Best "Emo" Disc 50 - Part 9 - My Chemical Romance, Modest Mouse, Atreyu, Engine Down [ROCKIN'ON (April 2007)]
ăTHREE CHEERS FOR SWEET REVENGEă MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE ăJune 2004ă The sudden popularity of young American bands such as Fall Out Boy and Panic! At the Disco has spread across the ocean, and perhaps fear has led to an unprecedented anti-emo movement in the UK last year. My Chemical Romance were a prime target, as they had just started a massive European promotional campaign over the summer in anticipation of the release of their new album. At the Reading Festival in late August, they were subjected to a bottle-throwing attack after Panic! At the Disco, who had performed the day before, and at that time Gerard called out to the fans and shouted together, âFuck the Daily Mail!!â The Daily Mail is a British tabloid newspaper, and a few weeks before Reading it had published an article titled âEmo Cult Warning for Parentsâ. The female journalist who wrote the article warned of the recent rise of a dangerous teenage cult called emo, which sells death imagery and promotes self-harm and suicidal thoughts in kids, citing Green Day and My Chemical Romance as representative bands. Regardless of how many ridiculous mistakes there are in this short article, the fact that emo is now being described as a kind of social phenomenon in the UK marks the arrival of a new era for emo.
My Chemical Romance, which debuted in 2002, was initially called emo, partly as a remnant of the time when âemoâ still meant âindieâ. Later, when âemoâ took on a new meaning with the success of mainstream acts such as Dashboard Confessional, they released their major debut album, their second album, Sweet Revenge, and as the album sold well and their fan base expanded to younger people, they began to be more and more often associated with emo. One of the decisive factors was the video for the first single from the album, âI'm Not Okayâ. In the video, the members play themselves as high school students who are not doing well in their studies, sports, or love life, and the catchy chorus of âI'm not okay!â was superimposed on the prevailing emo stereotype of âyoung boys singing about how pathetic they are over a punkish soundâ. The fact that this was the only song on the album to focus on school life, and the irony contained in it, was not well understood, and the My Chemical Romance = Emo formula took on a life of its own. The style of black suit, red tie, pale face, and black eye make-up that the band established in the video for their second single âHelenaâ also caught on with kids, and now their image began to lead the emo genre.
In terms of sound, the album is an emotional album, combining rock, punk, hardcore, and metal and concentrating only the intense parts of all genres, and if you take emo as its original word - emotional or emo-core - then there is no music more emo than this. As is clear from the fact that there are no bands that call themselves emo, the debate over whether something is emo or not is essentially pointless, but it is an undeniable fact that this album, which pushed My Chemical Romance into the mainstream, had the power to expand the meaning of the word emo itself. (Yukiko Amida)
ăGOOD NEWS FOR PEOPLE WHO LOVE BAD NEWSă MODEST MOUSE ăApril 2004ă Not only did 1997's âLonesome Crowded Westâ gain a cult following, it became one of the best albums representing the alternative indie scene of the 90s, and âThe Moon & Antarcticaâ in 2000 also gained overwhelming support from critics and fans, including Pitchfork. And this album has gone on to become a platinum hit, showing that Modest Mouse have not lost any of the sharpness that had pervaded their earlier work. It is a work that absorbs and stirs up all kinds of sound elements from Talking Heads to Tom Waits, tracing the folds of the emotions that were born from them, yet still breathes the innocence of a newborn. It threw âindie emoâ, inherited from Built to Spill and reminiscent of early DCFC, into the scene, and was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Alternative Album in 2004. They easily surpassed the context of âemoâ and the like, and unexpectedly, along with The Shins, they were talked about as a ânew trendâ of US indie pop that cut into the major scene. (Mami Hatori)
ăTHE CURSEă ATREYU ăJune 2004ă The sound is hardcore metalcore. Heavy guitar riffs and screams that can be likened to Scandinavian metal or new school metal. However, Atreyu's sound does not end there, thanks in large part to the emotional vocals of drummer Brandon. Brandon's extended voice intertwines with Alex's screams, while the chorus quickly veers off into a melodic direction, a signature development that was a hit not only with core metal fans, but also with kids who normally listen to pop-punk. On this second album, the melodic side of the band's sound is even stronger than on their previous album âSuicide Notes and Butterfly Kissesâ (reissued in 2005 and released in Japan), with the vocals coming to the forefront. It can be said that Atreyu's methodology has flourished brilliantly. With Garth Richardson (Rage Against The Machine etc.) as producer, the sound quality of this album has also been greatly improved, and it is fair to say that this album shows that the concept of âemoâ is no longer confined to a certain genre. (Tomohiro Ogawa)
ăENGINE DOWNă ENGINE DOWN ăAugust 2004ă A four-piece band formed in Virginia in 1996. They released three albums on Lovitt Records, the third of which, âDemure,â was also released in Japan. This fourth and final album was recorded by moving to Lookout, the label that produced Green Day, and produced by Brian McTernan, who worked with Cave In and Converge. While hardcore punk is at the core of the band's sound, the guitar tone and melodic sense are strongly influenced by the British New Wave bands of the 1980s. This blend produced exquisite results, and although it seemed as though they had established a strong personality, Engine Down broke up abruptly after the tour ended. However, vocalist/guitarist Keeley Davis has now joined Sparta, filling the gap left by Paul Hijonos. Their latest album, âThrees,â definitely reflects the taste of this album and is a good piece of work (although I think that their looks also contributed, although it's an unnecessary addition). I look forward to his success in the future. (Yoshiyuki Suzuki)
Translator's Note: I almost forgot just how much emo was hated to the point that it was regarded as the 00s equivalent of the Satanic Panic. The public moral panic over it was overblown in many cases, sometimes having tragic effects, but at the same time, it's like looking back and seeing that it was a story as old as time. It speaks of a society that doesn't really want to understand what was this new phenomenon popular among the younger generation or why they were told to react negatively against it. They were told to punish this movement. And they obliged.
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