You Listen to What? EMO

You Listen To What?
Gabe listens to some weird ass kinds of music, and he would love you to hear it too. Weekly, Gabe will share a playlist of some genre of music that you may or may not have heard of. Give it a listen and then give us a call. Did you love it or hate it, let us know on the Michael Kuyrk Memorial Hotline at 970-573-6148
Emo
It is a daunting task to enter into the world of musical criticism, or just really discussing music in a public forum at all. There is always going to be someone that disagrees with what you say, not just about whether the music is good or not, but also with the category that you placed it in. The work of categorizing music can be a venom and anger filled place, so going into writing this I’m a little nervous about tackling “genres” of music, but I’m willing to take the plunge because in the long run, I just like what I like.

Emo has come to mean something different these days. When you say the word Emo most people have an image in their head of a group of kids rave dancing in their black with day glow spike arm bands. Hair in front of the face, forlorn and overly sad in their suburban struggle against their parents rules (how dare my mother take away my Xbox One). When I was hearing the term for the first time, it was a very different and much more palatable thing.

The ethos of punk was always centered around a lack of musicality. You didn’t have to be good at playing your instruments, you didn’t have to be a good singer, and if you did delve into being good at something you often were no longer considered punk. That is where Emo stepped in. With all the same rage a pain that was wrapped up in the punk scene but with better singing, better writing, better instrumentation. They were just bands pushing the boundaries of punk until it kind of stopped being punk.

Below is a playlist of some of the music that I always considered Emo (while slipping a little into Shoegazer with Luxury and Starflyer 59), and I think that if you are a fan of indie rock, punk or even the kind of pop that gets branded as Emo like Fall Out Boy, you will find something in here to like.