Emo seems to have been around for a while, I mean Bullet for my Valentine, My Chemical Romance, Lost Prophets and all those other crappy pseudo-metal/pseudo-pun bands that appeal to whining teenagers and students whose parents won’t buy them a pony. I don’t get it. Hopefully, it’s because it is in fact, just another stupid teen genre created by record labels and not the fact that I’m getting old and have seen countless NME-labelled musical sub-genres over the years that have lasted barely long enough for the t-shirt to fade.
I think it’s getting harder and harder to rebel as teenagers because everything has been done before. Over the years, kids have taken harder and harder drugs, watched more and more violent movies and listend to increasingly offensive lyrics backed by ever louder and more cacophonic music. Teenagers these days are the children of people my age who have done all of this already. Parents in their thirties these days are more liberal and open than ever, what chance do the kids have of offending their parents. Eyeliner, stupid hair and a t-shirt with swear words on is a bit old hat but they think they’re the first generation to do it. I’m sure I thought I was rebellious when I was that age too. I was. But so were people of my parents generation. Led Zeppelin, The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, The Who – none of whom were classed as conformist or ‘safe’ by my Grandfathers generation, and to a certain extent, they still are pretty underground bands that you can hear played at alternative nights across the country.
Emo is a movement populated by a misunderstood generation. Wrong. Teenagers have never been understood better. High street shops sell clothes marketed in an emo style, Apple do emo-styled ads for iPods, every major record lable has a four piece guitar band with piercings, sleeve tattoos, skinny jeans and stripy t-shirts. No such thing as indie anymore.
It probably is because I’m getting old. I don’t like the bands. They’re too manufactured, over-produced and in-your-face marketed. Their whole lifestyle is projected at you on the point of million dollar marketing campaigns. The companies behind which know their demographic to the inch because they’ve thrown even more money at image consultants, market researchers and clever merchandisers. This is not a dynamic, spontaneous youth movement, it’s carefully constructed and executed with meticulous, painstaking care by corporations in it solely for the money.
Having said all that, the main reason I dislike emo is because of the stupid haircuts and the shit music..
Just in case you like ’emo’, here’s some links. If you don’t like ’emo’ go along and laugh.