The Top 100 Emo Songs of All Time
I have a lot of thoughts about the Boston Phoenix’s Top 100 Emo Songs of All Time! My main takeaway: they actually did a pretty good job!
The list: I was generally satisfied with the fullness of the Phoenix’s plumbing of the canon, especially the respect they showed to later emo acts. When you’re talking about emo, there always seems to be a tinge of shame and a temptation to hearken back to the classic early bands, poo-pooing more contemporary emo as kids’ stuff. Rites of Spring, Texas Is the Reason, and Sunny Day Real Estate are great bands, but there’s a lot more to the genre!
North Jersey Emocore / LIEWS: Excellent representation of two of the most fertile breeding grounds of emo rock. Call me a homer, but I’ll pit Jersey’s crop of bands (Thursday, Saves the Day, My Chemical Romance, Midtown, The Early November, Senses Fail) against any other region in the country.
… except maybe Long Island? Brand New and Taking Back Sunday are obviously titans of the genre, and the Top 100 also showed love to Straylight Run, Glassjaw, and the Movielife. (LIEWS is a term coined by a friend of mine, meaning “Long Island Emo With Screaming.”)
Konfused: This is a minor quibble, but I figured that “Konstantine” by Something Corporate, quite possibly the Most Emo Song Ever, would have been ranked higher.
The Top 10: Aside from the fact that Brand New wuz robbed, it’s a good top 10! Would I have done it a little differently? Probably. I’m more of a pissed-off-emo guy than a wistful-emo guy, so I’d rather see Fall Out Boy represented with “Tell That Mick He Just Made My List of Things to Do Today,” for instance. And for what it’s worth, “Limousine,” off Brand News epic 2006 album The Devil and God Are Raging Inside me, is about the true story of a little girl tragically killed on her way home from a wedding in a drunk driving accident, might be a better, and more emo, song than “The Quiet Things That No One Ever Knows.”
