I didn't know that emo was popular in uncivilized countries. I really can only think of a couple countries in the whole world that can fit that description in a broad sense.
The ones that don't use the metric system are a good way to measure it.
No "Emo" in the 00's
- Thread starter Romantic Nihilist
- Start date
The ones that don't use the metric system are a good way to measure it.
As I read those comments I remember the good times the 00's brought me Watching American Pie, listening to the Strokes, the way the Girls used to dress.
Watching American Pie, listening to the Strokes, the way the Girls used to dress.As I read those comments I remember the good times the 00's brought me
I am so out of everything. I can't descern 00s fashion from modern or 90s very well.
My understanding is that emo developed after combining watered down shoegaze with watered down pop punk. It didn't really get super popular until NuMetal was introduced creating "Screamo" which went on to be the predominant subgenre associated with emo culture.
If we're aiming for the BEST way to avoid it, rather than the easiest, I'd say have some sort of purist revival movement in the late nineties be more popular, either a legitimate punk or proto-punk revival, or have college rock and shoegaze turn into indie a few years early.
The latter is easy. Most indie bands that were well known or popular in the mid to late 00's were bands that were trying to get popular in the mid to late nineties (see: The Elephant Six Collective of bands and artists).
Another option might be to avoid NuMetal's infusion into early emo, keeping it a nich market that only partially interested pre-teens and only partially disturbed their parents.
Also a second rock and roll/rockabilly revival was possible and a lot of that fashion was co-opted by emo kids (brothel creepers, tight jeans, etc.). There were psychobilly bands doing rather well at that time so it's possible.
Maybe have June Carter Cash die sooner and have Johnny Cash cover "Hurt" earlier then have Cash die earlier too.
This way emotional songs infiltrate punk-rockabilly music in the late nineties and the effect is more adolescents are drawn to it.
Or combine all of the above?
If we're aiming for the BEST way to avoid it, rather than the easiest, I'd say have some sort of purist revival movement in the late nineties be more popular, either a legitimate punk or proto-punk revival, or have college rock and shoegaze turn into indie a few years early.
The latter is easy. Most indie bands that were well known or popular in the mid to late 00's were bands that were trying to get popular in the mid to late nineties (see: The Elephant Six Collective of bands and artists).
Another option might be to avoid NuMetal's infusion into early emo, keeping it a nich market that only partially interested pre-teens and only partially disturbed their parents.
Also a second rock and roll/rockabilly revival was possible and a lot of that fashion was co-opted by emo kids (brothel creepers, tight jeans, etc.). There were psychobilly bands doing rather well at that time so it's possible.
Maybe have June Carter Cash die sooner and have Johnny Cash cover "Hurt" earlier then have Cash die earlier too.
This way emotional songs infiltrate punk-rockabilly music in the late nineties and the effect is more adolescents are drawn to it.
Or combine all of the above?
I don't understand why anyone is blaming Grunge.
Mainstream music hasn't always been cheery to begin with; e.g. Boomtown Rats' I Don't Like Mondays.
People blaming Kurt Cobain should also look up Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison etc. their lives ended prematurely due to drug abuse and brought the 60's to a depressing end.
Also, Blues is hardly cheery (the clue is in the name). If you want to stop Kurt, then you may as well stop Robert Johnson.
You may as well eliminate NIN while you're at it too.
I think it just appeared after Pop Punk and Nu Metal as the next big thing. The fashion and whatnot was easy to market. Over-exposure created a backlash and the whole angsty teenage thing got tacked on as a stereotype. People have been depressed for a number of years which is why it irks me when 'emo' gets tagged on to someone if they genuinely have problems. Also, bullying someone due to being involved with the genre is sad and pathetic.
Perhaps an extension of Grunge continuing in the Heavy direction (TAD's last album doesn't bomb, Melvins make a bigger splash, Layne stays with AIC and continues with the style started by Tripod). Alternative Metal has a big rise towards the end of the 90's along with Nu Metal. But Alt. Metal has a stronger fanbase which makes Pop Punk seem trivial. This weakens the emo genre.
Either that, or Emo becomes popular when the bands were actually close to Post-Hardcore in the 90's.
Mainstream music hasn't always been cheery to begin with; e.g. Boomtown Rats' I Don't Like Mondays.
People blaming Kurt Cobain should also look up Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison etc. their lives ended prematurely due to drug abuse and brought the 60's to a depressing end.
