GutterPutter

This is the first amongst the series of blog posts that revolves around covering the history of the genre, the reputation that it has garnered & the direction that it might take in the future. The title of the series isn’t exactly the best but it’s as close to the premise as I can possibly get. The genre that I wanted to explore is that of Emo – divisive for mixing teen angst with the energetic, harsh cacophony of rock music. That’s initially the definition we have around the genre at first, but I wanted to first go into the history to see how we get to that point.

PART 1 – Post-Hardcore Roots (Emocore)

The genre find its roots in the artsy post-hardcore scene back in the mid 80s when many bands like Gray Matter, Marginal Man & most notably, Rites of Spring have been founded with a distinct direction in their music. Rather than just sticking with the ferocity of hardcore punk, the band starts to branch out to look into incorporating melody, leading to lyrics that were sung more than screamed & more technical guitar riffs that sticks out well among its contemporaries. The most notable feature however is that of its lyricism. While so many of the bands then stick with the usual punk tropes of anti-authoritarianism, liberty & shock value, the bands takes their work into a more personal & intimate realm with themes such as heartbreak, nostalgia & angst. Rites of Spring, with Guy Picciotto as their main singer-songwriter, lead the then-unnamed movement with ease thanks to their self-titled debut that’s released in 1985 with positive reviews & thus cements them as being big favourites within the DC scene where much of the post-hardcore bands are located in. Tracks like ‘For Want Of’, ‘End on End’ & ‘Spring’ ends up becoming classics within fans of the genre as it contains several exemplary points within the band’s performance wherever it be the anguished singing of Guy Picciotto, the emotional lyrics (‘Caught in time so far away/ From where our hearts really wanted to be/ Reaching out to find a way/ To get back to where we’d been’, from ‘Spring’) or the melodic, intertwined guitar lines.

However popular the band or the genre was, the name itself hasn’t swing by in popularity at least within the pioneers themselves. Whoever have the curiosity to check the band out then would see it as being melodic post-hardcore, but an anecdotal tale from acclaimed figure of hardcore punk Ian Mackayle said that he first sees the word ’emocore’ in an article by the Thrasher magazine & despite calling it “the stupidest f**king thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life.’, it caught on in the press & had since then lead to the creation of the whole genre of Emo. But why did that name stick out to so many people, when other terms for different genres would otherwise fade out or become virtually synonymous? My assumption would be on how much of the lyrical contents within the genre coincide with both the more explicit representation of youth culture with films like ‘The Breakfast Club’ & the generation of literary figures who admits of being influenced by the bleak autobiographical contents of Confessionalism. While the genre itself doesn’t explode in meteoric popularity until the early 90s, the relative young age of the bands & the popularity of adolescencehood tropes with heartbreak & personal struggle makes labeling the genre as being ’emocore’ come off as being tempting. After all, someone would want to get the credit of such naming even if many would eventually despise it.

Part 2 – Midwest Scene & the Alternative Takeover

While the emo scene continues to bubble under the D.C post-hardcore scene, it’s until the early 1990s when the scene starts to garner a sort of metamorphosis away from its initial punk roots in favour of the influences from the contemporary grunge & alt-rock. The gradual shift from the synth-driven New Wave to the melancholia & introspection of acts like The Smiths or Nirvana helps to broaden the scope of the genre to achieve a serious commercial high & such signs could come as close as Diary by Sunny Day Real Estate. The musical direction of the album with combining the viscerality of post-hardcore with the unconventionality & expression of the then-growing indie rock leads to the birth of Midwest Emo – with its twinkly guitar tunes, energetic performance that goes beyond the mere primal fury of punk & youthful singing vocals, the band have made themselves a mark on the underground scene. Thus, Midwest Emo is accepted by many then to be emotive lyrics sung in alt-rock format which sticks especially with the likes of Mineral, Jawbreakers & Jimmy Eat World who added their own take into the genre. Mineral with their post-rock expertise while Jawbreakers & Jimmy Eat World have both mixed in the feeling of angst with the pop-punk sounds from Green Day.

There is however one big turning point in the genre that, while it may not lead to a big commercial success, it does plant a seed in making Emo more accessible to the mainstream audience in the years to come. This comes from the power-pop band Weezer’s 1996 sophomore record in Pinkerton, inspired partly by the opera Madame Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini. Dealing with the theme of heartbreak, disillusion with celebrity-hood & sexual/romantic frustration to the point of being even creepy, the album opens up with mixed reception compared to its beloved debut with much of the criticism being placed on overt singer-songwriter Rivers Cuomo’s emotion is, the orientalist implications on tracks like ‘Across the Sea’ & its starkly darker musical direction with more guitar distortion. However, such compaints have morphed into blunt praises later on as many start to appreciate the confessional lyricism of Rivers Cuomo. Now, the record is seen as being the turning point in emo’s potential & how appealing it can truly be with the use of pop-punk/alt-rock sounds as a template.

