if i wrote some historical music essays that described live as emo - and presented an argument for it - what would the reaction be? i mean, i know it's not a common designation. i think it's the correct one, but i know i'm going to get some emo people yelling at me. overall, though, i'm just curious as to how people that listened to live would react.
i mean, live never really fit as alt. rock. do they fit better as emo? what do their fans think?
i loved live up to the distance to here, but it was more of a continuity related to growing up listening to rem and u2. i remember checking life's rich pageant and green out of the public library when i was about seven or eight, and getting my uncle to dub me copies of u2's discography at roughly the same age. i was a precocious child. so, i connected to live like that - as an extension of my precocious, jangle rock childhood (which also included genesis, the bangles and the b-52s). i was a teenager through the 90s, so, naturally, i was mostly into harder edged music: industrial and punk, mostly. so, excluding getting into sdre through radiohead, i was mostly oblivious to the existence of that whole quiet math emo thing. further, by the time i'd grown up enough to expand my tastes, post-rock was the go to: mogwai, gybe, tortoise. it's something i skipped over.
(looking back, i honestly don't think i missed much)
how about the rest of you? did you listen to what was called emo in the 90s? to be clear, i'm talking about stuff like mineral, not stuff like drive like jehu.
i mean, to be a little bit more clear...
i don't think emo is a valid genre. you give me something labeled emo, i'll put it in a different category. but, if it's not going to go away, we should at least be consistent and systematic about it.
i couldn't imagine anybody listening to grunge also listening to live. it's night and day. well, except me, but, as i mentioned, i connected live with the 80s music i grew up with. that can't have been the norm.
it sort of makes sense to me to think that live fans would also be into music that is roughly like sunny day real estate. there's large overlaps, musically and thematically. so, now i'm testing this by asking it's fan base - did you listen to much 90s emo?
Matt M.
I wouldn't consider LIVE as being emo. Now something like blue october and manson were what the emo kids in my high school listened too. but that was late 90's early 2000's
John Garcia
honestly this could be emo...the time frame is different tho i do not really remember any bands being labled as emo in the 90's...but if you listen to these songs and listen to some of the emo music of today they are kinda the same
deathtokoalas
yeah, the term emo is notoriously vague. i think it's gone through three phases. it was a hardcore term in the 80s, a term that meant roughly "softcore apolitical punk with pretentious vocals" in the 90s (which kind of describes live well) and something roughly similar to "hot topic mall goth" in the 00s. these three sounds and styles really have little in common with each other....although the 00s usage is actually much closer to it's initial usage.
i have to be honest that i never heard the term in the 90s, either - even though i listened to a bunch of what was supposedly labeled it. but it apparently was used to identify bands that i would mostly think of as "quiet math rock with introspective vocals". it's roughly synonymous with"slowcore". i cited mineral and sunny day real estate as two of the better known acts. another is american football.
so, i need to be clear that peter isn't using the word the same way i am. i know live weren't goth. that's blatantly obvious. but i'm still curious if any live fans listened to those kinds of things...
i suppose that if you did, you'll know what i mean.
Matt M.
i understand completely.
Alfredo Rodriguez
I think I am to old to understand Emo. I like Live, have been listening to them off and on throughout my life. To me, Alt. Rock was Emo, before there was an Emo. But like I said, I don't think I understand the Emo scene.
David Herring
live does not constitute as emo, and yes, there was emo in the 90's. better then ezra, sunny day real estate, as afore mentioned, and promise ring. as well as others. they don't fit. srry not emo
deathtokoalas
well, i think there's a really big problem with putting better than ezra, sunny day real estate and promise ring in the same genre. i agree that there's not a whole lot of overlap between live and better than ezra. but is there much overlap between sunny day real estate and promise ring? to me, promise ring sound more like green day and better than ezra were just radio pop. i've never heard the better than ezra as emo thing before, btw, but that helps me understand this a bit more.
