[quote name='mykevermin']NO.
(And I'll avoid the rest of your "drink PBR, grow a moustache, and listen to Pant-hurrr-a hypermasculine blather).
Let me repeat: NO.
You see, my wife called me out on this many moons ago when I was watching the video for "Girlfriend in a Coma" on tv. "How can you like this shit when you talk shit about emo kids?"
Ultimately, the emo mockery is misguided. It isn't because they ripped off mom's eyeshadow, or because of the Peppermint Patty haircuts, or the 1981 New Waver look from Hot Topic. While funny to make fun of, it's misguided because people in subcultures always dress funny.
Goths? ALWAYS funny.
Crusty punks? ALWAYS funny.
Metalheads? ALWAYS funny.
Candy Ravers? Even FUNNIER.
All your other subgenres? Yep, funny.
The difference between Morrissey and the Smiths-era music and emo is more related to popularity. I'll hold up "Papa Roach" as evidence of this problem. The key difference is this:
1) The Smiths were popular during a time when they were taking a risk writing songs like they did. Pop music was old disco and co-opted new wave, while "cock rock" was coming on the scene. They had plenty of avenues to go when it came to popular established songwriting, and didn't do it. The same can be said of Violent Femmes. Were they the first band to sound like that? 'course not. Could they have added a keyboard or synth player, given themselves some wacky hairdos, and been like an awesome Devo/Flock of Seagulls hybrid? That might have been an easier way to success.
2) Papa Roach played "nu metal" in the mid-90s when they became popular. That was a certifiable fad, and few of those bands stilll exist, perform, and sell albums. Now that "emo" is the thing, everyone in Papa Roach dropped a ton of weight, changed their look and their sound *completely* to reflect what is popular at the moment. This, to me, is the *KEY* gripe with "emo" music. The cats doing this are swimming with the current, and would be no matter what is popular. They would put on bellbottoms and grow moustaches so they could play old

in' 70's "Gap Band" crap if that became popular. They'd tease their hair out to play cock rock faster than you could say "Rokken like Dokken." They're just doing what is currently going to get them the most sales based on the kind of consumer who says "oh, this *looks* just like the other eyeliner albums I'm buying, so maybe it'll be good." (and you've been that kind of consumer too, buying a metal album just because the monster on the front was scary enough, the scowls of the bandmates on the back mean enough, or the band's logo indecipherable enough, so nobody's a saint here).
That's the difference. The Smiths were avoiding the temptation to perform popular styles of music, while emo bands jump into that shit headfirst.[/QUOTE]
Good to see someone educated on this forum...
Also thank you for putting "emo" in quotes like that when talking about Papa Roach, because anyone with history of music knows that emo is really SDRE, Braid, Texas is the Reason, Get Up Kids, The Promise Ring, and the like, and NOT the shit that gets played these days...
I swear, the best thing for any of us to do is just to NOT let them call it emo, because it isn't, it's dirty pop music, call it that...
-Goatman