I’m not totally sure how to define emo, bands that make music usually don’t like to be defined by a genre. I’ll define it as rock music with sentimental lyrics played closer to punk/post-hardcore than blues/Aerosmith like rock.
Emo was really uncool for a while, and I suppose it’s still uncool to most people. But do you know what’s cool to most people? Fraternities and Jason Mraz. Probably, I’m pretty out of touch with what’s cool, I don’t know if I’ve ever been ‘with it’. So here’s a pretty good idea what I’ve enjoyed whilst being super awkward.
Honorable mention: wood/water- The Promise Ring
My wife got me this cd for Christmas after my oldest daughter was born, and I used to love holding and rocking her while listening to ‘Stop Playing Guitar’. I don’t own any other Promise Ring albums, and I asked for this one because I had heard that they were amazing. I really ought to check out their discography.
10. Read Music/Speak Spanish- Desaparecidos
In 2005 I was doing YWAM in Northern Ireland, and I had a huge mohawk. We traveled all over the country, sleeping on the floors of churches we would go minister at. I was hanging out with some youth from a local church when they told me about a kid in town that had a crazy haircut and was really into music; we’d probably get along. Cillian and I became fast friends, exchanging cd’s and rocking Alkaline Trio and Finch in the church sanctuary. He never would have set foot in a church, but music and friendship got him in the door. Before I left with my team a week later, we exchanged presents. I gave him a Glassjaw’s ‘Worship and Tribute’ and Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. He gave me a stack of cd’s, including Desaparecidos. He told me it was Bright Eyes’ emo band. It was alright, I liked a couple of songs. Over the years I started to really listen to it, and one day it clicked. Amazing songs, amazing passion. It’s the international version, so the first song on there is ‘What’s New For Fall’, which has the brilliantly infuriating voice over of girls talking about what they want in a guy “He’s got to have a nice car.” Thank you Cillian!!
9. Clarity- Jimmy Eat World
I heard ‘Bleed American’ first, I love that album, but Clarity is my favorite Jimmy Eat World album. I don’t have a long story about this one (I do, but it’s not that interesting), I just really like every song here. (Long story short- my friend Nick burned it for me). It’s not super catchy in a pop-punk way like ‘BA’, but it sticks with you like a cold you can’t shake. I’ll find myself whine singing ‘A Sunday’ or ‘Believe In What You Want’, and I put ‘Goodbye Sky Harbor’ on every road trip mix (if the road trip is over 4 hours, you’ve got to have long songs.)
8. Stay What You Are- Saves The Day
I got this in the dollar bin at The Finest, Ft Collins best record store. I loved Saves The Day and seen them play a few months before, but didn’t have this one. I thought ‘for a dollar this must not be very good’, but I soon became obsessed with it. I started dating my wife a week later, and it played an important part of the soundtrack of my life at that point. I listened to ‘See You’ about 20 times in a row one day, declaring it my favorite song of all time, and for a few months it was. Then I saw them at the Warped tour, where they played a regular set and an acoustic set. Saves’ acoustic set is still one of my favorite concert moments ever, and ‘Freakish’ is the ultimate emo song. After that, Freakish became my favorite song, and was listened to over and over again. I consider most of Saves’ records to be more pop-punk, but this one is a fantastic emo album.
7. Deja Entrendu- Brand New
I saw Brand New open for Dashboard Confessional; they had twice as much passion and energy with only half the audience. I had never heard of them before that, but my friend Chris had their cd and he hooked me up. Senior year was a lot of me sitting in the car alone, singing ‘Me vs Madonna vs Elvis’, which is embarrassing to think about but why pretend it didn’t happen. The lyrics were way smarter than what I was used to, the angst I was trying to feel was defined. Song after song of melodic brilliance.
