From the Basement: A History of Emo Music and How It Changed Society

by Taylor Markarian, Natasha Van Duser (Foreword)

Explore the cultural, social, and psychological factors surrounding the genres. Though songs can be timeless, music is often a result of the era in which it was created. The 2000s in music gave rise to indie, emo, and punk rock, carrying an emotional tone that has resonated with listeners ever since. Originally appealing to a small selection of music lovers, this music era now holds a significant place in the history of rock. The relationship between music and mental health. Music leaves its mark on the world by touching the hearts and minds of its creators and listeners. This book explores that connection and takes a look at what emo, alternative, and indie music did for the mental health of musicians and listeners. Inside stories from the music legends themselves. The voices of the rock musicians who contributed to these genres of music are just as important now as they were then. Author Taylor Markarian includes both her own interviews with bands and those from outside sources to provide an oral history and offer an authentic portrayal of these underground arts. Markarian’s book offers a comprehensive look into genres of music that have been simultaneously mocked and admired. Discover in From the Basement : If books such as Please Kill Me, American Hardcore, Meet Me in the Bathroom, and Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs have rocked your world, then From the A History of Emo Music and How It Changed Society should be your next read.
Please A batch of printed copies mislabeled the band Hot Water Music as How Water Music. If you received a copy with this issue, please contact support@mango.bz to recieve a corrected copy of the book.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, History, Pop Culture, Audiobook

226 pages, Paperback

Published October 15, 2019

About the author

Taylor Markarian experienced the music wave of the early 2000s firsthand as a teenage fan. While struggling with mental health issues as well as the typical growing pains of adolescence, she found a home in indie, emo, screamo, and eventually heavier genres like metal and hardcore. Markarian followed her passion for writing and music by attending Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts. In 2014, she lived in L.A. where she interned at punk icon Brett Gurewitz’s (Bad Religion) record label, Epitaph Records. She graduated with honors from Emerson College in 2015 with a B.A. in Writing, Literature & Publishing and a minor in Music Appreciation. She has written for many print and online publications including Alternative Press, Kerrang!, Revolver, Loudwire, and Reader’s Digest. Markarian was born in New York City. She was raised and currently resides in New Jersey.

Reviews

[shredberg · Rating 2 out of 5]

Part of me doesn't want to be critical about things the book wasn't really going for. But at the same time it's a bit tough for me to not get annoyed at the incredible lack of emo history in a book that has "history" in its title.

For the positives, the interviews were great. It's awesome to get a collected response on some of the big names of the 90's and 00's on the initial growth of emo and the pop emo scene. The photos were a great addition. The section on mental health was great.

Unfortunately, for the most part the "history" read like it was a wikipedia entry with interviews in between. Largely, other than perhaps the section on the emocore beginnings of the genre, I cannot imagine anyone familiar with the early 00's emo scene reading this learning anything about the genre. Overall, the book glossed over the actual growth of the scene. For the 90's largely not talking about how the scene grew other than just explaining that basement shows and small concerts defined it. But mostly just talked about 90's bands like Jimmy Eat World, Sunny Day Real Estate, Saves the Day, and a few others saying they paved the way without particularly explaining how.

More egregiously, the band was extremely dismissive of skramz screamo bands instead only talking about scremo with bands that, while part of the "scene," are more associated with post-hardcore than emo (bands like alexisonfire and the like). There was 1 sentence where Pg. 99 was name dropped but it was immediately dismissed as more similar to grindcore.

Moreover, the "history" of the genre basically ended with 2006. While newer bands got name drops there was no recollection of the past 13 years of emo. Algernon Cadwallader, Empire Empire, etc. were coming up as bands at the same time the section was talking about emo being "dead." There were interviews that alluded to bands being alive in the time between 2007-2019, but no mention to the hows and whys. The book even talks about Emo Rap more than it talks about any of the modern emo bands.