let me pull radiohead into the discussion because they're another act that i think might be better categorized as emo. certainly, they drew a lot on that math/post sound around ok computer. at the time, live and radiohead would have been easily lumped together. they both had a background through the talking heads (jerry harrison produced the best live records, radiohead got their name from a talking heads song). they were both generally thought of as '90s college rock' in the sense that they drew big influences from rem and u2. in a sense, 90s emo was also 90s 'college rock'. i think we can put live and radiohead in the same genre (whatever it is) without a lot of fuss.
i'd claim, though, that sunny day real estate should be historically classed with radiohead rather than with jawbreaker and weezer. i have very fond memories of lp2. but it was introduced to me on the rhml. for years, everybody that i met that like radiohead also liked sdre. there's a lot of stylistic similarities. so, those bands very much go together.
what we're left with is a set of at least three bands that fit together well through stylistic similarity: {radiohead, live, sunny day real estate}.
this is just alt rock, right? well, no. i wouldn't put the seattle grunge stuff in there. they don't really have much in common with those acts. nor would i put in the no wave (sonic youth) stuff or the la rock scene (rhcp) stuff or the dc punk (fugazi) stuff or the boston rock (dinosaur jr) stuff or the minneapolis punk (husker du) stuff. there's something different and unique there that builds up it's own category. and if you look at the characteristics, they're "emo": non-standard songwriting, math rock influences, strong vocal melodies, introspective vocals, emotional content.
now, as mentioned, i can build a conceptual unity between sdre and radiohead, and between radiohead and live. but i'm missing first hand evidence of live fans actually listening to 'emo'.
i realize the language may be alienating. let's strip it out. how many people in here were sunny day real estate fans in the mid to late 90s?
David Herring
right here.
Stacy Musacchia
I never heard the word "emo" associated with any form of entertainment until late 2000s. If If Live put out Lightning Crashes today it wouldn't even get radio play.
Shroom Masta
I guess you would have to listen to Good Charlotte or red jumpsuit then listen to this then after that listen to Bush see which one it sounds like more :S Then you have your answer :S
deathtokoalas
it doesn't sound like either, really. but, i do think razorblade suitcase was a huge influence on what was called emo in the 00s.
i mean, i'm not one to stand up for bush. i think they were pretty unfairly ripped apart by the british press for sounding "too american" at the height of the brit-pop craze. how fair of a criticism is that, really? in actuality, sixteen stone is really more of an edgy brit-pop disc than anything from seattle, new york or boston. it sounds more like blur than nirvana.
but the truth is that a band like thursday could only hope to get as "emotional" as this:
you can hear a big bush influence in a lot of the "emo" bands that came out after about '05, probably because they grew up listening to them when they were kids.
but that's not what i'm getting at. good charlotte sounds like a watered down green day. i'm talking about the sdre sound.
Joe law
you guys got me totally lost which means I'm frickin old.!!! Music these days seems to have too many sub categories to keep up with. Don't laugh but the first music I remember hearing was The Beatles, Rolling Stones and a whole slew of bands that were around in the 60's and early 70' cuz that's what my Dad listened to. As I got older I moved on to bands like Rush , Led Zeppelin..etc. Back then there was Rock, country, classical etc. No such thing as Classic Rock. Then in the mid to late 70's to early 80's bands like Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, etc sprung up which is where I started to hear the term Heavy Metal. Then because of Quiet Riots album Metal Health the term Headbanger music . After that I didn't bother keeping up with all those sub categories. When Nirvana and Alice In Chains came out there was no Grunge as far as I knew. But I liked the mix of heavy metal and a brief mellow verse then back to heavy metal. If you ask me...grunge..emo..headbanger..heavy metal...alternative,,,,,it's all Rock and Roll to me. It all has overpowering guitar which I think defines the Rock and Roll sound. Does Brittany Spears or Lady Gaga even have a guitar playing in their music? I've only heard part of a song or two but they don't have that guitar jamming in their songs...I'm so confused now...Anyway I am 50 yrs old and listened to the classic rock when it was current...then moved to bands like Nirvana, AIC and listened to Live and what is considered alternative. I listen to anything that has a screaming guitar and singer, Live is a little mellower but They still fall into that sound of music that I like.
deathtokoalas
yeah. the way i'm using the term emo refers to the mellower, more country-oriented side of live. like everything else, it ultimately traces back to the beatles. think of a track like julia, or michelle.
