It's wild how many 2000s-era edgy/emo bands were just adults singing about self-harm and teenage angst

[Doc Kelso]

I find myself thinking about the fact that bands like Dashboard Confessional and Simple Plan were comprised almost entirely of men in their mid 20s/early 30s. Their songs were often about things like self harm, depression, and other factors that largely appeal to the sensibilities of teenagers that are going through the normal Teenage Shit™. Their target demographic leave the bands, in retrospect, feeling a lot like:


Meanwhile other bands of the era that were also widely considered edgy and emo were singing songs about hope and cautionary tales against giving into your feelings of anger and the desire to hurt other people. Like damn, leave those poor kids alone you weird old (comparatively speaking) men.

 

[Jarmel]

So it's weird that people in their mid-20s were relating to people less than a decade younger than them?

 

[Z-Beat]

hope and cautionary tales against giving into your feelings of anger

Click to shrink...

 

[Doc Kelso]

So it's weird that people in their mid-20s were relating to people less than a decade younger than them?

Click to shrink...

Tbh I'm not gonna try to relate to a 16 year old and tell them about how miserable my life was unless I'm also going to try and tell them that it gets better.

 

[Cocolina]

 

[Keywork]

It's surprising how much toxic masculinity was in those songs as well. They really helped perpetuate the damaging image of the "nice guy".

 

[Deleted member 6173]

Why do a lot of these gifs have the citytv logo on them? Is Canada putting out high quality gifs for the internet?

 

[Autumn]

You think it get better when you hit your late twenties or thirties but things just feel the same.

 

[Deleted member 7051]

Gerard Way was 29 when The Black Parade came out. It's kinda funny that's the album with Teenagers on it.

 

[blame space]

 

[jon bones]

all those 27 year old singers were creeping on the 16 year old girls who went to those shows - the "young" thing was by design

It's surprising how much toxic masculinity was in those songs as well. They really helped perpetuate the damaging image of the "nice guy".

Click to shrink...

Yeah, in retrospect that was terrible.

Thankfully I pivoted into full hardcore bro - MY FRIENDS!! MY FAMILY!!

 

[Doc Kelso]

Gerard Way was 29 when The Black Parade came out. It's kinda funny that's the album with Teenagers on it.

Click to shrink...

Weirdly enough a lot of My Chemical Romance songs have a tinge of hope or address some heavier topics without going, "and then I killed myself!"

 

[Angelus Errare]

Angst, depression, suicidal ideation aren't things that go away just because you get older nor are they things exclusive to teenagers.

Though I'll say a lot of bands really should have handled those topics better but then again telling someone going having those thoughts to be more responsible with messaging is kind of weird so I digress

 

[Jarmel]

Tbh I'm not gonna try to relate to a 16 year old and tell them about how miserable my life was unless I'm also going to try and tell them that it gets better.

Click to shrink...

The main band of the 2000s was probably Linkin Park and Chester Bennington was 24 when Hybrid Theory came out in 2000. He obviously suffered through depression for his entire life. I see little reason why he couldn't relate to a 16 year old going through something similar.

 

[lunarworks]

It's kinda difficult to have a touring band and go to high school at the same time. (Not that it can't and hasn't been done.)

 

[capitalCORN]

Yeah, I think it's weird.

 

[Eidan]

I remember in high school thinking that it was weird that Korn seemed so fixated on their teenage years.

 

[Doc Kelso]

The main band of the 2000s was probably Linkin Park and Chester Bennington was 24 when Hybrid Theory came out in 2000. He obviously suffered through depression for his entire life. I see little reason why he couldn't relate to a 16 year old going through something similar.

Click to shrink...

I might be phrasing this poorly, so apologies! I think there's a difference between relating to someone and just repeating the harmful thoughts that they may be having. Especially as an adult that's speaking largely to a teenage audience that's at a really vulnerable time in their lives, mentally-speaking.

 

[VeryHighlander]

This is actually something I've thought about before. I've thought about how much I adored Kid Cudi in my high school years only to realize I was basically listening to a 30+ year old doing a "hello fellow kids" routine. I felt...taken advantage of? Idk. I was in a vulnerable state and was happy to hear music that I could relate to at the time, but I still can't shake the feeling lol

 

[Protome]

It's weird that the premise for this thread seems to be "Only teenagers get depression and harm themselves." I'm sure that's not what you mean but it's definitely what the OP reads like.

