Xfm column October - Leave Emo Alone!
In clubs I've seen people furious at people dancing to Fall Out Boy, and at me for playing it!
| 13 Oct 2006
I've just finished reading some articles on the latest musical threat to our nation's youth. Wait for it… EMO!
I now count myself as officially worried and bemused. The latter because I was suggesting only a month ago in these very column inches that musical tribalism is dead, only to find that we now have to take sides in 'The War on Emo' (© NME). And the former, because with my crap side-shed and skinny-fit denims I could now become a target for paranoid Daily Mail readers.
I've got to admit I'm also sporting a wry smile, because emo seems the most unlikely of musical genres to make anyone feel threatened. Regardless of what it used to mean, emo is now a fairly clean-living extension of pop-punk and college-rock. Bands like Fall Out Boy and Taking Back Sunday are the new generation of Green Days and Blink 182s, and even the shyest school-girl could take Pete Wentz home to meet her Mum - assuming she's one of the handful of people who haven't seen his knob on the internet…
I'd dismiss all this as misguided scare-mongering to sell copy, if it wasn't for the fact that I've seen it first-hand. In clubs I've seen people furious at those dancing to Fall Out Boy, and at me for playing it! And what's worse is that it often comes from rock and metal fans who should know how weak it is to get slagged off for the music you listen to.
So if it's so inoffensive, what's getting people's backs up? Maybe a couple of common misconceptions…
Firstly, the music is bland and manufactured – unfair since Panic at the Disco's debut is one of the most intelligent, 'out-there' mainstream albums of 2006 and My Chemical Romance rock at least as hard as, say, Foo Fighters.
Secondly, that the fans are self-obsessed, self-harming, miserable gits. Not in my experience (although I would quite happily delete every bleeding-heart confessional on MySpace tomorrow). Most emo fans I see are laid-back, outgoing and fun, and roam in packs of friends. Unsurprisingly they seem to do no shortage of pulling - try spending that long straightening your hair and squeezing into those clothes without attracting members of the opposite sex!
Maybe that's it? Jealousy? I mean, why else would anyone spend so much time and energy hating a bunch of bands they could easily avoid and people they don't know?
But for me, the most annoying thing is that I have to think twice about playing a bunch of bands, in the clubs or on the radio, just because some people are more uptight about other people's haircuts than the really important things in the world… like fighting poverty and hating Robbie Williams.
I now count myself as officially worried and bemused. The latter because I was suggesting only a month ago in these very column inches that musical tribalism is dead, only to find that we now have to take sides in 'The War on Emo' (© NME). And the former, because with my crap side-shed and skinny-fit denims I could now become a target for paranoid Daily Mail readers.
I've got to admit I'm also sporting a wry smile, because emo seems the most unlikely of musical genres to make anyone feel threatened. Regardless of what it used to mean, emo is now a fairly clean-living extension of pop-punk and college-rock. Bands like Fall Out Boy and Taking Back Sunday are the new generation of Green Days and Blink 182s, and even the shyest school-girl could take Pete Wentz home to meet her Mum - assuming she's one of the handful of people who haven't seen his knob on the internet…
I'd dismiss all this as misguided scare-mongering to sell copy, if it wasn't for the fact that I've seen it first-hand. In clubs I've seen people furious at those dancing to Fall Out Boy, and at me for playing it! And what's worse is that it often comes from rock and metal fans who should know how weak it is to get slagged off for the music you listen to.
So if it's so inoffensive, what's getting people's backs up? Maybe a couple of common misconceptions…
Firstly, the music is bland and manufactured – unfair since Panic at the Disco's debut is one of the most intelligent, 'out-there' mainstream albums of 2006 and My Chemical Romance rock at least as hard as, say, Foo Fighters.
Secondly, that the fans are self-obsessed, self-harming, miserable gits. Not in my experience (although I would quite happily delete every bleeding-heart confessional on MySpace tomorrow). Most emo fans I see are laid-back, outgoing and fun, and roam in packs of friends. Unsurprisingly they seem to do no shortage of pulling - try spending that long straightening your hair and squeezing into those clothes without attracting members of the opposite sex!
Maybe that's it? Jealousy? I mean, why else would anyone spend so much time and energy hating a bunch of bands they could easily avoid and people they don't know?
But for me, the most annoying thing is that I have to think twice about playing a bunch of bands, in the clubs or on the radio, just because some people are more uptight about other people's haircuts than the really important things in the world… like fighting poverty and hating Robbie Williams.