This POLL Will Become the Anthem of Your EMO Voting Thread / You're Two Floors Down CAMPAIGNING in the Back Room.

ha I know a coupla folks from Orangeville, I'll have to ask if they heard of em

I'm 40 Sund4r, so congrats, old guy award probably goes to me.

Gonna campaign for the One Last Wish album. Rites of Spring's post-Rites of Spring band, with the same raw-throat conviction, but an overall more hopeful, lighter, poppier spirit. One of the great dead ends in underground rock history, imo, since the LP wasn't released until well after the fact (too late to be influential), but it imagined a cross between emo and '80s guitar-pop that never existed elsewhere. Every song is great, song for song as solid at Rites of Spring, so it's not a stretch to think it could've become a touchstone if it had ever been pressed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rjnH3jL7AA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7slGajKCOI

the record not on spotify that i'm most aggressively going to campaign for is jejune's this afternoon's malady, which is simultaneously emo, indie pop, and shoegaze, and which is sometimes my favorite record in any of those subgenres

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivkEDtbIFM0

iirc i think i learned about jejune on this ilx thread

the emo canon

I'm 40 Sund4r, so congrats, old guy award probably goes to me.

it could add an interesting stat dimension to the results if we all submitted our ages lol

^^^^^excellent thread xp

ugh that's making me realize i forgot to nominate phantoms by acceptance

simultaneously emo, indie pop, and shoegaze, and which is sometimes my favorite record in any of those subgenres

The hardest part of this poll is going to be deciding whether or not to vote for some of my favorite records ever that I never considered emo.

yeah I'm not gonna vote for Unwound, Converge, and some others. I may vote for the Wrens though because I get the same satisfaction of idenficiation/immersion from them as I do from emo bands, if that makes any sense

I'm listening to the straylight run for the first time (the second album) and uhhh I think this is what I wanted out of Pretty. Odd.

Yeah Unwound is probably my favorite LP on the whole list but I won't vote for it.

Deja Entendu suffers from having such a brilliant and novel opening track (after the intro). The rest of the album doesn't really stand out for me, especially after having heard almost nothing but emo for the past week. 'Jaws Theme Swimming' is great, though.
I'll definitely relisten before I vote, but for now I don't really get all the praise.

the opening track is great but imo actually seems a bit out of place w/ the rest of the album which is tremendous on its own virtues. boy who blocked his own shot, quiet things that no one ever knows, okay i believe you but my tommy gun don't, guernica -- i mean like every track at least to me is incredibly memorable w/ a v distinctive musical aesthetic and maybe more importantly just chockfull of really clever lyrics. idk if you were paying attention to the lyrics while you were listening but they're a big part of the appeal to me. it's also a fantastic album to sing along really loudly to while you're feeling sad and driving somewhere.

I like Deja Entendu a lot but I can't help feeling that The Devil and God makes it sound a bit quaint.

i like devil & god but somehow it's not as lyrically interesting to me. musically probably more impressive but i don't think deja entendu is a slouch in that department either, just a bit more conventional

i think deja entendu might be the greatest transitional album of all time; it's definitely suffering from an identity crisis but if anything that makes it better, both rejecting and embracing what made your favorite weapon work, trying to make something both ambitious and poppy, straightforward and oblique. i prefer devil and god but they're kinda equally special imo

idk if you were paying attention to the lyrics while you were listening but they're a big part of the appeal to me. it's also a fantastic album to sing along really loudly to while you're feeling sad and driving somewhere.

2) I'm one of the happiest guys on the planet

fp

dgi

flagging ur post bc u self-identified as happy in the emo thread

if ur happy get out

LOL

Agreed tbh

idk if i'm often sad tbph, more like perpetually angsty and anxious

i'll allow it

I didn't nominate anything cause I was never really into the late '90s early '00s pop-punk emo, but this is a damn fine list of albums. I'll try to get a ballot together.

xxp - That's why you're running the poll and not me. I'm going to put on an I Hate Myself album now and see if it helps...

OK gonna attempt to campaign for two of the bands on my nomination list: Hot Water Music and Small Brown Bike...

At their core these are very similar acts. Three word band names! Dense, detuned guitars! Scruffy dudes howling over each other in gruff voices! Both take cues from acts that came before: HWM, say, Leatherface; and SBB, say, HWM and Jawbreaker. Both at/were near the top of my late 90s-early 00s post-hardcore/emo-core/punk fandom.

