Emo Is Dead

The news – earth-shattering or otherwise – recently emerged that two of the four members of Panic At The Disco! have decided to leave the band to pursue other musical interests.  Just a mere mention of the band’s name and my cerebral cortex was suddenly emblazoned with the word ‘emo’ in flashing neon lights as a flurry of word-association kicked in.  Which made me wonder… whatever happened to emo?

Only a couple of years ago, pretty much any rock music that wasn’t death metal or the Rolling Stones was being called emo.  Fall Out Boy, Panic At The Disco!, My Chemical Romance, The Used, The Get Up Kids, Thrice, Coheed & Cambria, emo the lot of them.  Shit, someone, somewhere probably described The Fray as emo – the lyrics certainly fit the bill.

And now it’s all over.  When and if any of those bands record again, the resulting collection of songs won’t be labeled emo. Oh no.  Rock, yes. Alternative, certainly.  Maybe pop punk in some cases, perhaps alt.prog in others. But no longer emo.  Not that any of those bands liked being called emo anyway,  but when do artists ever embrace the labels thrust upon them? Grunge, nu-metal, jazz-funk, grindcore, post-punk, emo… we’re always trying to put music in neat categories, whilst the artists in question protest loudly and reject them instantly.

But unlike many musical movements that have blasted so forcefully into the mainstream, emo had been around for years in both name and style before it gained mass popularity, although naturally that style had evolved over time.  Studious musical historians have decreed that emo rose from (and as a reaction to) the US hardcore scene of the 1980s, and by 1985, bands like Rites of Spring and Embrace were being called ‘emo-core’ (a term they predictably hated).  Earning this tag were the deeply personal lyrics that brought an emotional honesty to the music, often detailing nostalgia, romantic yearnings and failings, and buoyed with a melancholy tinged sometimes with bitterness.

Over the course of the next 15 years, emo bubbled away in the musical ether, attracting devoted fans, but remaining hidden from the evil clutches of the mainstream and thus ensuring its continued survival.  Jawbreaker, Sunny Day Real Estate, The Promise Ring, Glassjaw, The Get Up Kids and Jimmy Eat World all kept the emo flag flying throughout the 1990s.

It wasn’t until the turn of the century that the secret finally got out, and emo hit the mainstream.  Driven by the breakthrough success of bands like Jimmy Eat World (with monster hit ‘The Middle’), Saves The Day, Dashboard Confessional and artists such as Midtown and New Found Glory on the Drive Thru and Vagrant labels, emo burst kicking and screaming into the mainstream, paving the way for the likes of My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy and Panic At The Disco!.

As the world at large discovered the music and the label, and jumped enthusiastically on the bandwagon, emo become inextricably linked to every other facet of youth culture that could be accounted for.  Emo’s original musical traits were immediately sidelined as ingredients such as clothing (the resurgence of skinny jeans in particular) and the amount of eye-liner applied became far more pertinent than any traces of emotional honesty. Just as ‘punk’ had long been used to describe certain music, clothing and lifestyle, regardless of whether anarchy was on the menu or very much off it, ‘emo’ became a mainstream, mass-perpetuated lifestyle choice that had very little to do with the factors that inspired its genesis.

Emo was no longer a subgenre that had endured for over 20 years as a particular form of musical and lyrical expression within the bigger pond of rock music; it was now a self-serving concept, a commoditised mass media buzz word to tag anything and everything.

It became the sign of the times.  And times change.

Emo is dead.

Dancing About Architecture

Last night I went to an event to celebrate the launch of Zounds, the new album by Dappled Cities.  Held in a warehouse storage facility, the event revolved around 12 art installations – one for each track – that represented the album in artistic form. There were some interesting ideas on display – performance art, interactive art, drawing, sculpture, video; often suitably abstract, and all reflecting the artists’ interpretations of the songs – literally, metaphorically, cosmically and the rest…

As I pondered these installations, brow firmly furrowed, it felt like being involved in an obtuse form of artistic chinese whispers.  The creator of each installation had listened to, considered and interpreted the music, and then used art to represent this interpretation.  The art installation was then presented to me, complete with musical accompaniment, for my own interpretation.  My experience of the music was immediately coloured by my understanding of the art – my interpretation of the artists’ interpretation of the music.  Interpretation was clearly the order of the day.

It was certainly an intriguing way to discover new music. But perhaps, I reflected as I stroked my chin, in some ways it wasn’t so different to reading a piece of writing about the music, albeit far more novel.

