The Modern Sound

    The modern pop punk, or emo sound, as previously mentioned, centers around melody rather than energy. Its songs are generally at a slower pace than those of the 1990's, but are generally more powerful. These bands evolved from the 1990's bands after they discovered maturity in their music, and therefore, much of today's pop punk is more serious than humorous. The modern genre has also acquired a large female appeal, as many bands are fronted by singers with very colorful personalities (and in some cases, hair). There is a much larger amount of softer songs in the modern genre than in years past, which is attributed to the maturity that the bands have discovered. Two modern songs will be analyzed, showing the elements of how the music is presented today.
    A surprising, but influential song from My Chemical Romance's 2006 hit album, Welcome to the Black Parade, is "Teenagers". It is a very melodic but powerful song meant to point out many of the flaws of modern teenage society. Vocalist Gerard Way describes teenagers' fondness of drugs and sex and leads it all into the memorable lyric to begin the chorus, "teenagers scare the living s*** outta me". Way emphasizes the singer-first mentality of the modern bands by leading the song's melody through his lyrics throughout, except for a quick guitar solo after the second chorus. Fronted by a memorable guitar riff and chorus, it is a perfect example of the modern, melodic pop punk sound led by a charismatic singer and powerful band behind him.
    A very similar song to "Teenagers" that features the missing element of the modern pop punk sound is the final track from Paramore's 2005 album All We Know Is Falling, "My Heart". Basically a hard rocking love song, it is opened by a loud and powerful Josh Farro riff, leading into Hayley Williams singing along to a soft verse. A loud chorus leads to a repeated cycle of the two, which then leads to a quiet bridge. There, the listener can continually hear the phrase "this heart". Williams leads with the lyric "This heart, it beats, beats for only you", before the tempo and guitars pick up. At this point is where we find the missing element of the post-2004 sound: screamo. Guitarist Farro screams into the other microphone, mimicking the lyrics of Williams in an energizing way. The album starts and ends with heavy, guitar driven songs, and the screamo in "My Heart" is a perfectly powerful ending to the album, as well as a good model of what pop punk sounds like today.


(Song analysis done myself)


REFLECTION: Try to think of another song with screamo parts. Why do you think artists put these parts in their songs frequently?


CITATION:
Jones, C. A. (n.d.). What Is Emo Music?. EzineArticles Submission - Submit Your Best Quality Original Articles For Massive Exposure, Ezine Publishers Get 25 Free Article Reprints. Retrieved May 10, 2012, from http://ezinearticles.com/?What-Is-Emo-Music?&id=985608