirts, eyeliner and yes, those stupid I-can't-make-a-devilock-that-works haircuts. Back here on the east coast, I've heard them bashed by former colleagues and fans as having "gone emo." How do you figure? Yes, they look like queers, at least in the photo I'm speaking of, but the music remains as it's always been. Isn't it the music that determines a band's genre? If not, when did it change? Why wasn't I informed?

But actually, it almost makes sense, at least to the extent that basic human behavior ever does. People by nature want to divide themselves into groups and fight. A quick look at politics, religion, and humanity's war-riddled history confirms this quickly. The easiest fault line along which to divide and classify ourselves is how we look. In the case of conflicting music scenes, it's a very basic and immature tendency that does not surprise me in high-school age children. It does, however, creep me out a bit coming from grown men who should be above the playground games of boyhood.