Largely, my criticism comes down to the fact that the book really is not a history of emo music but largely a recollection of which emo-pop bands came to prominence in the early 00's. There is so much more to emo than the bands that played on MTV and Fuse and largely those bands were ignored.

Again, perhaps a lot of my criticism is my own fault for having expectations outside of the scope of the book. But anyone looking to get any more history that you can't get in wikipedia I recommend skipping it. If you're a big fan of the genre the interviews with emo-pop bands are really cool.

[Jeremy Echols · Rating 2 out of 5]

This isn't so much a history of emo as much as it is a memoir of the author's love for early-00's screamo bands (namely Taking Back Sunday, My Chemical Romance and Senses Fail) and a handful of interviews. The first two waves of the genre are covered in two brief chapters early on, before settling into focusing on the above-mentioned bands for the remainder of the book. And the modern emo revival (bands like Modern Baseball, Tiny Moving Parts, TWIABPAIANLATD) aren't mentioned at all, leaving the reader to deduce that emo died in 2007 (or morphed into Soundcloud rap, strangely). It'd honestly be a stretch to call it an oral history, since there is more editorializing from the author than content from the interviews.
It's not a bad book and I didn't not enjoy reading it - just do not judge it by its cover bc it is not the history it is billed as.
If you're interested in a book actually detailing the origins of emo, I'd recommend "Nothing Feels Good" by Andy Greenwald. That book ends in 2003sh, before this wave of emo really kicked off and I was hoping this book would pick up the torch where that one left off, but that wasn't the case.

[Kathleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too much focus on just one band.

Too much focus on MCR, not enough content about anyone else. Needs more interviews from bands to call it an oral history.

[Maggie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5. credentials for this review: currently wearing a My Chem top, former self harmer during my emo era into adulthood

while this was interesting and I did enjoy it, I feel like the title is misleading. it's a lot of naming of early emo bands with little meaning assigned to the different subgenres. I did enjoy the chapter on regional emo. I liked the chapter on mental health, but there was no real analysis to support her claims that emo changed the way society talks about it (this is a point I disagree with). I did relate a lot to the chapter of course, but I don't think listening to emo music made me open up more or that it changed my approach to mental health. tbh I was 13 and all I wanted to do was cut myself. I felt especially sad listening to the quotes from the founder of To Write Love on Her Arms knowing that since the publishing of this book she sadly died by suicide.
this ultimately felt like a memoir of the author's journey in the emo scene with a touch of her thoughts on mental health, but no real analysis that moved the book forward or that was all that enlightening.

[Benjamin Walker · Rating 2 out of 5]

This read more like a high school essay called ‘My Favourite Music’ than a serious, nuanced and informative piece of music journalism. As other people have noted on Goodreada it is not the in-depth history of emo that the cover and blurbs imply it is. It is just superficial and unbalanced fawning of a small pool of bands, mainly the huge uninteresting ones, with barely any analysis or anything new to say about them. It discussed emo’s relationship with mental health but not in any way which can be considered analytical or interesting, just sad kids listen to emo. Yeah, but is it a symbiotic thing? Do you think maybe the bands might have added to an epidemic of teenage depression since even the bands said they were mostly writing songs to fit a genre? That the ‘I’ in art is not really to be taken as autobiography, but it seems nobody told the emo kids that? Is emo exploitative as well as cathartic? All we got is sad kids love emo like fish love barrels. I could have told you that without spending the £12 and two hours this book cost me.

I found the writer showed incredible ignorance of other genres, particularly hip hop and late nineties pop, which would have been useful context in a book about emo if dealt with maturely. Or at least accurately. This is frustrating for a book claiming music journalism.

Parts of this book made me actively dislike emo. It sounds horrible, as represented here.

A disappointment. At least it was short.

[Tom Forrester · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love music books like this-retrospectives/oral histories of bands and genres that have been important to me throughout my life.

