by BrainBurner

This is the first generation of bands that seems ready to really invest in emo as a serious identifier (it’s eye opening to hear how many “Golden Era” artists hedge on the term “emo” on the aforementioned Washed Up Emo podcast). And what that term means is being curated very carefully. Some of that anxiety might explain the adolescent streak that has defined this reiteration until very, very recently. That bands like American Football, Joan of Arc, Colossal, Pele, or later groups like Algernon Cadwallader, were the discographies around which recent re-discoveries of this sound occurred makes sense. These are bands that offered a version of emo that was legible yet unique enough to appeal to an instinct of ownership, originality, and taste that so many music fans cultivate. There was never a time in the 2010s when you couldn’t find Taking Back Sunday or Saves The Day in any Best Buy or downtown middle-capacity venue. But there were years where you didn’t hear any mention of Knapsack or Kind Of Like Spitting. These bands, who were free of what made the emo-boom bands of the mid-2000s ultimately hard to like, offered a route through which to rehabilitate what emo was, what it sounded like, and what it could mean. A record like American Football became a sort of secret code or point of re-entry. The center of the sound’s gravity moved to the left, toward more difficult constructions and less over-loaded histories. Ultimately, you could like Braid or Cap’n Jazz or Texas Is The Reason or Colossal baggage free. But there’s a sneaky problem in how this renewed investment in this sound and scene became so wound in a very specific, very limited archive.