David Herring
lol. okay so i think i just need to figure out exactly what emo is i think. see emo as i am using it has little to do with the sound and more to do with song stucture and lyrical context. as i consider this genre, it started as punk, minor threat being the genre starters, fugazi also would fit into the emo scene. however, theres no sadness in LIVE as a band. writing a few love songs like lightning crashes, i alone, and dolphins cry don't work. after all if you look at a statement like "stop being so emo", you don't usually hear that as people are happy in love, but Sdre break up songs, as well as better then ezra. it's all break up songs. in those days though, my days in the 90's i mean, it wasn't like emo now of i'm sad so i'mma kill myself, it was you broke my heart, now burn bitch! kinda stuff. so after all that long winded explaination of what we were calling emo then, my original question would be, how do you classify emo?? because emo today, doesn't fit into my 90's emo genre or the original 80's emo genre either.
deathtokoalas
i don't think the relationship aspect applied to emo as a 90s phenomenon in much totality. it was a small aspect of it, but the idea was more about an exaggerated "emotional" vocal style (as opposed to the guttural screams of 90s rock, or the disinterested narrative beatnik-alternative-punk style) and became attached to a certain type of pretension that live really perfectly embody.
90s emo seems to be mostly synonymous with what they called "college rock" in the 80s and appealed to the same demographic of college kids that thought they were smarter than everybody else.
also, minor threat were a political punk act. "emotive hardcore" (which i've been very clear is not what i'm discussing here, or how history will remember the term "emo") is what happened a little bit later when ian mackaye decided to sell out and release a bunch of bon jovi shit.
Michael Richardson
Not Emo. Alternative, sure... But Emo is whiny annoying music for the most part, this is some of the best music of the 90's, and definitely not Emo sorry.
deathtokolas
please, people.
stick with the definitions i've provided or don't bother. changing the definition adds nothing to the debate.
David Herring
True. With all said the question was could you make a plausible arguement with said defined definitions, i would say yes.
Justin Kiser
Im just going to interrupt by saying that is it bloody refreshing to see a mature musical discussion in the comments section, very refreshing I am quite pleased to see it
Jackie Stein
Maybe there is hope for society yet.
sweatshirt029
this is from the same era as emo, but id say emo is more like sunny day real estate, the dismemberment plan, stuff like that.
deathtokoalas
but isn't this really a lot like that?
certainly, it's at least considerably more like that than it is like something like, say, jane's addiction, or the smashing pumpkins - "alternative rock" of the same period.
(although the pumpkins are awkward, because they dabbled heavily in emo-like styles and came out of a convergent path from it. they even brought in brad wood for one disc. i mostly mean pre-mcis pumpkins. but even that's a bit ambiguous.)
and, actually, is it not obvious that jeremy enigk's biggest influence is perry farrell? forget jane's and the pumpkins...
is it not certainly a lot closer to sdre than it is to pearl jam or soundgarden? i was trying to avoid grunge and focus on alt rock by getting out of seattle...
what i'm getting at is that you have to either acknowledge that emo and alt. rock are basically the same thing, or you need to split off a lot of the post-grunge acts as emo rather than alt rock and then define alt rock more carefully. if emo is a set of characteristics, a huge amount of alt rock arguably fits those characteristics better than what was labelled emo actually does. but, there's a lot of alt rock that doesn't really fit into alt rock, as a movement, as well.
i was just trying to find out how big the crossover between live and sdre is. i think i've found some, but it's still inconclusive for me...
the one association i'm rock solid on is radiohead. whatever these acts are, they're in the same genre. i'm not budging on that one.
