"This Time I Won't Be Caught Off Guard"
Okay, so I have never really listened to the bands who I guess you'd call the "emo pioneers". The Promise Ring really didn't do much for me, likewise for Braid, same for Mineral. I like some New End Original, but not hugely. There is in general something about the almost universally terrible production ("Ummm... engineer? If it sounds like it's recorded in a basement by a kid with a ghetto blaster, that ain't "lo-fi", that's "unlistenable"), yelping vocals and tendency to "mature" by making godawful indie-ish records that put me off a bit. However, I was having a look around a record store a couple of weekends ago and on an impulse bought "Do You Know Who You Are?" by Texas Is The Reason.
So am not going to sit here and go "my god it's good, you all have to go out and buy it" because you probably all already have it and think it's awesome too. I'm at least a decade late in figuring out it's awesomeness, so I won't preach to the choir. So instead my question is this - WHY DID NO-ONE TELL ME? How have I been going to shows for this long with a range of people whose knowledge of music goes from the extensive to the holy fuck, and no-one has forced a copy of this on me? Having listened to it all of twice, you can see that the songwriting and the lyrics and the vocal style have inspired / been ripped off by so many of the bands I've loved over the past ten years (seriously, Funeral For A Friend, I've finally figured out where your lines come from). You can see that it's an "important" record. And you can hear it rock your face off. So again, to conclude - how could I not have figured this one out earlier?
So am not going to sit here and go "my god it's good, you all have to go out and buy it" because you probably all already have it and think it's awesome too. I'm at least a decade late in figuring out it's awesomeness, so I won't preach to the choir. So instead my question is this - WHY DID NO-ONE TELL ME? How have I been going to shows for this long with a range of people whose knowledge of music goes from the extensive to the holy fuck, and no-one has forced a copy of this on me? Having listened to it all of twice, you can see that the songwriting and the lyrics and the vocal style have inspired / been ripped off by so many of the bands I've loved over the past ten years (seriously, Funeral For A Friend, I've finally figured out where your lines come from). You can see that it's an "important" record. And you can hear it rock your face off. So again, to conclude - how could I not have figured this one out earlier?