The Smiley Smile Message Board

I hate Emo. I like Weezer's first album, but I still HATE "emotional rock." It's kind of like someone took rock music and had it neutered. It's not even evil enough to be the death of rock n' roll, it's just evil enough to be the definition of lame.

Yet, it does have a strong following. Kind of like disco. Only disco doesn't suck as bad.

i was the what's emo...i know what it is...but i have hard time deciding if i like it or not. my friends are in an emo band, so i dont wanna say they suck...but emo is highly underated in my community among the teen crowd...it's just teens crying out with their acoustics over papercuts, past/present girlfriends, etc.

Congratulations! You guys each have won a portable model of Joan of Arc!

Really, "emo" has got to be THE stupidest label for music yet. Forget who first said it, but, "Calling music 'emotional' is like saying water is wet."

I like a couple of bands who've been branded "emo," I guess, but then I once found Jeff Buckley albums in the emo section of a lame-ass record store. Weezer's "Pinkerton" has been hailed as the definitive emo album, yet I still can't bring myself to hate it; it's been a longtime favorite of mine.

It sucks harder than a foda Hoover factory.

Weezer being branded as 'emo' is the stupidest thing ever.  The Blue Album and Pinkerton are not 'emo' they are straight up rock and roll...imo.

A Portable Model Of is my favorite Joan of Arc album, they ahve so many good ones but that one tops all of them. Caliban is pure brilliance. I love The Owls lp too, and the new Make Believe stuff is great.

For a minute I was hoping this was a thread about Emo Phillips! Oh well.

For a minute I thought there was a typo in the thread title
(http://images.art.com/images/-/Elmo--C10095342.jpeg)

Ahh my car crazy cutie, that's what I thought it said too...

The thing I don't get about this emo genre, is that all the vocalists sound like a 21st Century Mike Love...  they sh*t me up the wall, but Mike doesn't.  I hate Mike if only for his wretched solo albums, and his inspiring a generation of kids to sing like him.

Other than that... he's a swell guy.

...And so we enter, end game.

I hate nearly all popular music of the past three or four years...

For example, just looking at my iTunes at all the albums I have from 2005, it's Alanis Morisette's Jagged Little Pill Acoustic, Brian's Christmas album, a song written by the guy that was on the Robert Blake trial, a Beach Boys cover album, and some local stuff.

Emo is dominating the market, and I hate it. Not just normal acoustic "my girlfriend broke up with me" emo, but all the other forms of music that are becoming emo-influenced. Sad* shít.

*no pun intended

I like good music and dislike bad. After that, I try not to worry too much about what to call it, and I don't think I've come across a genre (or subgrnre, or sub-subgenre, etc) that's entirely one or the other.

What the hell is Pet Sounds then?

Half of those songs you could perform on acoustic and sound just like those bands.

Oh but Pet Sounds appeals to us more, makes us feel it.

Guess what? All these stupid teenage girls ALSO get into their emo music and feel it.

Isn't all music inherently emotional? Isn't there always feeling behind the music? Emo's just a tag that's been put on a few dozen bands.

I dare anyone here to listen to Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue and tell me there isn't an abundance of emotion in that music.

Or, for that matter, the entire Romantic movement in music--the bulk of the European "serious" music of the 1800s was largely based on blatantly displayed emotion.

Exactly so for anyone to dismiss all these new bands as "emo", you're just insulting yourself with it.

I don't know what those bands are.

I guess you're talking about stuff like Dashboard Confessional?

I think they are the result of uncreative, sad people who decided to make music.

I want one of these bands to cover "I'm Waiting For The Day" and "That's Not Me" for us and release it.

Though their lyrics are generally no way near Asher's.

All music, Luther, has "blatantly displayed emotion".

Hello, Elvis fucking Presley? The man only sounded otherworldly when he sang gospel music with such emotion.

I don't find that to be correct. I can't hear the emotion in some of the early days of synth-based pop. When a band sounds as if it's going through the motions, I don't hear emotion. I don't hear emotion in some electronica.

