Screaming Infidelities
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Caroline sent me an e-mail this afternoon and asked:
i like fugazi, sunny day real estate, weezer, and modest mouse. what does this mean?! you like rainer maria and at the drive-in. i think we might like emo :S
I guess she had been taking a look at the Emo page on All Music.com (search for “emo” as a style — I can’t link directly into their content). What follows is my response.
Emo is hard to pin down. If Weezer is emo, then every halfway indie band of the nineties is emo, which just isn’t the case. The problem with All Music.com is that its all written by freelance, self-appointed “experts.” I think there’s some editorial oversight, but I don’t know how deep or critical it goes. The problem with rock criticism in general is that any asshole with an opinion and the conviction to get heard can be a rock critic. It’s not like film, where there are whole, respectable degree programs dedicated to its study. People with degrees in musicology are generally viewed as underwater basketweavers, and there’s not very much scholarly work on the subject — and what does exist is largely written and read by academicians. Your average Rolling Stone reviewer, let along the collective mind of the Internet, probably couldn’t or doesn’t care to understand it.So back to emo: do we like it? I like some bands that are clearly emo, like Modest Mouse. But we could spend the rest of our lives debating the exact classification of At The Drive-in or Fugazi. I think of emo as being pop-song lyrics without the pop-song music. But to say that anything that’s kinda punk-y and either addresses emotions or has inscrutable lyrics is “emo” is a gross generalization. The bottom line is this: do you like Dashboard Confessional?
As long as you answer, “No,” you’re still cool.
caroline on 27 April 2004 at 4:18 pm | Permalink
it’s funny that you’re talking about the lack of academic work on music cuz that’s been a major theme of the musuc classes i’ve taken (in grad school anyway). when i was an undergrad, i took lots of good music classes that were actually in the music dept. (jazz, british rock, american vernacular music, etc.) and didn’t think anything of it. my grad school music classes, on the other hand, have been in the rtf and english departments, which is just weird. the problem is that “musicologists” tend to study things like classical music and usually break things down into notes, movements, etc– a scientific approach. 20th century popular music, on the other hand, doesn’t lend itself to this sort of approach because it often uses bent notes, grains in the voice, etc. and relies on “feel,” which can’t be notated accurately. however, a more cultural, rather than scientific, approach to musicology has emerged in the last 15 years or so. but this type of stuff often isn’t accepted in music programs, and thus is frequently relegated to places like english departments.