I Listen to Bands That Don T Even Exist Yet

This is a topic very dear to me. Those who know me volition certainly be able to adjure to this. I must choose my words very carefully, and be sure to back up my grievances with enough of examples, every bit people on the other side of this eternal contend seem to be filled with TNT every bit I spew my burn at them at close range.

The mainstream ruins skillful music. I hesitate to use such a tired term, but I volition stand by my conclusion to do so. By "mainstream" I mean not only commercial radio stations, Mtv etc., trend stores like Hot Topic, and end-caps in the Wal-Mart CD section, just besides pop civilisation's common cognition (which is usually incorrect in its assumptions) and, overall, things teenagers these days think they understand, and by extension what adults think they therefore understand past watching today'south teenagers.

Information technology is because this "mainstream" ruins adept music that I discover myself getting upset when (to name but a few examples),

My favorite bands sign to major labels or keep bout with crap groups like Blink 182 or Nickelback,
A song on i of those bands' new albums (which I would accept had for 3 months or more than at that signal) becomes some cell phone company'due south new jingle for their commercials,
New bands jump upwardly that just imitate that what has already been washed and become more than attention for information technology,
I encounter a store in a mall selling fix-made fashions that, years prior, I watched creative people pattern for themselves via thrift shops and then as not to support stores in malls,
The songs and albums that divers the genre in question are belittled past those who think they understand music better considering that Erstwhile stuff was never on the radio, but the NEW stuff is.

At that place is a general agreement held past many people that practiced bands go famous, okay bands are one-striking or one-anthology wonders, and crappy bands are simply generic little garage bands you lot never hear of and that'due south okay because they're no good anyhow. Furthermore, this general understanding too says that people who get mad when their music gets famous are just selfish and guided by some irrational, anti-establishment credo and but mind to the music to perpetuate their image of independence from mass civilization in the first place. That understanding is disgustingly wrong.

I've had this blog on my mind for quite some time, and since starting to write information technology two days ago I've gone "J.R.R. Tolkien" on it nearly iv times (kudos to those of y'all who go that analogy). What I have ended is the best way to land my case is to tell my music story, and then conclude with some insightful thoughts for all of you to take home. It is my goal that those of you who may, to whatsoever degree, agree with that "general understanding" I mentioned, go away with a broader perspective on the globe of music, and the eternal struggle of artistry and sound vs. epitome and money therein.

I got into punk rock starting in 1995 and developed an affinity for the more than popular-punk audio (featuring vocal harmonies and simple chord progressions) by bands such every bit NOFX and Bad Religion. It wasn't long afterward that when I started getting into ska by style of bands like The Toasters, Mustard Plug, and Slapstick, to proper noun a few. I dissected every album I had, learned all virtually the genres' histories, and read other bands' names in the special thanks sections and hunted downwards their works as well.

1997 was one cool year.

1997 was one cool twelvemonth.

I was sure I was on the cut edge of the new wave of popular music considering mere months later on friends introduced me to these ii genres, they became more than and more than popular. However, I quickly learned a distaste for this equally some of my classmates, who were Rage and Bush-league fans the week before, were writing "New Found Celebrity" and "Mighty Mighty Bosstones" in white-out on their backpacks, Mtv (equally it existed in that day and age) was having a hay-day with "Sell-Out," and other people were asking questions like, "What'due south this new form of music called 'ska?'" and when I'd inform them that ska is really older than reggae, I was ridiculed for existence and then sick-informed.

Puke.

Crappier

Pukey

Crappy

There were guys that I knew as Stone Temple Pilots and Pearl Jam junkies who actually convinced me that The Urge were a good band so I regrettably bought their 2nd anthology. There were popular kids in the deli singing the new ska-punk striking, "Walking on the Sun." My gut twisted as I even saw a few of my favorite bands, such as Buck-O-Nine (see albums Barfly and Xx-Eight Teeth) modify their style in hopes of landing an Mtv hitting (encounter anthology Libido). My heart broke as the popular kids that endemic Turn Off the Radio and Dude Ranch, as I did, would coil their optics at albums such every bit Life on a Plate and Lookit! (which, in my opinion and then and now, are WAY better). I wanted it to stop. I wanted them to say abroad because, for some reason, I knew that since they weren't genuine, the consequences could non exist good.

Then ska disappeared similar any other flavor of the week. From around 2000 or 2001 forward, there have but been a small handful of such bands, playing shows and releasing albums for those who were actually ska fans all along. If you don't believe me, check out groups similar Mu330, Voodoo Glow Skulls, and Streetlight Manifesto. I call up the Toasters might still be together, besides, only I could exist incorrect.