More than that, I don't hear emotion in music that is too obviously constructed to pull on your heartstrings. For example, when I hear a Celine Dion or Christina Aguilera ballad, it sounds to me like alien scientists watching from above measured each little ingredient and mixed them just so, knowing "this sort of thing makes humans feel [sad/inspired/hopeful/whatever]."

That isn't emotion.

There's emotion in everything inherently human. Maybe it's apathy, that's an emotion too.

There has to be emotion in some aspect of anything human. But a computer, for example, doesn't express emotion, even though it may carry the idea of a human's emotion to others so that it can be experienced. And re-read what I was saying originally: blatant display of emotion. That isn't the same thing. Overtly emotional and having emotion in some aspect aren't the same thing.

By the way, not to be too specific or anything, but apathy isn't an emotion. In fact, Merriam-Webster defines it as:

1 : lack of feeling or emotion

Buy them some razor blades!

That's a sh!+ty thing to say.

These suburban creeps spouting their soft-sell misery deserve a punch. Hard. Then their privileged whiny asses would know what pain is all about. I nominate myself for the duty.

Can I be your assistant?

But nobody deserves a razor blade. Seriously, hyperbole or not, that's shitty. (whoops, that's going to be written as merda, I guess.)

I agree with the general idea, but the overgeneralization and the specifics of the post, nope.

You got it. You hold them, I'll punch.

Luther, you're too nice of a guy.

Aw, shucks...

Roxy Music set the template for emo, ya know.

I thought they set the template for (or had the template set by) Eno.

Emo is a scene. There are bands that want to appeal to that scene to sell records, that want to be marketable to that segment.

If I like a song, I don't care if it's Emo or Goth or Punk or Pop. I'll listen to it, dammit. I like "Sugar, We're Goin' Down" by Fall Out Boy. They are popularly referred to as "Emo". I could give a rat's ass.

Like what you listen to, and listen to what you like, what other people think be damned. I think every member of this board can relate to that statement.

I was with you Monkee. 

"There are those out there.....who come to me.. on the street.....afraid that I might..... reproduce."


Word association with a pysch -- when finished:

"OK" -- I said "Corrall"

"No" -- I said Yes!

"Stop!" -- I said "Go!"

"Cut it out!" -- I said "Rene Richards!"

"I was sleeping the other night.... alone.... thanks to the exterminator."

Hey guys, sorry to bump an old topic.
What I see refered to as "emo" in this thread isn't really how I view emo.
The origins of emo are in 80's hardcore, when the hardcore bands began to sing about their emotions, rather than politics or social problems.
If I remember correctly, the Husker Du album Zen Arcade is regarded as the first emo album.
The term emo doesn't really mean emotional, but emotive hardcore.

Well if you haven't actually heard emo you shouldn't be judging it.

Heh heh, Merdaty.  If I were a superhero I would be Bat Merdaty.

Following on Ian's desire to beat these guys as if it were an occupation (Welcome to the occupation, Ian), I wish we could run for political office on the board.  For example, Luther, in running against you I would create an ad based on your statements:

Luther.  You think he's one of us, but he's not.  Just look at his sensibility.  "Nobody deserves a razor blade, but I support the idea."  Luther -- you think he's gone soft, but he's only just begun to fight.  He can barely even stand his fellow poster's ideas: "It made it all of one post..."  Just look at how he interprets a discussion on new wave music, saying, "In some aspects, I sort of understand the general concepts of your praise for what appears to be that earlier post, Ian."  He barely even knows what he's discussing.  Do you really want this man regulating your subgenres?  It's a wishy-washy stance like his which allows space for Nu-metal, and wants to repackage old sounds as alt. country.  Don't vote Luther, vote Chris D.  Or else the future will be all merdaty.

My kids talk about emo but I still don't know what it is.  Can somebody PLEASE define describe give examples and name a band and song which best illustrates what EMO is and isn't?

This genre stuff is as confusing as ever......there is another thread somewhere covering this....

If my recording equipment were working properly, I'd be very tempted to record an "emo" version of That's Not Me. 

Emo = The Rites of Spring.

In my opinion, you have to physically weep onstage to be considered an emo band.