Also, Blues is hardly cheery (the clue is in the name). If you want to stop Kurt, then you may as well stop Robert Johnson.
You may as well eliminate NIN while you're at it too.
I think it just appeared after Pop Punk and Nu Metal as the next big thing. The fashion and whatnot was easy to market. Over-exposure created a backlash and the whole angsty teenage thing got tacked on as a stereotype. People have been depressed for a number of years which is why it irks me when 'emo' gets tagged on to someone if they genuinely have problems. Also, bullying someone due to being involved with the genre is sad and pathetic.
Perhaps an extension of Grunge continuing in the Heavy direction (TAD's last album doesn't bomb, Melvins make a bigger splash, Layne stays with AIC and continues with the style started by Tripod). Alternative Metal has a big rise towards the end of the 90's along with Nu Metal. But Alt. Metal has a stronger fanbase which makes Pop Punk seem trivial. This weakens the emo genre.
Either that, or Emo becomes popular when the bands were actually close to Post-Hardcore in the 90's.
Rex Mundi
Banned
Nah, a lot of hippies did some annoying things but there wasn't the same widespread culture of hate against them as there is against hipsters. Everyone always says "It would've been something else", but there are actual differences between American subcultures.
What are we talking about here, specifically? Music? Fashion? Group cultural construction? All different things.
'cos the Emo aesthetic, the fashion, the whole cultural construction of the thing with it directly playing on teenage angst - that seems to me to be a pretty obvious and blatant bastardised commercial recycling-update of goth fashion.
I'm tempted to say fashion goes in cycles, but then much of the basis for that style which properly originated with Goth in the early eighties never really died, it just petered-out at the end of the eighties, was revived in the mid nineties by teeny Mansonites, went back down a little in the late nineties after Manson's output dipped and the whole angry, masculine, Fred Durst pop-Punk/nuMetal aesthetic took over.
Conclusion? I suspect emo fashion was a semi-dormant fashion trend could have latched onto any kind of mass market alternative music. What music it paired itself up to was irrelevant. The origin of the music and the fashion should be treated separately here.
'cos the Emo aesthetic, the fashion, the whole cultural construction of the thing with it directly playing on teenage angst - that seems to me to be a pretty obvious and blatant bastardised commercial recycling-update of goth fashion.
I'm tempted to say fashion goes in cycles, but then much of the basis for that style which properly originated with Goth in the early eighties never really died, it just petered-out at the end of the eighties, was revived in the mid nineties by teeny Mansonites, went back down a little in the late nineties after Manson's output dipped and the whole angry, masculine, Fred Durst pop-Punk/nuMetal aesthetic took over.
Conclusion? I suspect emo fashion was a semi-dormant fashion trend could have latched onto any kind of mass market alternative music. What music it paired itself up to was irrelevant. The origin of the music and the fashion should be treated separately here.
Demon-Something
Banned
I know, right? Stupid sadness, being all sad and stuff. Why can't all those sad kids just be happy?
Anyways, another good POD perhaps could be giving lo-fi more prevalence in the late 90's, or maybe even the swing revival. Barring that, make Garage Rock Revival bigger. The White Stripes and The Strokes were cool, and no one ever really made fun of them.
I'm still a fan of the idea that Pantera could have challenged Nirvana. Remember, Vulgar Display of Power and Far Beyond Driven were great hits in the early 90s, and boy were they the Anti-Grunge. Perhaps have Anselmo be less of a dick and resolve his problems with the rest of the band between Driven and Trendkill.
ETA: what also helped Nirvana's popularity 20 years after they disbanded was Cobain's death. Perhaps another POD could be Cobain sticking to Rehab and Nirvana stay around longer than OTL.
ETA: what also helped Nirvana's popularity 20 years after they disbanded was Cobain's death. Perhaps another POD could be Cobain sticking to Rehab and Nirvana stay around longer than OTL.
Pantera cutting into Nirvana's popularity or more so their fan base would be rather challenging considering each band's style was vastly different. Pantera would have to have a much more radio friendly sound to get that acclamation. Even then, Cobain's death was a large part of Nirvana's huge popularity because if that didn't happen, Nirvana breaks up eventually, fades into obscurity and reforms when they need the money for reunion tours.
I have hated since I was a teenager, one of my fondest memories is me, my friend and college teacher and my friends old friend making slightly veiled jabs at the emo guy before class (Ironically that guy made fun of my friend quite harshly, he got what he deserved, its a long story.)
