rolling emo/pop-punk/dogs on skateboards 2017

wow @ pulling the "coming out" apology pivot post-spacey

Pianos Become the Teeth sound like an emo band again and I'm not sure how to feel about that yet

https://open.spotify.com/track/5kEHz2d1bafXdAem3PfIya

oh what's up rolling emo thread. i like the new dashboard song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SANXNco_y4

yesssss

This seems a key read

https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/unraveling-the-sexism-of-emos-third-wave/

there's probably an instance in the brand new thread of me... not exactly defending "me vs. maradona" but thinking it was more self-aware and self-loathing than, say, any song from your favorite weapon, and ofc that makes me feel sick now

Where did we lose the plot? When I think about the decades that immediately preceded third-wave emo—about D.C. punk, riot grrrl, Kurt Cobain proclaiming women the future of rock—I’m astonished that it happened at all.

what jenn gets at here is something i've thought about a lot. i mean, nothing moves in a straight line; things fluctuate and loop around themselves. but still, as a genre emo started out as a somewhat gendered response to hardcore (i mean it was still a boy's club but it was a boy's club that seemed to long to subvert or reject masculinity) that over the course of 15 years rerouted itself into outright misogyny. (of course this description kinda flattens how many different things emo became just within the '90s)

I think it came from how early emo was about really laying your insides bare, putting your emotional baggage right out there. This idea gave gross dudes what they saw as license to just spit out all their misogynistic baggage out there because that's what they were feeling without the smallish scene politics to keep their shit in check. (I mean early emo wasn't all wine and roses either but there's definitely a change when mainstream emo hit larger audiences.)

^^ yeah that's basically the conclusion i've come to myself

Baring your soul can lead to some terrifying shit if your soul is filled with garbage.

tbh I don't really think there's anything wrong with that "Sugar We're Going Down" line (though there's plenty of other ugly or gross Wentz lyrics esp from that era)

agreed and agreed. i was just thinking of the distance in perspective just between from under the cork tree and infinity on high

wait actually, sorry, i’m drunk, which “sugar we’re going down” lyric are we referring to

the "notch in your bedbost / line in a song" one

anyway, that new Camp Cope song is massive

yes that line is great

i'm super loving Young Jesus

That Pinegrove statement is insanely vague but still troubling.

I might be erring on the side of optimism here but it reads like a cautious reaction/reflection as opposed to damage control (this is of course subject to change as facts emerge)

I suspect it's quite bad. The statement twists itself into knots trying to avoid saying what he did, which completely negates the apology and makes me suspect the worst.

It's so easy to nitpick these apologies, because they're inherently self-serving, but this one particularly left a foul taste in my mouth. He avoids saying "I did it," or even mentioning what "it" is. And he plays the "I'm trying to respect the privacy of the victim" card, which would be thoughtful if not for the two long paragraphs of superfluous identifying details about her, which do nothing except to justify how he might have "monumentally misread" the situation. Gross.

it's an extremely confusing statement

It's confusing by design, I think. I've seen quite a few people on Twitter who think he's apologizing for sleeping with consenting fans on the road and don't understand what the big deal is. That part of the apology is conversational catnip, but it's also beyond the scope of what he's been accused of and is apologizing for. It just blurs things and changes the conversation.

I'm inclined to agree with you Evan. It's either one of two things, what simon said, that it's just an overly cautious attempt to get ahead of the game of something possibly small, or it's intentionally obfuscating something much bigger. I feel like the latter comes across as more likely given how vague the apology is.

unfortunately from what i've heard (which is... just whispers at the moment, so i'm not in a position to clarify beyond this extremely vague post, but hopefully it can kinda... prepare people for what's going to happen next) this isn't good

fucking hell

Nobody's perfect and most publications are trying to cover this stuff sensitively, but I suspect music media is going to have to have a conversation with itself about how it's covered this story. Letting an abuser define the narrative is bad precedent—it makes the story not about the abuse, but about the abuser's soul-searching journey— and I suspect the widespread adoption of his "sexual coercion" terminology is going to look very embarrassing soon.

It's a tricky story to report, especially with what's on the record right now, but it's not the press's job to do P.R. for an abuser.

eh in this case i don’t think the press had much choice

I mean, this headline has been chilling on the front page of Pitchfork all afternoon: Pinegrove Cancel Tour After Accusation of Sexual Coercion Against Frontman Evan Stephens Hall

doesn't look great for him either way

if i said "i just hope this doesn't bury the next Pinegrove album forever" is that "haha funny/true" or HEY MAN NOT FUNNY! in this delicate time on the internet

imo you should keep that shit to yourself

xxp Lots of headlines frame the story around his apology, letting him get ahead of the narrative. EW's, for instance: "Pinegrove cancels tour after 'sexual coercion' accusation: 'I am so sorry,' singer says"

And this A.V. Club report is... just about as bad as it could be. This lead gushes with appreciation about him coming clean "as soon as they were brought to his attention," and frames the narrative around him coming to terms with what he did:

As more and more people get called out for inappropriate abusive behavior in their past, Pinegrove frontman Evan Stephens Hall has decided to issue a response to allegations of misconduct against him as soon as they were brought to his attention rather than wait until the backlash had begun to swell. In a post on the band’s Facebook page, Hall said that he has been accused of sexual coercion, saying that he now realizes he abused his power as a member of the band by partaking in “flirtatious” and “intimate” encounters with fans. “I’ve reached the conclusion now that that’s not ever appropriate,” Hall writes, “even if they initiate it. There will always be an unfair power dynamic at play in these situations and it’s not ok for me to ignore that.”

I get that these are weird circumstances, but we gotta do better than that.

evan literally the only information available is the apology

the av club report sucks, agreed

xxp fair enough, thx

new Glassjaw out next week. I like the single, sort of Deftonesy in the verse/chorus dynamic

i’ve never really liked glassjaw so i’m curious

tbh same, Worship and Tribute sounds cool but never did much for me in terms of the actual content

that new song sounds extremely cool though

It's more post-hardcore than emo but man this Flagland record is the craziest rock record I've heard in a long time, a big freewheeling shoestring opus. it seems beamed in from 2002 in the best way possible

https://flagland.bandcamp.com/album/two-brothers-and-a-ghost

I was listening to that just now! It was sounding kinda good - I think I turned it off during track 2 to check a few other things out, but you say it's worth hearing straight through?

I'm still only halfway through cause it's so fucking long - the vocalist is the weakpoint (as usual) but I'm digging the dynamism

not one but four literary quotes on the bandcamp page

this record sure is like, 1/5 terrible and 4/5ths good

lmao yes that's about right. if they get an actual producer for the next one I could see them making a real killer

I just get excited when bands get overambitious, it seems like everyone's making tidy, safe little records these days

Seconding the People Like You recommendation above. Sort of like American Football if vocals were provided by The Anniversary.

https://peoplelikeyoumusic.bandcamp.com/album/verse

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/12/04/young-and-dumb-inside

^^ i loved that

ok so i've heard the glassjaw (it's really weird) and now i can do this:

top emo/pop-punk albums 2017:

jeremy enigk: ghosts
manchester orchestra: a black mile to the surface
circa survive: the amulet
rainer maria: s/t
paramore: after laughter
glassjaw: material control
caracara: summer megalith
creeper: eternity, in your arms
racquet club: racquet club
front bottoms: going grey
oliver houston: whatever works
smidley: smidley
smith street band: more scared of you than you are of me
iron chic: you can't stay here
worriers: survival pop
sorority noise: you're not as ____ as you think

Yeah I think you got most of the really good ones there. Not a huge emo year for me personally, and uh certain things dampened my enthusiasm