Another point which makes a big shift in the Emo genre’s incorporation of indie/alt-rock is with Cap’n Jazz & American Football. Literally from the Midwest of the U.S in Illinois, Cap’n Jazz pushes the newfound tropes of Midwest Emo to its logical conclusion with its frantic performance & the screeching vocal performance from Tim Kinsella & while there’s still elements of post-hardcore, it sticks close enough to the conventions of power-pop & pop-punk to make it a near-natural evolution to Sunny Day Real Estate. For all its eventual praise, the band didn’t find much success & its sole studio record is now out of print. It’s with Mike’s younger brother & drummer of the band, Mike, who would eventually set the seeds for Midwest Emo to truly come into its own rather than be a fancy way of calling an angst-ridden alt/indie-rock. American Football’s debut record in 1999 adopts the zany song structure of math rock alongside the atmospheric feeling of post-rock. What makes the album so unique even now is that a lot of the guitar works was done with unorthodox tuning & arpeggio-driven riffs as much of the songs was based on the inevitability of growing up & breaking up. Simply put, it’s an album that’s very ahead of its time & while it doesn’t earn a lot of attention in its initial release (the closest being a modestly positive 7.5 from Pitchfork), its distinct sound will eventually result in a whole load of revival bands taking notes from them in the 2010s but we’ll get to that eventually.

Thus, we can see how there’s a lot of diversity over Emo as it starts to come out as being a notable genre in the indie/alternative scene. With big thanks to pop-punk & power-pop, Emo is clearly primed to eventually attract the attention of the mainstream audience. However, I do want to add that the 90s in the music scene is filled to the brim with melancholic directions from Radiohead’s technological ennui in OK Computer in 1997 alongside Elliott Smith’s confessional difficulties in Either/Or. In addition, there’s also the slowcore subgenre that, although it can deal with personal issues like Emo, invert the characteristics with down-tempo riffs & drumming on top of a more minimal instrumentation. However, it’s with the historical context that I feel is needed to worth throwing in as to how it ends up blowing up in the next decade. The advent of the World Wide Web & the booming popularity of cable television is mixed in with the growing awareness of world-wide conflicts that would otherwise be ignored by much of the media beforehand & the near-quick buildup in legacy from works in the past decade like Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale or Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho have contributed to the notable spike in skepticism towards the larger bodies in American society. The personal angst within Emo may come off as being juvenile at first, but the cumulating lack of faith in the government especially with president Bill Clinton’s scandalous affair & the awareness of multiculturalism might well be the underlying factor that’s needed for more people to see the genre as a way to release their frustrations on the plights of the world.

Final Notes

First off, this is perhaps the biggest project I’ve done yet which is why I’ve settled down on splitting the article into numerous parts to make it easier for me to work on it & to also ensure that you don’t have to go through paragraphs after paragraphs. I know that I didn’t do a lot of updates to this blog & it’s mainly because while I hope that it can be successful enough for me to consider making ways to monetise it & thus make a bit of living out of it, such chance seems unlikely for now with next to no readers. That being said, I’m hoping to continue on working on this blog for a long time with some reviews, some comments on the state of music, more genres to cover for Under the Label & maybe even a chance to look into covering some eSports – but the latter might be shelved until I somehow manage to get a friend or acquaintance to work alongside me in this blog.

I would first like to thank one of my module tutors first for supporting me & providing some useful feedbacks to my initial ideas around not only this post, but the website in general. It may not be the most artsy/’observant’ blog & some of my points may come off as being forced, but her comments is what makes me think of how I can try to make my blog unique from all else. On top of that, I would like to thank my friends, especially from online, for being nice to me & appreciating my work. They might not be as deeply interested in music (or the indie/alt types at least) as me, but it’s fine & in some cases, they even give me the mental boost to go through with posting some more work like this so that I can one day share them this. Finally, review sites & forums such as Pitchfork & SputnikMusic alongside reviewers like Anthony Fantano & Robert Christgau are big influences to me in writing not only this post, but the website in general. Their tastes may not align with mine, but the way in which they describe their opinions on the genre & each tracks will help to play a big role in how I try to get my point across. All in all, this is the biggest blog that I’ve written yet & I’m especially excited for the second part of this series as we’ll be looking into the genre’s peak in the early-mid 2000s, the major figures within it & its downfall from over-exposure.