new music

I've been struck recently. No really, a coworker hit me the other day for saying something stupid.

But figuratively too.

Most of the music I really love I hated at one point. Three artists that come to mind are Tool, Steely Dan, and Radiohead. I used to not just dislike those bands, but really hated them. Now they are some of my favorites. Well, I have been speaking the terrors of Emo type music for some time now. My first major exposure to it (I had seen something about it on MTV in the late 90's, but that was just like one MTV news break) was Katy's dorm roomate Kerry. She had Coldplay and Dashboard Confessional posters up on the wall.

Then the stuff picks up some mainstream push. It's starting to show up on soundtracks, and there is a bunch of it on the "Modern Rock Alt" Muzak station at Kinko's. I'm certainly not smitten yet. My coworked Cameron loves this stuff. Still not getting me. Then two key things happen. My longtime friend Maggie and particuarly her boyfriend Josh are really into this stuff. They played a few things for me including "The Fire Theft." That's the new album by the band of the same name, and its a recoup of an old Sub-Pop band called "Sunny Day Real Estate." I love that record so much I go out and buy it the night they play it for me, and read up on the guys a little. Turns out Sunny Day is sorta the forebearer of modern Emo.

Then on sorta the other end of the Emo spectrum, my mom's BF John loans me the Snapcase record "End Transmission." Wow. That one is a blow to the head. It's just a balls-to-the-wall screaming hardcore band. Great catchy riffs. Incredibly melodic, but really pushing the envelope of music, and lots of Pink Floyd-ish spacey stuff inbetween brutal guitars.

So one day, a pay day, as I often make the mistake of doing, I go into Best Buy. I was about to leave, but they had a Victory Records table at the front with a number of these bands I've been hearing about. I just suddenly decided to take a leap of faith and bought a record from Thursday, whom Josh had mentioned. It even had a song on it that gets played on the Kink's "Mdn Rock Alt" alot that I hated but suddenly really like.

Just like "Stinkfist," "Karma Police," and "Aja." Hmmm............

So, I start talking to Cameron about this stuff more, and it's kinda like a new door opens. This isn't just a band that I have been pushing off, it's a very large genre, with relativly large sub-genres. Theres the pure Emo, which I haven't really hit on yet, then theres ScrEmo, like Thursday, and then hardcore, like Snapcase, sorta. Snapcase has actually been around for like 15 years and according to what I have read they change genres for each record, but "End Transmission" is all I've heard.

Cameron brought his collection in for me to flip through and explained to me that a good bunch of the ones he listens to are actually Christian bands. For some reason this type of music has caught on really well as Christian music.


So, that's where this situation sits up to now. I'll try to kinda update this soon. Maybe I'll keep listening, maybe I'll get really sick of it. The key thing to remember is that I even think N'Sync and then Justin Timberlake's solo stuff is great pop music. I hated it at first too. ;)