Now, don’t get me wrong – I love my boy like crazy. And I am keenly aware of the irony implicit in a punk mom who doesn’t get her kid’s music. Heh heh.
I have a sort of a theory about screamo. I think it represents an unconscious attempt on the part of young men to broaden their gender role to include more emotional expression. Yes, I know men have always been free to express their emotions; but I think there has remained a certain pressure not to be… well, not to cry or be emotionally vulnerable and stuff like that. In this sense, I think it’s a good thing.
Anyway, do your kids like screamo? Do you? Is it radically different from what you listen to? I’m just curious.
I don’t know what screamo is either. I do like some of the same bands that TurboPup, my fifteen year old son does, but they tend to be more of the pop-punk (All Time Low) or My Chemical Romance, Disturbed and Rise Against - bands which I’m not even sure what they’re classified as.
Well, screamo is an offshoot of emo which was originally an offshoot of hardcore. The book American Hardcore describes the birth of emo and IIRC it was a lot of bands trying to be more constructive with their music as a deliberate response to the macho posturing and violence that were increasingly becoming part of the hardcore scene.
Yep. “Revolution Summer,” they called it…when all the old hardcore bands started playing “wimpy college rock” (I forget where the quote comes from) so as to make their shows and scenes less violent.
Panic at the Disco is not screamo. Not by a mile. Emo, perhaps, but not screamo. This is what screamo sounds like, and this. Oh, okay, sometimes they’re like Thursday and you can make out some words, but that’s more mainstream, like how Green Day and The Offspring are punk.
No, my kid doesn’t like screamo, and it’s a good thing too because I’d smack the crap out of him for having such terrible taste in music.
I have a niece (13) who likes screamo, (I think) as a funny, interesting diversion, not something she’s really “into”. She turned my son (10) onto some screamo stuff, and he liked BYOB by System of a Down (which I’m pretty sure qualifies as screamo); I thought it was a pretty fun/funny tune, and it also has some pretty cool guitar changes.
Yeah, I was afraid someone would say that, I guess I shouldn’t take a 13-year-old’s word for music styles. I still think that song is hilarious.
ETA: I guess I was relying on my 10yo son’s take on what his cousin said about what is or is not screamo, so there’s little hope of getting an accurate opinion.
I do enjoy System of a Down. They got some chops, their music is interesting, they don’t seem to take themselves completely seriously (although their music is heavily political), and they incorporate Western Asian/Eastern European folk melodies into their wild vocals and somehow make it work. Fun band.
System of a Down is not screamo, it’s metal. However, Serj is now a solo act.
TheKid is very much into screamo. Her exBF is the ‘screamer’ in a garage band - too bad he screams like a 3 year old girl getting pinched. Sucks greatly.
Her tastes in music change as often as her style of clothes, but some bands she just won’t leave behind - Underoath, Bullet for my Valentine, Chiodos, and Bring me the Horizon are the bands I can’t escape from.
She gets a lot of crap from some of her non-outcast friends about screamo. She says she likes the “angstiness” of screamo. She’s 16. Life is angst.
So it’s called “screamo”? I have a young co-worker who listens to stuff like this on Youtube all night; I’ve been referring to it as “Angry White Boy Music”. I’m reminded of a Foxtrot cartoon wherein the mother calls her mother to complain about a CD she gave to one of the kids, protesting, “But, Mom, the music I drove you crazy with was good!”
My 11 year old daughter has recently discovered Evanescence. I’m not sure what genre, sub-genre, sub-sub-genre, etc. that band falls into; I’m just profoundly thankful it isn’t Justin Bieber.