6. Pinkerton- Weezer
I had heard from the geniuses at Rolling Stone that this album was terrible. When it came out they crucified it and Weezer didn’t put out an album for years after. When they put out ‘the green album’ in 2001 along with a video of sumos wrestling and a sick guitar part I found my new favorite band. I got all their albums, except for ‘Pinkerton’ because it supposedly sucked. Dear Rolling Stone (and other mainstream music publications) please kill yourselves; you are truly the worst.
I got ‘Pinkerton’ when I was in Ireland at a big corporate record store in Dublin. Bands I liked had said it was one of their favorites, and I found it on sale. We were staying in a youth center that had a Super Nintendo and the game with all he Mario games on it. My teammate Brett and I tried to beat Mario 3 one night, the first time I listened to it. The first line of ‘El Scorcho’ made me laugh so hard that Mario didn’t have a chance and died by way of spikey turtle. I listened to it in its entirety 3 times on the plane ride back to America, and hundreds more times as a pizza/sandwich delivery driver.
5. Something To Write Home About- The Get Up Kids
I only went to the Warped Tour once, with my girlfriend and future wife AdriElle. I had a blast, she hated it. It was really hot that day, so to get out of the direct sun we decided to go to the booths that were set up away from the stages. Vagrant records was promoting the crud out of the lousy new Dashboard cd, but they also had a bunch of their back catalogue for sale. This was 5 bucks, and I’d heard from lots of people that it was amazing and influential to bands I liked. I was pretty disappointed at first, but if I buy something I don’t give up on it easy. I didn’t find a song I liked until months later, driving around with my girlfriend. She was talking over ‘My Apology’, and suddenly the song clicked for me. “This song is amazing! Did you hear it? We have to play it again.”
This album, like many on this or any other list I make was not enjoyed at the time of its release. I was an (immature) adult at the time I first heard it, not a kid. I got to see the Get Up Kids at a festival recently, and they played most of this album (except My Apology was omitted to my disappointment). I was like a teenager when they played ‘Holiday’ and ‘I’m A Loner Dottie’. The songs have great value to me, I’m excited to listen to it in 10 years and see if I still feel like a teenager. For me, this one just got better with time, as I grow up it ages with me. I don’t think this is the typical experience people have with this piece of music, nor are the songs directly related to aging. I think music worth listening to won’t tell you how to feel , it’ll just be there to help be the soundtrack of your life.
4. Water And Solutions- Far
I worked at a failing toy store at the Loveland outlet mall from the age of 16-18, and on again/off again from 20-22. I’ve got a lot of stories from my years at Toy Liquidators, most of them are silly, but this one’s not that silly. I was 17 and this guy I barley knew named Alvie was opening boxes of toys in the back room with me, and we were talking about music. He scoffed at every band I mentioned and told me he’d get me some real music. I didn’t think this weirdo with a long goatee would have anything that would interest me, but I was given a goldmine of burned cd’s. I never saw Alvie after that, so in my mind he’s kind of a mystical character type to me. I was introduced to Avenged Sevenfold, Thrice, Queens Of The Stone Age, Local H, and Far. Far was heavy, but not like Metallica. It was just heavy. By far the least wimpy of the records on this list and the closest to hardcore, I’m sure a lot of fans would object to it being called emo. It’s another senior year record, but their hasn’t been a time where I had to rediscover it. It’s been fairly consistent, except I change my favorite song on it every year or so. I later became obsessed with finding Jonah Matranga songs, but nothing he ever did came close to how good this one is (except a live version of New End Original’s Lukewarm that is incredible). Thank you Alvie!
3. Emotion Is Dead- Juliana Theory
In high school I was introduced to a good number of bands by my friend Sethery. Sethery was the drummer/singer for a local pop-punk band called Neve Ending Fight, and it was a blast to watch him and my other friend in the band play. If he liked it, it was automatically cool. Once he burned me a stack of cd’s, and my life got a lot more emo.
