Is Emo Really The New Glam? Or Just An Awkward Time For Humanity?

Metal Hammer has a new article up on their site, titled "Emo Is The New Hair Metal?" where James Gill breaks it down in terms of similarities between the 2 movements.

An excerpt follows:

"In the 80s, metal heads – true metal heads – hated hair metal, glam, sleaze and all it stood for; which wasn’t much of any substance – drugs, girls and looking good, all the trappings of narcissism and hedonism. While bands like Britny Fox and Pretty Boy Floyd sang about the ‘Girlschool’ and the ‘Gangster Of Love’ Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Iron Maiden were singing about war, the occult and society. Hair metal borrowed much of what metal had found for itself – from the music to the fashion – and appropriated it for millions of ‘rock tourists’ who needed something to pose to. A generation of metallers hated their younger brother, the skinny androgynous air-head sibling with lipstick on.

Likewise 25 years on hardcore, punk and metal created a monster. This time it was emo. The story of ‘emotional hardcore’ is much told, and remains as convoluted and contentious in its detail as that of hair metal (for whom we can variously blame Van Halen and/or Motley Crue and/or Aerosmith and so on…). Emo filled the same gap that hair metal did in the late 80s: deemed cool by the cooler end of the mainstream – ie: not very. While its lyrics are less about sex, drugs and partying, the sentiments of emo feel just as hollow and certainly vicarious: ‘I’m sad’, ‘misunderstood’, ‘things are bad (I hear)’ etc etc. But the music speaks to the X generation kids (you will be, as many of us at Hammer are) who, with their liberal parents of the 60s, had to strive harder to self-define and rebel: ‘a lip piercing? That’s cool son’."

Click here to read the entire article
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