Happy (post-) Halloween! Here's something that is probably scarier than checking your Venmo history from this weekend — your iTunes library from 2008! As a tween, you probably dabbled a little -- or a lot -- in the emo-pop-punk scene or whatever name you gave to the music of Fall Out Boy, The All-American Rejects, Panic! At The Disco and many more. It’s just one part of our adolescence that the middle schoolers in 2016 don't have. Perhaps today’s youth aren’t any less embarrassing than we were, but they do have VSCO filters, which kind of take the edge off. Technically speaking, real 90s kids experienced their formative years in the mid-2000s, and what a time it was. Yes, I’m talking about sleepovers spent playing Rock Band (2007) and texting on LG flip phones with monthly SMS limits. What better way to get over your ex than by blasting “The Great Escape” (2006) by Boys Like Girls? So I have a few questions: Why did this music end? Where are they now? And will there ever be a resurgence of our angsty teenage anthems?
In revisiting this musical era, I must admit that these bands are a little exhausting. I feel like I need to crush a can of Monster on my head when I’m listening to Paramore’s “Misery Business" (2007). Yet, some have survived despite the “screamy-ness;" Fall Out Boy’s recent hits like “Centuries” (2015) and “Uma Thurman” (2015) have been used as sporting event soundtracks, perhaps because they are too intense for the “chill vibe” of pop today. I must point out that aside from Paramore, which has a strong female lead, many of these alternative boy bands lacked uniqueness, which may have contributed to their extinction. Take four guys with side-swept bangs, lip piercings, guitars, whiney voices and voila. Teenage girls love it; moms, less so. But there’s only so much of that we can enjoy before moving on. In the end, I think the answer might be the most obvious: We grew up. They grew up. Considering pop music today, it’s pretty funny to acknowledge how mainstream this all was only a few years ago.
To boot, all of this was packed into a mishmash genre called “alternative,” where MyChemical Romance could be found next to Coldplay. Side note: I was a bit of an iTunes nerd in middle school. Every Tuesday, I’d scrutinize the new releases, the free singles and the spotlights. I could recite the overall Top 10 chart on any given week. Now a devout Spotifier, I begrudgingly opened iTunes only to find that "alternative" still apparently covers everything from The Lumineers to Tove Lo to Linkin Park. Go figure. The genre curators seem to be as confused as they were in the mid-2000s. So to conclude, "Thnks fr th Mmrs" (2007) everybody, but for now, the emo years will be preserved in my iPod Mini. But then again, chokers are making the comeback of the decade, so I suppose anything is possible.