Avoid the current economic situation. Not just the Great Recession, but go back to the mortgage crash, thus avoiding the overall feeling that Millennials won't have the same life opportunities previous generations did. Create an economic bubble (in any market within the US) that makes it appear as if they could compete against the rising/rival youth of the emerging markets. And you'd probably avoid a recognizable form of Hispterdom from rising.
The fashion might remain the same though, the attitude would just be different.
However the bubble will burst, and you might end up with something similar down the line. But pretty different at the same time.
Though Cpt Jack notes it isn't as simple as you put it. You can't just simply it as much as that. "Hipster-ism" probably goes way deeper into the current culture than what Emo did in the 00s to the point were one can argue hipster-ism isn't quite a subculture but pretty much the culmination of many post modern tendencies. If you think about it even Emo was a self identified subculture. But anyone who says "I'm a hipster" wouldn't be one by definition. The wiki article is actually crazy on the subject, (I know wiki ain't reliable but this one is rather interesting) give it a read.
katchen
Banned
If you don't want emo to develop, have Billy Corgan get run over by a bus.
Seriously, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (Smashing Pumpkins) is probably one of the most important proto-emo albums of the mid 90s. I heard a lot of music in the late 90s in Australia that was evolving into emo--probably a lot more quickly than it was in the US.
Perhaps it was because Australia was going through the kind of recession that we are going through now (but buffered by a better social safety net) at the time and perhaps because Australia was getting most of it's musical influence either from the UK or homegrown, and no rap in Australia, but in the 90s, I was hearing bands like Cactus Child, to some degree Regurgitator (from QLD), Echobelly, Portishead, Rebecca's Empire, all getting a lot of airplay on stations like JJJ, Looking back on it, they sounded rather emo. (ABC's youth network). BTW, if you want to hear some really good music, go to www.jjj and tune in to their podcasts.
Seriously, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (Smashing Pumpkins) is probably one of the most important proto-emo albums of the mid 90s. I heard a lot of music in the late 90s in Australia that was evolving into emo--probably a lot more quickly than it was in the US.
Perhaps it was because Australia was going through the kind of recession that we are going through now (but buffered by a better social safety net) at the time and perhaps because Australia was getting most of it's musical influence either from the UK or homegrown, and no rap in Australia, but in the 90s, I was hearing bands like Cactus Child, to some degree Regurgitator (from QLD), Echobelly, Portishead, Rebecca's Empire, all getting a lot of airplay on stations like JJJ, Looking back on it, they sounded rather emo. (ABC's youth network). BTW, if you want to hear some really good music, go to www.jjj and tune in to their podcasts.
I'm a bit older than a lot of people on the forum these days. I was a teenager in the 1990s. 90s emo was nothing like 2000s emo in terms of sound (it was a lot less poppy, though on the pop side of punk music), or style (the standard way dudes dressed was black rimmed glasses, gelled hair, and nerdy grandpa sweaters).
Basically, emo kids were one of many sub-genres of punkish people in the 1990s, tangentally associated with the punk scene, hardcore scene, ska scene, ect. In contrast, the "new emo" MTV put forward (besides Jimmy Eat World, which was a sellout band, none of the bands had anything to do with the old scene), was essentially the same people who listened to Marilyn Manson in the 1990s, just in slightly better-fitting clothing. The standard archetype of the depressed, "deep" teenagers who dress mainly in black.
I think what you'd need is some new scene to scoop up this generation of 14 year olds who knew nothing about music and its history. Realistically speaking, it could have been anything from the lighter side of metal, to goth, to industrial. Maybe even some subgenre of electronic dance music.
Basically, emo kids were one of many sub-genres of punkish people in the 1990s, tangentally associated with the punk scene, hardcore scene, ska scene, ect. In contrast, the "new emo" MTV put forward (besides Jimmy Eat World, which was a sellout band, none of the bands had anything to do with the old scene), was essentially the same people who listened to Marilyn Manson in the 1990s, just in slightly better-fitting clothing. The standard archetype of the depressed, "deep" teenagers who dress mainly in black.
I think what you'd need is some new scene to scoop up this generation of 14 year olds who knew nothing about music and its history. Realistically speaking, it could have been anything from the lighter side of metal, to goth, to industrial. Maybe even some subgenre of electronic dance music.