This was a fun and very nostalgic trip through early 00’s emo. Much like the author, I was in my teenage years during pop-punk and ‘emo’s’ peak, and as such, lived and loved the genres. While I didn’t learn too much new information from reading this book, it did bring back some great memories of shows that I attended, and long forgotten albums.

This wasn’t a comprehensive study of the emo scene, that I was expecting-when compared to Andy Greenwald’s ‘Nothing Feels Good: Punk Rock, Teenagers and Emo’, it comes up a little short. However, Greenwald’s analysis was always meant for the generation of emo kids that came before me, and Markarian captured the essence of my emo perfectly.


I also appreciated the author’s disclosure of her struggle with mental health, and how this music helped her through those times. I can certainly relate to music being a crutch through difficult times, including my own struggles with mental health. I think that truly speaks of the universality of this type of music, and why it appealed to so many people around the world.

If nothing else, it’s made me revisit some albums that have been neglected for far too long. In that sense, this book can only be considered a success l!

[Shant · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the oral history aspect and learning how it was unclear how emo 'began' or became the late 2000's flanderized scene look. As someone who doesn't know that much about emo, though, I wish there were more statistics for reference for how big emo became (I'm thinking of things like Billboard appearances or award nominees or whatever). The book was too short for this, though, so I understand. I liked the references to Soundcloud rap, even if I wish they were more positive (I don't have a horse in the race, though).

Not to be a negative nelly, though, but I wish some of the drawbacks of the scene were mentioned (Or at least ones that weren't just related to commercial performance). Were there any women in the bands? Sometimes the author mentioned the band members were in bad places and hurt people (Which I guess can be read as a reference to certain allegations), but yeah.

[RL Bailey · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun read and the author gets it; for those of us who grew up in the scene I'd say this is pretty accurate and not a revisionist's history.

That being said the one fault is this is super short. When writing a book like this you'll always miss some obscure band; but this one really glosses over most bands. I felt Taking Back Sunday and My Chemical Romance are really the only bands who get a lot of time spend on them. Even Brand New is only really in here as a comparison to TBS.

[Megan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Surface level takes of more mainstream third-wave emo. Author associates DIY screamo acts as being more akin to grindcore than anything else, which feels like a miss (ideally, would hit more on nuances relating to emoviolence + skramz). Hits on the impact of MySpace, but foregoes any insights relating to Tumblr/Bandcamp and the emo revival that took off in 2012/13. Big emphasis on tri-state bands, and is sort of disparaging of bands coming from anywhere else.

[jazthedigital · Rating 3 out of 5]

A compact piece of emo genre history written by a journalist that worked in Alternative Press, Kerrang! and Loudwire among other music magazines.

It’s an oral history type book, author pieces interviews of people from a pop punk, emo, alternative rock scene that has connections or directly lived through 90s & early 2000s emo. Describing different interpretations and perspective not only on the meaning of a term, how it evolved, how emo was commercialised, changed meaning (or lost depending who you’ll ask) and now is this mush of ideas. Not a clear genre to define. But hey, so I punk music.

So it’s actually an attempt to grasp some visions of emo music flying through time, in different circles heads.

There’s a lot of discussion on My Chemical Romance involvement in the genre. Being painted as the face of early 2000s more mainstream emo, being an alternative band that gained mass cult appeal. Even if Gerard Way and the group considered themselves more of rock stars than emo. The term and the look sticked.

It has some cool insight from members of bands actually playing in the basements, real underground corners of music in the U.S. that have seen the gutsy, agonising music of emo. With which musicians spilled their deepest and darkest feelings to the microphone in an underground rooms with reverb and limited lighting.

It’s cool to have multiple accounts and it sure brings a perspective on the perception of the genre through years.
But to me book lacked some strong structure and fundamentally could’ve been tighter and more informative.
Interviews and thought of different musicians on emo genre are fun. But some more scientific approach with music magazines mentioning of emo, changing way how media approach to emo through analysis of different media, would make for more varied reading. Also mapping some history of emo would be helpful.
Chapters point-out to different time periods, but it’s not easy to map it out yourself after reading a book.