It’s beyond me that this wasn’t played all over the radio, which goes to show you:the radio sucks. I would play this in my car for other people that hated this brand of music and they’d be blown away by it. Even my mom liked it, and it was so good that I didn’t stop listening to it. My favorite memories of it are after high school, when I was a leader in the jr high youth group at church. Pastor Bob let me be the official Dj and told me to play exciting songs, but not music parents would hate (no screaming AJ!). Half of this album became a regular part of those Saturday nights, and so beloved by what would become my group of friends that dances with actions were created for when the songs played. These are some of my fondest memories of my life.
‘Into The Dark’ is one of my favorite opening tracks on any album, ‘If I Told You This Is Killing Me’ one of the great pissed off rants that doesn’t drop f bombs. I know and love all the songs, but the one that I’ve really grown to love is ‘You Always Say Goodnight, Goodnight’. I would only hear it if I didn’t switch the cd because I was busy doing something else (more often than not I’ve zoned out into fantasy island in the region of daydream land), and lots of times I’d get halfway through and skip it anyway. At some point earlier this year I was listening to the album and let it play this 9 minute 30 second song and it clicked. I have a lot of music, and I spend a lot of time listening. There’s so much I want to hear so I don’t usually repeat play songs; when I do something is really affecting me. I’ve loved this for over 10 years, I bet you I’ll discover and rediscover diamonds from this album as time goes on.
2. The Places You Have Come To Fear The Most- Dashboard Confessional
I think this (and Dashboards Swiss Army Romance) are the essence of emo music, or at least what critics point and mock at and closet fans are embarrassed about. A guy, a guitar, and weepy poetry that you wouldn’t understand unless you had gotten your heart broken. I’m not embarrassed, I love this album. It was given to me by my friend and co-worker at the toy store Jessica in exchange for cd’s of mine she lost. I most certainly got the better end of the bargain.
At the time when it meant so much to me I was a junior in high school. You shouldn’t date in high school. You are not emotionally mature enough to handle yourself, nor are the other children you’re getting with. So after I got my heart broken, this is one of the only things that made sense. My only regret about my affinity for this at that time is I wish it was healthier, it just validated me being a crybaby/tragic hero in my mind. I’ve learned as a husband,father and a pastor that sometimes you don’t need to give advice or coach people, but just empathize. After a while I stopped being hurt and moved on, but this album stuck with me.
I love Chris Carabbas voice, he’s still one of my all time favorites of any genre. He sounds so volitale on this album going back and forth from singing softly (This Ruined Puzzle) and yelling like a spurned lover (This Bitter Pill). Swiss Army Romance was almost exclusively vocals and guitar, but for The Places Dashboard added this subtle background band on half the songs that made them sound complete. After this album Dashboard became a full band, became populat, and went in a different direction. Between 2006’s super disappointing ‘Dusk And Summer’ and falling in love with my wife Dashboard no longer made sense to me. They weren’t on my radar anymore, and I never had interest in hearing new stuff. This album is so good that they don’t have to do anything more to be one of my favorites
1. How To Start A Fire- Further Seems Forever
FSF had Chris Carabba as their first vocalist, and it seems like most fans prefer that album (The Moon Is Down) to this one. It’s good, but not as good as his work with Dashboard. FSF’s second album is their creative peak and Jason Gleason was head and shoulders above their greatest singer. This is my favorite emo album ever. I could reminisce hundreds of words worth of stories for this album, but I’m tired of writing this post. So I’ll make it quick.
Sethery gave me this (along with Moon Is Down on the same cd), my brother Isaiah liked it more than me at first and showed me the best songs on it, Jason’s voice and lyrics are the most underrated in all of rock music, ‘Insincerity As An Artform’ is one of my all time favorite songs ever.
I really like Insincerity As An Artform, like a lot. Like I sing it to myself when I’m sad. I listen to it on repeat, I’ve done it for 12 years. There’s few songs that are as special to me. If I ever meet Jason Gleason I’ll probably cry trying to explain how much that song has affected and blessed me over the years. If you’re reading this and you don’t know the song, go listen to it. You may not appreciate it to the degree I do, but geez…. it’s really good right?!
thebearplane 
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