Next came emo. Emo was harder to define than punk or ska. The bands were all so unlike, though they yet carried a sure, common je ne sais quoi between them. There were straight-forward rock bands like Complect, Alkaline Trio, or Moneen. There were synth-rock bands such as Sig Transit Gloria, The Ceremony, or latter-day Become Up Kids. There was the hard-edged dissonance of At The Drive-In, the melodic screaming of Thursday, while also the creative concept albums from Appleseed Cast.

Early on the label of "emo" was already viewed every bit negative by some because some pure-blood punk rockers saw emo as the next stage of development from popular-punk (and they were probably right), and those guys hated pop-punk. Too, many of the groups were interested in just being bands, rather than a kind of band, so they did all they could to distance themselves from the label. Usually they failed, and I've tried to maintain a much more loose and positive assigning of the give-and-take to acknowledge that to some caste. However, I always experience it necessary to remind everyone that what y'all may Call up or have BEEN TOLD is emo (Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, Good Charlotte) is NOT what emo is. Or was. All the same y'all want to put that.

After we cry in our diaries, we can watch Power Rangers.

Honestly, would 20-somethings in 1997 accept bought into this?

When I started listening to emo, I was a late-comer, as many emo bands of the time were gone or entering their last days by 1999. These groups were Tuesday, Braid, Jawbreaker, amongst others. Other bands coming onto or who would exist on the scene for a while longer were The Become Up Kids, Hey Mercedes, Appleseed Cast, Alkaline Trio, etc. I had known of emo for several years at that point, and had hated it and avoided information technology similar the plague. I began liking it when I realized 1) I was maturing with my musical tastes and needed new things, and two) hating an unabridged genre every bit I saw it based on a tape an old friend had made me three years prior was but lightheaded.

Emo, to me, circa 2000

The downfall of what was emo came with Dashboard Confessional[1]. Others may say otherwise, just trust me on this one; it was Dashboard. And Jimmy Eat World. I'll get to that. . . . The lustful heart of the mainstream was noticing the commotion in the "underground" scene and was taking an interest already, and then when Chris Carraba burst onto the scene with his second album, The Places We Have Come to Fear the Most, with his rugged-but-pretty-male child looks, soothing voice, and ringing, slide-tuned acoustic guitar, the teenie girls went nuts. Well-nigh overnight, what was emo earlier (maturing punk-rockers with more circuitous vocal construction and at least an attempt at insightful lyrics) was re-defined every bit crying 14-year-old girls, singing forth equally Dashboard waxed sappy over lost loves.

Non much longer after that, Mesa, Arizona ring Jimmy Eat Earth released the follow-up to their sophomore masterpiece, Clarity, and chosen it Bleed American (in instance yous didn't know, it was re-titled Jimmy Swallow World later on 9/eleven, which was around a month afterward, and making it Jimmy Eat Earth's third cocky-titled release). The title track was a good hard-stone anthem nearly who-knows-what, but at that place were a few songs on at that place that reeked of radio-pop-hits. I remember the start time I heard "The Middle." I don't think I made information technology through the whole song. Where Clarity screamed at me with the beauty of life through sound, and elevated the standards I held for what a practiced album should be, this song "The Middle" made me think of puppies and pastels and matching white suits and musical guest appearances on Regis and Kathy Lee. "Well Jimmy Consume World just isn't emo, anymore," I thought. But pretty soon, the song hitting the airwaves and everyone was talking about this new kind of music, "Emo!"

"Oh, no, yous don't," us emo fans shouted.

A tug-of-war ensued between those of u.s.a. who didn't want a repeat of what happened to ska and those who suddenly thought they knew how to ascertain one of the about eclectic genres in rock music. But we were destined to lose. So sad. Those on my side either abandoned the whole "emo" matter altogether (remember that many didn't like the label to begin with) or but hung out on the side-lines and threw punches when someone got near (similar I did). Emo, equally I knew it, flailed most like a fish on concrete over the adjacent yr or two in its attempts to somehow not end up in its inevitable fate of being a lame alibi for gutless teens to hide in corners and exist laughed at past everyone. I was embarrassed when someone asked me what kind of band The Become-Upwardly Kids were and I would respond, "emo." I tried to defend myself, explaining that what they had been told was wrong, merely no ane cared.

Take some goth, add some pink, you get emo.

Take some goth, add some pinkish, you get emo. . . . I approximate.