Weirdly enough a lot of My Chemical Romance songs have a tinge of hope or address some heavier topics without going, "and then I killed myself!"

Click to shrink...

That's because My Chem were just straight up better than most of the other Emo bands of the time. Black Parade is still a hell of a good rock album regardless of the relevance of the Emo craze it released in, you can't say that for most of the others.

Most of their songs weren't really about Teenage issues either, they were often about coping with death be it your own impending one or the ones of those around you. Often the latter in particular is something people don't really need to face until later than their teens.

 

[Deleted member 7051]

Weirdly enough a lot of My Chemical Romance songs have a tinge of hope or address some heavier topics without going, "and then I killed myself!"

Click to shrink...

I think that's why they resonated more with us, because it almost felt like they knew what we were going through but offered us a more positive perspective. Just telling kids that things will get better is a lot more effective in helping them to cope than encouraging self harm or depression.

 

[diakyu]

A lot of bands have a fixation on teenage years because they think life goes to shit when you become an adult from their experience and that they wasted their younger years.

also looking at the comments about perpetuating nice guy mindsets, while I like a lot of it, recent pop punk songs still carry the same mentality. Trick is finding the people who are at least self aware.

 

[Deleted member 4367]

Calling it normal teenage shit minimizes mental health issues. And they were likely singing about things that were important to them and inspired then to create their music.

 

[NervousXtian]

20 year olds aren't allowed to be angsty and down? 90's and early 2000's were some trying times. You don't turn 18 and then all of a sudden life makes sense.

 

[ghostemoji]

I think there's also a lot of weird time dilation that goes on in mainstream music too. You typically record and album (might take a year + to write and record), then it comes out and you tour that album for 2 to 3 years. You could write a song when you're 19-20 and being touring that record until you're 23-24. Certain songs become a staple of your set, and then you're stuck. Maybe you're in it for the money, and you do a rinse and repeat of the first record to make that $$$.

 

[Doc Kelso]

It's weird that the premise for this thread seems to be "Only teenagers get depression and harm themselves." I'm sure that's not what you mean but it's definitely what the OP reads like.


That's because My Chem were just straight up better than most of the other Emo bands of the time. Black Parade is still a hell of a good rock album regardless of the relevance of the Emo craze it released in, you can't say that for most of the others.

Click to shrink...

I definitely don't mean to imply as such, especially since I suffer from crazy depression at 30. But I also wouldn't be targeting a teenage demographic with my lyrics, etc, without trying to at least say that it can get better. For better or worse, when you become famous you do become keenly aware of the primary people who are consuming your work and there should be a level of responsibility attached to that.

(And I love My Chemical Romance for the reason you outlined).

 

[Deleted member 14377]

28 year old here. My mental health didnt get the memo about stopping after I became an adult

 

[Blue Sky Noise]

I don't really see how this is any different to an adult author writing a children's/YA novel. Like JK Rowling is a middle-aged woman writing about teenage wizards, is that weird? Adults lived through being a teenager too.

 

[Pelican]

A friend's band toured with one of the big ones a while back. "The weird thing is, on the road, they often bitched about high school. They were in their fuckin 30s. Blew my mind."

 

[Deleted member 23850]

Mineral is still a GOAT Emo band.

Educate yourself, kiddies.

 

[demondance]

Someone should do a history of these sudden gluts of music hitting the mainstream all at once like this. At the time it came off like some cabal of record execs saw 90's post-hardcore/emo, which had a pretty broad range of lyrical concerns, and hijacked it all at once to figure out how to follow up nu metal.

It sent all the punk-derived emo subgenres into hibernation for over a decade. Just completely poisoned the well of what a bunch of legitimately great bands were doing.

MCR is the only one that people even seem to remember fondly today, and I don't think it's a coincidence that they had more of a positive, pulp literary kind of vibe instead of pure self-pity. A lot of this stuff, like Dashboard Confessional, was downright exploitative of teens imo.

That was a weird moment in rock music. You could argue it was the last big wave in popular rock, actually.

 

[NuclearCake]

It was all terrible.

 

[Samanosuke Akechi]

Isn't that how most bands and singers make their music?

They live thru some bad shit and write it down as songs.

Just because they were adults when they made those songs doesn't mean they didn't have rough lives growing up OP.