Although we habitually, and often skillfully, rely on written and spoken words as the medium to explain and discuss music, these words remain, nonetheless, a form of chinese whispers.  We use them to interpret and express the emotion conjured up by music, only for others to decipher these words themselves in an attempt to understand the emotion and therefore the music.  The essence of the music is continually reinterpreted, distorted and lost in translation.  Or something like that.

In the case of these art installations, there was also a brief written description, which only added another layer of interpretation/discussion/general confusion to the whole shebang.  Luckily I had a plastic pint-glass of red wine to help me out.  Perhaps that was the problem.

Someone once said, “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.”*  Now there’s an idea.

* The origins of this quote appear to be lost in the mists of time; it has been variously attributed to Elvis Costello, Frank Zappa, Steve Martin, Martin Mull and William S. Burroughs among others. Whoever it was, a bunch of French philosophers would have been proud.

In Praise Of The Trumpet

I’m in the middle of a phase of listening to a lot of jazz.  I haven’t listened to this much jazz since I was a student, when spending all day sitting around drinking strong coffee, smoking roll-ups and debating the most impenetrable John Coltrane records money can buy was practically compulsory to gain an arts degree.

But since those halcyon days, my jazz consumption has dwindled considerably. It has become a niche market in my listening psyche – rolled out for special occasions (a hung over Sunday morning here, a spot of attempted seduction there, maybe even some high falutin’ entertaining), or for the sake of a particular a song (the likes of “Canteloupe Island” and “Mercy Mercy Mercy” tend to get a fairly regular spin).

In recent times, I never came home and put on some jazz record, any old jazz record, anymore, and rarely made any attempt to discover new contemporary jazz or further explore seminal back catalogues.  It had been a sorry state of affairs.

But now I’m back in the game. All of a sudden, I felt like listening to “’Round Midnight” by Thelonious Monk, and before I knew it, I’d listened to 2 hours straight of jazz. The next day, I pulled out some Hank Mobley and off we went.  I even gave Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme” a full work-out, which always requires dedication. And so it continued.

On day four, I was driving around town with a friend, and I stuck on the Hugh Masekela tune “Still Grazing”.  As we listened to it, I was struck by the brightness of Masekela’s trumpet playing, by its laid back exuberance.  Something about it stood out from all the other music I’d listened to over the previous few days.  It just sounded so… regal, with its air of distinction, its strident confidence and its musical poise.

I realised that, as I reacquainted myself with my jazz collection, I’d largely managed to avoid the trumpet (and somehow completely ignore Miles Davis).  Through no conscious choice, all the music I’d listened to had been driven by the saxophone as its brass instrument of choice.

It then struck me that whenever jazz is considered in any theoretical sense (over strong coffee and roll-ups or otherwise), the saxophone is usually the first instrument to spring to mind, and most likely the sole brass instrument.

Some of the most iconic and accomplished jazz musicians are saxophone players – John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Lester Young, Wayne Shorter, Ornette Coleman, Joshua Redman, Branford Marsalis, Cannonball Adderley to name (quite) a few. And the alto saxophone is the quintessential jazz instrument; many people learn the instrument specifically to play jazz.

The alto sax’s sound is inextricably linked with jazz – it exudes louche tones, with more body and dirty swagger than a 300lb exotic dancer, effortlessly encapsulating the beauty, sophistication, seediness, danger and transgression that have long been linked with jazz and some of its key players (those with heroin habits at any rate).

Meanwhile, the trumpet rarely gets the recognition it deserves.  Its proponents comprise a list that is surely the equal of the saxophone, including the likes of Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Lee Morgan, Louis Armstrong, Chet Baker, Freddie Hubbard, Hugh Masekela, Clark Terry.

The trumpet’s sound is royal blue, so much more majestic and resplendent than the saxophone.  Whereas the saxophone slinks and swaggers, the trumpet strides and struts whether blaring assertively or purring seductively.

The trumpet’s sense of self-confidence is unquestionable, whilst the saxophone’s lazy arrogance belies an insecurity masked by its outrageous behaviour.  Even at its most sultry or brooding, the trumpet’s bright tone gives it a purity unmatched by the saxophone’s reedy breath (listen to Miles Davis’s version of “’Round Midnight”). There is a lightness of being, a peace and a playfulness; its inquisitiveness and naivety make its interactions so joyful. At its more lyrical and introspective, the trumpet has light and air and space that lifts the soul.

The trumpet sounds the celebration of being, of life itself.  Lest we forget.