| <surfacing briefly from DB side>
LOL, some good zingers here folks - I don't disagree with the OP that's for shure.
As someone who was into punk / emo / hc before some of you were born (yeah, whatever) I'm occasionally amazed at the progress of Emo (TM) from really obscure hardcore to completely commodified pop music - where you can not only buy the music at the mall but also the outfit to match.
And a note on semantics: as linguists will tell ya, usage determines grammar - if Fallout Boy are popularly referred to as 'emo,' then they're emo - regardless of what we may think the real emo is or isn't.
What's interesting to me is that the major label bands like Fallout Boy are still more aggro than I'd have expected to hear on pop radio - and yet there they are. FWIW I think what passes as major-label emo owes more to Victory records-style hardcore than the, uh, 'angular,' 'spiky' sound I associate with emo from way back. But that's just me. In any case I figure the lesson is that content will always play second fiddle to marketing once the corporate world is involved - if the suits see a market, they will find a way to sell it. And part of that process is that as we, the people on the ground level making music, get older and start to get involved in the industry, we get drawn into that paradigm of validating ourselves by Finding The New **** and Selling It. If y'all aren't familiar with Steve Albini's infamous article about the music industry ("The Problem with Music"), take a look at that - especially in re: what he has to say about A&R reps.
Anyway this makes me think that now that I play mostly noise / free improv / free jazz, I'm counting on THAT being the commercial music of a few years from now - you'll be able to go to the mall and buy a ratty white shirt like Derek Bailey's, with the sleeves pre-rolled up to the elbows ... eh?
<ok, re-submerging>
Last edited by Anonymous75966 : 07-12-2007 at 10:55 AM.
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