Fuel for the Hate Game and Forever and Counting are the essential HWM albums for me because they manage to be both strong and sensitive, lyrical and gutteral, and complex yet simple in their execution in true punk style. The lyrics are damn near impossible to decipher (especially considering the singers are frequently singing different lines at the same time) but they still bring a sense of unity, purpose, and optimism. Musically, their rhythm section and syncopated play has always impressed me... dare I say they can even be "groovy"?

Key tracks for me: On Fuel, "Turnstile", "Blackjaw", "Drunken Third". On Forever, "Better Sense", "Just Don't Say You Lost It", "Minno".

Small Brown Bike, at first, sounds very similar to HWM. I know they played shows/toured together, and both were mainstays of No Idea Records during their careers. SBB is a bit more emo, I'd say -- more songs about relationships and less about scene unity. The fact that they're from my home state of Michigan definitely plays into their selection on my part, I've probably seen them live a dozen times. At times they feature three vocalists taking on different levels of screaming/shouting the words, often answering one another. Of these two albums, Our Own Wars is the earlier and probably the more complete work, but the production and live execution of Dead Reckoning was amazing in its time. Neither have held up as well as I feel the HWM albums have, but I still love them.

Key tracks: On Dead Reckoning, "Sleeping Weather", "This Ship Will Burn", "I Will Bury You In Me". On Our Own Wars, "The Cannons And Tanks", "Zerosum", "Make This A Holiday" -- the last being the best SBB song ever and one I'm not ashamed to admit I will scream along with at full volume if given the chance.

"listen to I Hate Myself and see if that helps" would be an excellent name for the poll imo

Turnstile is one of my fave songs ever.

All of the experts say you ought to start them young. / That way they'll naturally love the taste of corporate cum.

<gag>

lmao i love that line/song

Hah, I assumed that line was from one of Dan's screamo bands, but then I looked it up. Good song!

lol my shortlist turns out to be 107, and that's not including some of my absolute favorite records that I never considered emo before (Blood Brothers, Refused, Unwound). Time to do some trimming.

I wish refused had more songs about being sad

ugh i def should've made the ballot larger. i guess 30 is plenty but my personal list would love to be ~50

yeah, I'm about to cut serious classics of the genre and it hurts me inside, which is appropriate.

flagging ur post bc u self-identified as happy in the emo thread

― the raindrops and drop tops of lived, earned experience (BradNelson), Tuesday, February 21, 2017 10:19 AM (five hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lmao great exchange

weird, i didn't even notice that only one piebald record was nominated and it's not my favorite piebald record

crybald

I want to put in a word for The Weakerthans' Left and Leaving for anyone who hasn't heard it. That was a HUGE record for me once upon a time and I relistened to it for this poll for...maybe the first time in a decade?...and it's still so fucking good. Definitely pioneering for how it finds a crossroads between (ugh) "literate" indie songwriting and emo+pop-punk flavor, with almost impossibly wistful and impactful lyrics. (Propagandhi is definitely the better band but there's no way in hell I'm voting for them in this poll.)

I got to 30 that I could rank without relistening to anything, so I just sent in my ballot. Now I'm going to go listen to some of this stuff.

I can't believe I forgot to nominate Drexel - The Inevitable Is Available

So, I was reminded of this by this poll, but in college I downloaded a song mislabeled as Karate that clearly wasn't; instead it was some spazzy British synth-pop thing. But it was really good. So I pulled it up, hoping maybe Shazam could identify it. But nothing.

Turns out there are at least a few dozen people in the same boat, nobody's ever been able to identify what it is

http://benicetobears.com/2016/09/14/nobody-has-been-able-to-identify-this-song-for-15-years-autobahnkarate/
http://www.backofthecerealbox.com/2010/01/rest-of-my-life-i-will-always-drive-and.html

Maddening.

I also love Unwound but couldn't vote for it. Same with 3 of the 4 Converge albums on here (and I nominated 2 of them). Had to vote for Jane Doe but it felt wrong having 4 on there out of 30.

I left off a couple Rainer Maria albums that were definitely worthy of top 50 status, but I couldn't put all of them on my ballot. I did manage to get the first two DC albums and the first FSF album on there, though, but a lot of that is due to nostalgia.

I woke up with 'Jaws Theme Swimming' in my head, so I think my subcounscious is telling me to go and listen to Deja again.

counscious

finally getting into hot water music bc of this poll