Today's music culture: has it all gone to pot, or just changed? JOSH ESAW, vocalist with the up-and-coming new band DogGone, casts a reflective eye.
When you leave your younger years and start to become a teenager, lots of things change. Apart from the obvious physical and emotional stuff, much covered in most PHSE lessons up and down this fair land, tastes in arts and culture diversify, mature and change.
When I was a 14-year-old rapscallion (which is one of the finest words in the English language), my cultural development saw me shun the records my mum had forced upon me. This saw me rejecting the likes of Barry Manilow (because there are only so many times you can listen to Mandy and stay sane - I believe it's once) in favour of something with a more guitar-orientated flavour. This would become known as my 'Emo' phase and my first experience being part of a 'scene'.
Now I like every other 14-year-old, vaguely middle-class white boy in vaguely skinny jeans, with weird hair, a band t-shirt and bad eyeliner, I figured that they were being unique and original and part of something new. We also decided to assume that Gerard Way was the greatest front man since Freddie Mercury. We were wrong; we're sorry. Despite my love for a tangent to be self-indulgent and attempt to make my teenage years look a lot more interesting than they were, being an 'Emo' gave us a sense of belonging to something, a way to make new friends and, let’s face it, enemies, but you felt like there was a scene to buy into, even if everything was a third-hand rehash. In hindsight, yes, we did look a tad silly.
That 14-year-old is now 21. I have seen Emo come and go. I've cut my hair short and stopped back-combing it, and I've survived better than it did. To me, nothing in the conventional form of a ‘scene’ as I understood it back then, has sprung up. Maybe I'm just older, cynical and out of touch with it. However, it seems that the level of sub culture that once existed, in a fairly mainstream way, hasn't crossed over in the same fashion as 'Grunge' or 'Emo. The one trend that has become more prominent is the diversity and appropriation of ideas from what was alt-culture into the mainstream, and vice versa. The tribalism seems to have diminished in favour of this inclusive new hybrid form where popular and alternative can sit together into one new youth culture.
The feeling at seeing the same kids dancing like crazy at Nicki Minaj at the 02 and then heading down to New Slang or Bloodshake the Thursday/Friday after to catch new bands, is a confusing feeling. In one respect the younger me wouldn't like it: the part of me that loved the tribal nature of the 'Emo' scene and having something that was 'ours' would distrust these people greatly., while the slightly more grown up me, would love it. There is a big wave of support for all kinds of music, if it's good and people are willing to give everything a chance. Another benefit is not getting "Emo!" shouted at you in the street constantly (thank you population of Croydon for that one).
This shift hasn't stopped music scenes forming either, it's just changed their dimensions. The 'scenes' are held together now more by friendships than by sound and that's great too. You've seen it on a national scale with the current Birmingham scene. Bands who sound a little alike but are first and foremost friends doing their own thing and taking on the world. On a local level for my band, DogGone, we've become really good buds with a great bunch of people and bands. This is the point where I give big shout outs to the likes of Sick Interest, The Horny Skulls, Jack Vagabond, Makeout Tactics and Ides Avenue. There are a ton of good new bands in Croydon and the surrounding area, but these guys are our most often show buddies, including a big festival of all of us that's coming up at New Cross Inn on 19th June. We were drawn together by attitude and ethos rather than sound and I think that's the way to go.
Will something as big and widespread as Punk, Grunge or even Britpop or Emo happen again? The answer in my opinion is probably not. However, I do think this is one of the most exciting times to be making and listening to music in history. There's so much great music to be had, influenced by and digested. It's even easier than ever before and the new scenes that pop up are longer lasting, more deeply set and definitely your own.
The scene, my friends, is far from dead. It just doesn't look like it once did. So rejoice and enjoy.
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