However the fact that such project exists is admirable.
A light if sometimes stale read.

3/5 stars

[John Licari · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not a bad book. I like the history, and the firsthand accounts. Not a fan of her writing style but the subject matter she tackles was important (mental health).

[Lucas Santos · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wish that there was more recommendations and history about other bands from the “golden era” of emo. We read a lot about the same bands throughout the book.

But I do appreciate the interviews and insights about that time plus my highlight is when the author shares thoughts and stories about mental health and how emo music saved her and other people.

[Kayleigh Townsend · Rating 1 out of 5]

Could not have hated this book more, not history, an a level style essay about how noone is more emo than this author and the bands being interviewed & if you aren't from New York you simply cannot understand emo, an actual chore to read

[Petty Lisbon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this was a good book. I don't really know a lot about emo music but it did a decent job at explaining the basics. I think there were a few different tonal/theme shifts, like the first chapter being a flat out history from the 80's, a chapter about emo getting big, different regional scenes, stigma/fashion/culture, a personal chapter, and then the scene today, but it was good and I think it fits how it evolved from a political genre (punk music) into something personal. As I said before, I only knew the band names but couldn't really tell you anything about them so I would've like to know more about the context of them (ie- "This album was like the Adore by Smashing Pumpkins for they lost their drummer and went electronic and everyone got mad") but just googling Jimmy Eat World's Clarity and Taking Back Sunday's debut album and reading their Wiki pages composition sections made me expand my idea of what it could be. Do I still understand the difference between emo and post hardcore? Or Emo and pop punk? Not really. But I at least appreciate that this book was made for a fan instead of just talking about like Fall Out Boy only. I enjoyed the section on emo's presence in rap music today.

[Vince Snow · Rating 3 out of 5]

A few years ago BuzzFeed started doing quizzes or something about which My Chemical Romance song you were and that left a really weird taste in my mouth. Along with Emo Nites popping up everywhere, I felt like being emo was seen as some retro thing that people looked back on how 'cringey' everyone was back in the early 2000s.

This book was a really quick easy read. I was especially fascinated by the first few chapters that talk about the beginning of the scene. I thought that the authors theory that emo music was responsible for the more open dialogue that we have in culture today on mental health was interesting and thought provoking, but ultimately I strongly disagree.

Looking back now though the early 2000s emo movement is unique, largely propelled into the mainstream by the advent of the internet, and it DID have a big effect on society. The book wasn't everything I wanted it to be, I felt like a lot of it was filler, but it was a good read.

[Noah · Rating 2 out of 5]

The review by "shredberg" is perfect. This book has quotes from all of the relevant figures but gets extremely little information out of them. It has very little information overall. It provides some amount of conceptual discussion about what kind of songwriting is taken as being emo, what kind of themes and historical events inspired the bands, which tools were helpful for them in getting their music out; but the conceptual discussion I think is also profoundly lacking. I find emo as a phenomenon kinda problematizing in a masculinity studies perspective, and that would need to be a discussion with the specific writers, but sexuality is treated very normatively here. It is a profoundly 'lay' book, so to speak, not really for musicians, not really for people well-acquainted with the major contours of emo history, certainly not a critique.

[Fabricio · Rating 1 out of 5]

One of the worst books on music I've ever read. It's almost fraudulent to claim that the book covers the "history of emo," as it seems much more focused on the author's memories and personal opinions—who, as a journalist, should be more attentive to facts and historical context. Some passages, like "emo was the 'next big thing' after grunge" and "has anyone ever imagined the Ramones without black pants," made me laugh out loud. The book might be interesting for those who lived through this period in the few geographic regions it explores, but for everyone else, I recommend staying away. There are better options on the market.

[Nicole Zeckner · Rating 2 out of 5]

A sugar coated view of 3rd wave emo. No discussion of the misogyny in the lyrics and scene. No discussion of the sexual assaults. No discussion of the "nice guy" that the scene helped build.

