For this week’s Scene, I wrote about the When We Were Young music festival and some of the complications that come with getting too lost in waves of nostalgia.
The festival’s line-up is packed with punk, rock and emo acts that were especially popular in the early 2000s, when heavy black eyeliner, skinny jeans, swooped bangs and Hot Topic T-shirts were all the rage. Paramore and My Chemical Romance are headlining the three-day festival. They’re joined by dozens of others, including AFI, The Used, Taking Back Sunday, Dashboard Confessional and more.
The majority of the bands have maintained a level of success and relevance. Thanks to social media and streaming services their songs continue to help young people through the more formative and emotional years just as it did us elder emos in the late ’90s and early 2000s. But a trip back in time doesn’t come without its complications.
A lot has been written about how toxic the 2000s emo and punk culture really was. I wrote about it for now-defunct music site Wondering Sound in 2014, Jenn Pelly published a really well-done article at Pitchfork in 2017 and it’s something Maria Sherman further explored for Jezebel in 2020.
When We Were Young’s lineup isn’t without its issues. The singer of Bring Me the Horizon, one band prominently featured on the festival poster, was arrested for assaulting a fan in 2007 and he was accused of domestic assault in 2016. Members of more than a dozen other groups booked to play WWWY left their respective bands in recent years after being accused of harassment, abuse and/or assault. You can read more about all the instances of misconduct in my aforementioned new essay.
That said, there are so many bands in the modern pop punk and emo wave who are putting in the effort to turn the genre’s reputation around. Some of those acts will be playing When We Were Young, too. The Linda Lindas, The Wonder Years and Meet Me at the Altar are all bucking the traditional “white men hating women” trend while recalling some of the punk, screamo and emo bands of yesteryear. Here are a handful of other contemporary bands, either from Nashville or with some strong local ties, whose records you can put on when you want to scratch that nostalgic itch.
If you like Lawrence Arms, try Spanish Love Songs.
Technically, Spanish Love Songs isn’t 100 percent local — some members call Music City home while others live in Los Angeles — but we should be so lucky to call them ours, even a little bit. Imagine if Greg Barnett of The Menzingers sang the more melody-driven Lawrence Arms songs. Melodic rock, some sing-songy vocals, but hard and fast punk roots with plenty of opportunities to throw your fist in the air and sing along while feeling all the feelings. Definitely don’t miss their stormy goth cover of Blink-182’s “I Miss You,” too.
If you like Saves the Day, try Free Throw.
While I still love some of the punk, pop punk and emo bands I was into 20 years ago, I’ve personally removed Saves the Day from my collection. Last year, a man accused Saves the Day singer Chris Conley of “mental abuse, sexual abuse, and abuse of power.” Conley released a statement owning up to and apologizing for the alleged behavior, and Saves the Day has been quiet ever since.
Instead, I listen to Free Throw. While vocalist Cory Castro recalls Conley’s style, musically the band is more inspired by midwest emo acts of the ’90s, like Braid and The Get Up Kids. Bonus: Free Throw’s latest album Piecing It Together was produced by Will Yip, who has manned the boards for bands like The Wonder Years, Braid, Tigers Jaw, Circa Survive and more.
If you like early Piebald, try Shell of a Shell.
Before Piebald shifted their sound towards the poppier end of the punk spectrum, the band was a post-hardcore/emo act from Andover, Mass. Their math-inspired guitar noodling was as complicated as the feelings they sang about in their lo-fi emotive songs. Shell of Shell captures some of that same cold-weather, college-town-in-the-’90s energy. Also recommended if you like early (no, even earlier than what you’re thinking) Modest Mouse and Four Minute Mile-era Get Up Kids.
If you like Paramore, try Paramore.
Har har, I’m hilarious. But seriously, Paramore has aged pretty well. That’s due in part to the band’s continually evolving sound, but also due to their willingness to put their older songs into current context.
In 2018, Paramore retired one of their most popular songs, “Misery Business.” In the song, Williams calls one of her peers a whore. In an interview with Track 7, she explained: “[The lyrics] literally came from a page in my diary. What I couldn’t have known at the time was that I was feeding into a lie that I’d bought into, just like so many other teenagers — and many adults — before me. The whole, ‘I’m not like the other girls’ thing … this ‘cool girl’ religion. … The problem with the lyrics is not that I had an issue with someone I went to school with. That’s just high school and friendships and breakups. It’s the way I tried to call her out using words that didn’t belong in the conversation. It’s the fact that the story was setup inside the context of a competition that didn’t exist over some fantasy romance.”
