Yesterday I was previewing an album by a band I follow. They're called Talk to Her, and they play a sort of electronic indie rock post-punk music. Very evocative and emotional, I love them. They're my soundtrack when I get home at 3 AM from a night out.
While listening to this album — which has nothing to do with the emo scene — I realized how lately I've been listening to music for a different purpose.
I've always been used to listening to music just because. To accompany a car ride or a walk. To soundtrack parties, moments, events.
Now, however, I often find myself listening to music to vent. I feel like the right music has become important for channeling my negative emotions outside of myself, to process them. As if music were my oxygen mask while I'm stuck in a toxic environment.
It goes without saying that the music that best helps me exorcise this depression is certainly not the rock of Zeppelin, or Queen, or similar.
I'm talking about Spiritbox, Killswitch Engage, Flyleaf, Dream State, Bring Me the Horizon, My Chemical Romance... am I an emo?
When I was in high school, I was in the midst of the emo vs. truzzi feud (truzzi is an Italian word used to refer at those individuals that went to clubs, dancing tektonik music, wearing baggy pants, spiky gelled hair and improbable sunglasses...).
I wasn't part of either faction because I was just a rocker who listened to the classics. Then my musical horizons broadened, and sometimes in life, things happen to you, and the music you discover perfectly captures the mood that life puts you in.
Even though I've been a musician for many years, I've never felt the importance of music as strongly as I do now. It's got now a greater purpose than simply listening for the pleasure of it. Like a drug, I linger in it, I take refuge in it, fortunately without any side effects.
Back then, we made fun of emo people for experiencing these feelings of decadence, masked by obscene bangs and inappropriate makeup; it just seemed like a strange way to get attention. But what happens if we take that intention and apply it to a 30-year-old, with more maturity, more life experience?
I don't need to cut myself (into pieces, this is my last resort... sorry) and show my scars to the world. I'm not dying my hair black nor wearing tees with outlined skulls. I'm not complaining on socials about how the world is unfair to me and how my life sucks. I'm just enjoying the music as it's going to save me from something that is crawling inside me.
As it's able to keep this slipknot larger than my neck.
I think I'm an emo too.
And maybe this is a #threetunetuesday but I feel like it better belongs to the flame.
Then, burn
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