Also stoops so low to call the newest wave of emo hip-hop as less deep and more superficial than 3rd wave.

If you want to love something, you have to be able to take a critical look at it. And the author doesn't seem to be willing to do that.

[Greg Sorensen · Rating 1 out of 5]

I would have loved this book back in 2003 when I thought these bands were the end all be all. It’s basically one big love letter to the likes of My Chemical Romance, Taking Back Sunday, Silverstein, and Senses Fail with no real talk of how they were influenced and who *really* shaped the tones they were going for. If you want to feel nostalgic for that time, go for it but I was hoping for something else (especially with such a bold title).

[Kevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

5/10. Easiest book ever written as the author just quotes other people for 200 pages. Regardless, it’s cool to follow the evolution of a scene by listening to the songs as you read through the history. It’s just that the written history part was not executed very well at all. Still, this book brought me back to growing up listening to still great, and lesser known, emo bands. Bands so obscure you can’t even find them on streaming apps. Great days. Sad they are over. Midtown was right. Time is catching up to me.

[Kait Schoolfield · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best thing about this book is how you can feel the passion the author has for the subject on every page. It wasn’t an in depth history of each band or anything like that but it’s a really good jumping off point for bands to look into to learn more. I’m the end I really loved the book and the photography and would definitely recommend to someone who doesn’t know much about emo and wants to get down to the roots of the genre.

[Natasha Sudiaman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a valuable history of emo as a whole and a deeper dive into what sets it apart from other genres. The raw emotion. I loved the artist interviews. It felt like going in a time warp and seeing all the names of artists I loved growing up. I didn't really like the chapter about the author's personal trauma. It felt like it distracted from the history aspect. I also disagree with the co-author's views on emo rap. Overall though it was a great read and I recommend it for any fans of emo.

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was more of the author's personal history with/of emo music than an actual, comprehensive history. Some of the interviews were cool and interesting, but it focused pretty heavily on the author's personal ties, feelings, and preferences. It's an okay read that hits some of the nostalgia factor, but I did not get the objective and full history that I was looking for.

[Paul Edwards · Rating 5 out of 5]

From The Basement is a perfect snapshot of one of the most important subculture on the last 30 years. The book consists of multiple different artists commenting on how they felt about the Emo scene. It also talks about the critical subject of mental health and how the emergence of the emo scene normalized the conversation of bad mental health. It's well written, sincere and heart warming.

[Maddie Andrews · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book keeps mentioning how no other bands had ever conveyed that kind of emotion or wrote about the same things and that irked me. As a big music lover, bands like the cure had been doing it for years? Don’t get me wrong, this was the subculture I grew up in and loved but brand new wasn’t the first band who wrote about sadness

[LaPassion · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had no idea of the diverse background of Emo music until now. Even at the ripe old age (as my younger siblings will tell you) of 25, I still love this movement. I heard from a lot of new bands I had no idea even existed. I can’t explain the joy I felt at knowing where one of my favorite genres of music came from.

[Trillian · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like the book the the title is all wrong. It's more a love letter to the 2000's scene and not a history of emo. I enjoyed it but thought I was going to be reading something with a little more meat on the bone.

[Tara Callahan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very informative about the Emo music genre and scene. Always felt connected with the Emo scene but did not know a lot of bands that were considered Emo and the historical vantage point from an insider in the music scene.

[Derek · Rating 4 out of 5]

The early sections are great. Sorta falls apart as it progresses with the author's fangirl-ness really getting in the way. The whole mental health section, while honest and personal, was still a bit clunky. Should have relied just a bit more on the interviews. Liked the screamo stuff though.

[Skylar Fitzpatrick · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you are into emo history, this book isn’t this. It focuses too much on my chemical romance and claims them to be the starter of emo when you can look years back for different influences. It was cool to read the interviews from artists, but this book was a waste of time in my opinion