Why We Don’t Like Emo

Emo. Taste the name. Bet you can’t even make yourself say it out loud without spitting it. By Jon A.

It’s always like this: You hear the first few notes of some hard core band, they’re heavy, they’re jumping, they’re screaming and growling, they’ve got everything going for them. Then, within a few bars, the inevitable happens: They start singing. Like, in a clear voice and everything. With melody and shit. As in pop or something. And you hate them, immediately. If you’re at a show, you’ll see all enthusiasm draining from the eyes of just about everyone in the audience. The crowd stands back, arms crossed, heads nodding just a bit in appreciation of the heavy parts, a pained expression on their faces during the big sing-along choruses, waiting for it to stop, quick. People start groaning, searching for cover in the bar, and you can hear them spitting it: “Emo”. As in “fags”, or “indie”.

For a music that, for a considerable part of it, spouts positive attitude, caring for each other, building something together, the reactions to emo are amazingly aggressive. Like, people really hate this stuff. On several web pages, including our own forum, the Satanic date of 6/6/6 was declared bash-an-emo-kid-for Satan day, complete with a sketch of typical emo haircuts. People in the hardcore community, and especially the metal core scene – in as much as it makes sense to talk of such a thing – just don’t want this thing: They want their hardcore to be hard, brutal, heavy, and macho, and if there’s one thing emo is not, it’s macho. Just look at the haircuts, for chrissakes, the make-up, and listen to the songs: If they’re not positive epics about celebrating life, they’re romantic drooling about bad upbringings, girls, and stuff. Like, fuck!

I’m prone to emo-bashing myself, I’ll be the first to admit it: Not as in actually beating up its fans – I rarely ever get to meet anyone willing to admit to like this stuff – but the music, yep, I’ve slaughtered it on this page a number of times. The thing about emo is it positively reeks of pop rot, of giving in to blatant commercialism, selling out to MTV branded youth culture, devoid of anything hardcore ever stood for. We feel like it’s condescending towards the kids’ taste, as if they wouldn’t be able to swallow the pill unless it’s all syrupy and artificially sweetened for them, where as hardcore should be above that, hardcore should say fuck you to that, fuck you to selling out, fuck you to watering down the image, fuck you to pop stardom and fashion statements. We’re just a bit conservative as to what hardcore’s supposed to be, formed by the first hardcore record we heard that made a lasting impression on us. No matter if you discovered hardcore with Black Flag, Bad Brains, Bad Religion, or Biohazard, you’re gonna judge everything new against that sensation you got from first listening to their records, feeling the energy of that music surge up and down your spine, making you wanna just fucking do something; mosh about wildly, punch a police officer or teacher in the face, go vegan, go straight edge, squat, demonstrate, build a whole community or whatever. We find it extremely hard to believe that someone would find something like that in emo. To us, it sounds just like the manufactured plastic pop punk on MTV. We’re stuck up pricks, you know.

But not for this issue, no. For this one issue, I for one am gonna try really hard and understand what it is that makes bands play emo, what it is that makes some people actually listen to this stuff, hold it dear, take cues from it. If hardcore was ever about being open-minded, and I’d like to believe it was, at least about having a positive spirit and take a stand, some of it anyway, the stuff I dug and dig; if that’s what hardcore is about, shouldn’t we welcome emo into our fold? Shouldn’t we accept it for doing what it does, stand shoulder by shoulder, united and stuff? Getting to this point has taken some actually listening to whole emo albums, as the reviews column will prove, the whole way through even, trying really hard not to bust up the stereo, not to be too condescending, but to understand, to put myself in an emo fan’s Vans and try to feel empowered by it. It’s been a hard job, but I’ve laid myself on the line for hardcore here.

Getting into emo is not like getting into free jazz or classical music or anything that sophisticated: Rather, it’s about forgetting your deep-rooted hate of all things pop. The method I found worked best for me was imagining I was a 15 years old skater kid, a lot more hip than I actually was when I was 15, with cooler clothes, better friends, and an eternal summer spent at the skateboard ramp, smoking pot, larking about, writing poetry, being really sensitive and alive and all. Which is a bit stupid, I know, since that feeling of immortality (as I suppose is what I’m going for) isn’t and shouldn’t be limited to be 15, decked out in fashionable gear and capable of doing impressive stuff on a skateboard (like just standing on without falling flat on your face): If hardcore teaches us anything, it is to keep the flame alive within us. But the thing about being 15 is you’re not likely to have been subjected to so much music as I have by now, just short of 15 years later, and thus you’re not as likely to be blasé about it. What I’m thinking is, if you never heard anything more radical than Nirvana or Korn, wouldn’t emo seem like a brilliant alternative to that? Wouldn’t it feel like something to believe in? And shouldn’t we at least give it credit for that?

For this issue, at least, I have tried. I’m going to be kind to emo, I’ll try not to be condescending, I’ll withstand the impulse to turn it off the minute they start singing melodies. Next issue I’ll be an old fart hoarding my Minor Threat records again, but for now, in the spirit of summer, I promise safe passage for all emo bands to this page: You can surrender your heartfelt vocal deliveries, your blatant melody lines, your angst-laden poetry, and your shampooed, tousled, and lacquered black hair to me, and I’m not gonna beat you up for it. It’s because I’m such a positive man.