What The Kids Are Listening To These Days
What are the kids listening to these days? I went here to find out, and acquired the most popular three tracks from the top ten bands. I then made an effort to listen to it all through several times over a few days.
Taking Back Sunday: You're So Last Summer (2002), Cute Without the 'E' (2002), This Photograph is Proof (2004)
I've never really listened to any "emo" before. Good Gods emo is whiny, and of all the emo here, Taking Back Sunday is the whiniest.
Nirvana: Smells Like Teen Spirit (1991), Come As You Are (1991), Lithium (1991)
Groundbreaking in its time, but that was almost fifteen years ago.
Green Day: Wake Me Up When September Ends (2005), Boulevard of Broken Dreams (2004), Good Riddance (1997)
This is good music, and I don't usually like the hard punkish style that dominates this list. The best of the recent stuff.
The Used: All That I've Got (2005), I Caught Fire (2004), The Taste of Ink (2002)
Wikipedia describes them as "emo-punk screamo or post-hardcore alternative", which means they're not quite as whiny as Taking Back Sunday. It's still fairly forgettable.
Radiohead: Creep (1993), Karma Police (1997), Fake Plastic Trees (1995)
I generally prefer Blur (when it comes to mid-nineties British bands), but Radiohead do have talent.
The Beatles: Hey Jude (1968), Let It Be (1970), Yellow Submarine (1966)
The fact that such an old band is still so popular says as much about music today as it does about the Beatles.
Brand New: Sic Transit Gloria (2003), Jude Law and a Semester Abroad (2001), Failure By Design (2001)
A bit better than some of the other emo here, and not quite as whiny as TBS (which I'm not sure is possible anyway). I wouldn't actually pay money for this, mind, but I guess I can understand why someone who was very "emo" themselves might.
The Cure: Love Song (1989), Friday I'm in Love (1992), Just Like Heaven (1989)
I'm a bit surprised to find this eighties band in particular so popular, but they're not so bad if you like that sort of thing. Actually these three tracks are not my favourite Cure songs.
Dashboard Confessional: Vindicated, Screaming Infidelities, Hands Down
Not quite as whiny as some of the other emo bands, but nothing really grabs my attention.
AFI: Silver and Cold (2003), God Called in Sick Today (1999), Girl's Not Grey (2003)
Darker, miserable rather than whiny. Bland, forgettable, forgotten.
So yeah, I don't much like what the kids are listening to these days. I'm hoping for two developments: that the alternative/punk sound that took off with Nirvana eventually dies a death (because I happen not to like it that much), and that kids stop listening to utter shite of whatever genre.