 

[Deleted member 2279]

Thankfully I pivoted into full hardcore bro - MY FRIENDS!! MY FAMILY!!

Click to shrink...

Hey give me recommendations plz

 

[Arc]

Idk man I'm 28 and I relate more to emo music now than when I was 16.

 

[demondance]

It's surprising how much toxic masculinity was in those songs as well. They really helped perpetuate the damaging image of the "nice guy".

Click to shrink...

so much of this in this genre. jesus christ.

 

[Deleted member 2279]

Mineral is still a GOAT Emo band.

Educate yourself, kiddies.

Click to shrink...

wait what this is great how did I never hear of them

Man the ease of finding good music now is just crazy compared to when I was a kid.

on the other hand, it's probably largely responsible for the death of the scene and the irl relationships that came with it. Buuut as said, there was/is a lot of fucked up predatory shit going on so....

 

[ThePrivateCookie]

thats rap music now

 

[Glasgow Mega-Snake]

A lot stemmed probably from label pressure. Many people form their musical preferences in their teens and will become lifetime fans of bands they liked when they were 16. So it's cynical, but from a label's perspective it makes sense to market music to them.

We idealize bands as "four best friends from high school doing what they love" or something similar, but for the ones that "made it" it often becomes a job that needs to pay the rent, and they're stuck trying to recreate the albums that made them famous.

If you take Lostprophets, Ian Watkins is of course an extreme example, who preyed exactly on the dark undercurrent of the scene you're talking about.
But from what the other band members have said, they had basically tuned out of the band long before and seem also critical of what you describe.
Quote from Lee Gaze (guitarist): ""From 2006, I was bored with it. I had a love-hate relationship with the band, because Ian was getting very difficult, and we'd been painted into having to write for a certain audience. We were in our mid-30s, and you'd be at a gig and the first few rows were all kids." "

 

[Dary]

The main band of the 2000s was probably Linkin Park and Chester Bennington was 24 when Hybrid Theory came out in 2000. He obviously suffered through depression for his entire life. I see little reason why he couldn't relate to a 16 year old going through something similar.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, this idea that depression and suicide is something that goes away when you hit twenty is raising all the eyebrows.

 

[ToddBonzalez]

28 year old here. My mental health didnt get the memo about stopping after I became an adult

Click to shrink...

Too accurate.

 

[Doc Kelso]

Yeah, this idea that depression and suicide is something that goes away when you hit twenty is raising all the eyebrows.

Click to shrink...

I should note that a lot of Linkin Park's songs have to do with escaping abusive relationships and how hard it can be to learn how to love yourself/be your own person. I wouldn't say they necessarily fall under the banner I'm putting up here.

 

[RJeddy]

So what should people of specific age ranges be singing about

 

[Pendas]

Just because you're a certain age doesn't mean you can't create art/ music that appeals to a younger audience.

 

[Deleted member 23850]

wait what this is great how did I never hear of them

Man the ease of finding good music now is just crazy compared to when I was a kid.

on the other hand, it's probably largely responsible for the death of the scene and the irl relationships that came with it. Buuut as said, there was/is a lot of fucked up predatory shit going on so....

Click to shrink...

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/rnwbgm/talking-about-reunions-love-and-comic-sans-with-mineral

 

[xChildofhatex]

I hate to break it to you guys but Dashboard Confessional, Simple Plan, MCR etc. aren't Emo bands. They're just Radio Rock bands singing depressing sounding shit.

 

[Gaia Lanzer]

It makes me thankful I wasn't into rock in the 00s, or much music in general, and the music I WAS into was mainly pop-oriented (though like I said, I wasn't a fan of most of that shit either).

 

[jon bones]

I hate to break it to you guys but Dashboard Confessional, Simple Plan, MCR etc. aren't Emo bands. They're just Radio Rock bands singing depressing sounding shit.

Click to shrink...

no one else here is in the new brunswick basements seeing saetia & shit

 

[Openrob]

So it's weird that people in their mid-20s were relating to people less than a decade younger than them?

Click to shrink...

I think most music is targeted to one generation below the artists.

See: every boy/girl band.

 

[Red UFO]

It's surprising how much toxic masculinity was in those songs as well. They really helped perpetuate the damaging image of the "nice guy".

Click to shrink...

This for sure