2023-04-06
A full immersion into a musical genre that “was never supposed to be cool.”
The music called emo (often with derision) rose gradually in the early 2000s, made an explosive popular impact, and then experienced a quick descent. With this oral history, music journalist Payne seeks to keep the legacy alive. Drawing from more than 150 interview sources—musicians, crew, journalists, and fans—this is a book by fans for fans, a celebration of a musical phenomenon too often dismissed as punk lite. The text will satisfy any emo obsessive, those who know everything about the scene that spawned Fall Out Boy and My Chemical Romance and are still hungry to know even more. Others might have trouble keeping all the names and the bands straight, though the author provides an effective overview of how the scene developed and what went right and wrong. For the uninitiated, emo is short for emotional. An offshoot of the DIY punk scene, it was initially branded emocore, a response to the hardcore punk that was so abrasively aggressive and dominated by male stars. Emo was music for and by more sensitive boys as well as the girls who loved them and broke their hearts. It was a grassroots movement from suburbia and flourished on video, in shopping malls, and on the Warped Tour. Some of the bands were so young and became popular so fast that they couldn’t possibly have been prepared for the pressures of stardom and international popularity. Record companies were still throwing massive amounts of money at them in the early 2000s. There were plenty of casualties—drug overdoses, rehab, psychological treatment—and a couple of huge success stories. Payne covers it all in exhaustive (and occasionally exhausting) detail. The multiple cast-of-characters lists are helpful for non–die-hards.
A must-read for emo fans but not likely to win the genre many new followers.
"terrific" — Washington Post
"Remembered by those who lived it from the stage, the pit and everywhere in between, Where Are Your Boys Tonight? is a vivid and breathless read that will have you reliving countless moments that you may or may not have actually lived through the first time." — Billboard
"For those of us who are nostalgic for the days when we drew on black eyeliner before dashing off to school." — Men's Health
"Dust off the jelly bracelets, write love on your arms, and get that snake bite piercing because if the emo festivals and fashion trends of the last two years haven’t signaled enough of the pop punk-emo revival, this book solidifies it." — Nylon Magazine
"Payne’s book is a cross between a highly specific soap opera and a highly effective time-machine." — Inside Hook
“Emo exploded just as I gained cultural, so for me and many of my peers emo music was a formative force in our lives, voicing the angst that many of us found ourselves newly harboring as adolescents. So I can’t wait to read Payne’s oral history of the genre, which uses interviews with My Chemical Romance, Paramore, Panic! at the Disco, Fall Out Boy, and more to reconstruct emo’s meteoric ascent and profound cultural footprint.” — The Millions
"A must read for emo fans." — Kirkus Reviews
“Payne’s oral history does a remarkable job of defining and showing the meteoric boom of emo that music fans will find fascinating.” — Library Journal
“A time machine for those who lived this specific scene of emo and witnessed its explosion into the mainstream. This book is a walk down memory lane (in Vans of course) and the cast of characters alone is a Rolodex of names you hoped would be your Myspace friends. For those of us who lived for Warped Tour and Fuse, if you know, you know, and this book and its conversations are speaking to you.” — Allison Hagendorf, TV Host, music journalist, host of The Allison Hagendorf Show
“The early 2000s were a golden era of sad guys with questionable haircuts playing grandly melodramatic and irresistibly hooky anthems. For anyone who was a fan at the time or simply wishes they would have been around for the scene, this book offers an entertaining ”you are there” immediacy. Chris Payne talks to all of the important players, and the picture that emerges is, like so many great rock stories, equal parts inspiring, painful and hilarious.” — Steven Hyden, author of Your Favorite Band Is Killing Me
“This cross-section of time in punk rock had very little sex, virtually no drugs, and a version of rock n roll that maybe 20-50 people heard through a distorted amp, plopped on the floor of a basement. Yet it was the most important and powerful DIY movement in underground music, ever. You don’t believe me? I know. I don’t blame you. It’s really hard to explain it. You kinda just had to be there. But you weren’t. So you better read this book because it’s the only book that even begins to capture what happened.” — Joanna Angel, adult film star, bestselling author
“As someone who mostly remembers what it was like to hear Paramore perform from a pink RV (fucking phenomenal!) or see Bert McCracken scream so hard he puked onstage (fucking implausible!), I’m grateful to Chris Payne for filling in the blanks with this vivid and vibrant flashback that details how the scene ignited—and survived—emo’s mainstream explosion.” — Leslie Simon, co-author of Everybody Hurts; author of Geek Girls Unite