And what followed was pretty weird. The scene's look mutated. It mutated into some gross emo-goth conglom. I honestly don't know how the goth look even came into the picture in this story, but it did. Maybe it'due south because both were associated with Hot Topic, merely I don't actually know. I'm still perplexed to this twenty-four hour period. "Emo-Kids" before 2002 or 2003 looked like your normal college rockers, just since then they look similar Apoptygma Berzerk rejects like that douche to the left. Go along in heed, I knew cocky-defined goth rockers at the fourth dimension. I've gone to industrial rock shows. I know what "goth" fans await like, and it's being called "emo" past the mainstream to this twenty-four hour period.

Well, information technology'south been several years now, and rising in popularity (and in the mainstream's peripheral), we accept what is chosen "indie music." Where emo was a hard-to-define genre of stone, indie music (that's "indie" for "contained") isn't really a genre at all, and certainly isn't always stone; it's more than of a broad category (kind of how "metal" isn't only one type of sound anymore, except broader). These days nosotros take bizarre, hard-to-classify groups similar Polyphonic Spree, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, or Cleaved Social Scene. At that place are also catchy soft-rock bands like Stars and Fleet Foxes; artsy, folksy singers similar Sufjan Stevens; quirky line-ups like Mates of State; and even groups with heavy other-genre influence but providing new twists in the sound, similar Blackness Kids, Phenomenon Fortress, or Vampire Weekend. The list would exist space with this kind of music because no one (finally) is asking "does this band fit the genre?" There is no genre. It's called indie considering it is truly independent. They make their own genres, either for themselves alone, or i for each album or song. Bands make the music they want to make without pandering to a scene, and the scene that is there wants to see what they come up up with. I've loved going to the few shows I have lately with absolutely no pre-conceived notions as to what the bands will audio like. The more originality, the better. The more clear influences and classic nods, the better. The more anything, the improve.

Bands have more than one person, idiots.

But it'southward happening once again. It'south becoming provender for comedians. The mainstream is catching on and putting these bands on talk shows and Caribbean cruise and jail cell phone commercials. I've already heard reports of radio stations spinning the new striking single from the band Feist!

I'd similar to just shrug this ane off, since the very nature of indie music is to let it be what it is – but I've seen information technology too much. I'1000 serious. I'm tired of my favorite bands becoming trends and then becoming teen-flick fodder for money, and my subsequent hirsuite causing me to be lumped into a category of people whom everyone assumes just doesn't like to share and only cares about paradigm.

It's not near sharing! It also certainly isn't virtually image! I'm almost 30 and work in an office! I have no prototype these days, and I'g non trying for i.

I have stood past helplessly three times as the music I savor is destroyed. This "mainstream" gobbled up ska and pop-punk and emo like a Maury Povich fat kid on a pre-rehab water ice cream kicking. But he's not eating Haagen-Dazs . He's eating out of the plastic tub you lot discover on the floor of your grocer'southward freezer. As he'south shoveling information technology into his face-hole, he does not know how to, nor does he remember to, enjoy the treat for the delightful confection it's intended to be. Instead he acts purely on instinct and finishes ii gallons before sane people could finish a half-pint. And so he throws upwards and is so disgusted past the memory of the gluttony that led to the cold-and-warm mass on the flooring that he never eats ice cream again – nor does anyone else in the room. But he is not cured – no, his lusts are not quenched or swayed. He will observe a new snack to devour with the fervor of a starved and rabid wolf.

Certainly, I am not so naïve to call up that such a blog as this will forever alter someone who defines the success of a musical artist by whether they perform at the Grammys or not; but delight sympathize — I want success for my favorite bands. I desire to be able to share the music I find and am introduced to past other friends with fifty-fifty more than people. What I do not want is some guy at the caput of a major corporation, whose primary goal is to make coin, to bundle and sell and overexpose the masses, and non just ruin perfectly good bands, merely concenter more than to the loonshit that WANT to be used and overexposed, because as far as they know that is what music is supposed to be about. They come along and play the game by the numbers, crap out some quick hits that striking our ears like cotton candy to the mouth, until we all finish and wonder what was so appealing nigh whatsoever of this in the first place.

I want to conclude on a positive annotation past stating that regardless of what happens from here forward, understand that true music fans will always be 1 stride ahead. Ska, punk, and emo are not the only genres to be devoured by the mainstream, and they will not exist the last. Merely those of us who like good music and appreciate the artists that brand it volition always exist doing something new and something different, and it is the mainstream that must catch upwards and exploit in order to survive.

[i] I want to point out that there's aught inherently incorrect with Dashboard Confessional. I like Dashboard. I'chiliad listening to him equally I write this, considering brining him upward before fabricated me realize it's been a while since I listened to Places (though my iTunes has already moved on to the incredible And then Impossible EP). Had the whole mainstream matter never happened, he would accept been one branch on what was a cute tree of a multifariousness of sounds.