a very specific subset of a generation composed of a messy mix of hardcore kids, pop-punk kids, and emo kids, but that would have been too much of a mouthful
Thank you so much for writing this! I loved reading it, hit all the right notes. I'm still wiping away tears trying to type this from reliving my journey of being introduced to The Wonder Years and all the other bands you mentioned in the timeline. It was such a time, so hard, so tumultuous, like being tossed around in the surf at the beach. You put an incredible amount of insight into your work and I cannot express my gratitude for you putting my feelings to words.
Just wanted to say that I ended up crying over this article. It’s funny because you wrote somewhere that The Wonder Years told kids things they felt and needed to hear before their therapists ever did; I was listening to TWY around the time my mental health was reaching its absolute worst and I could not tell you how many times I’d cry (and sometimes still do) to random lines from Suburbia, The Devil In My Bloodstream, and I Just Want To Sell Out My Funeral during walks on overpasses and commutes home, and hearing Cigarettes & Saints was when I hit both my lowest and highest of suffering depression and deciding to seek professional help. You wrote about TWY amazingly. I think this does their history and works so much justice. It brought up so many memories complete with the raw emotion of experiencing them when I did. I also adore how you were able to draw out the sociological from the band (I’m also a sociologist lol), and how you were able to put into words that TWY epitomized the weird late-millenial-early-gen-Z culture of suffering/joking about depression and a crumbling society *together*, with the bit about how going through boredom and self-hate together made for undying loyalty. Thanks for this. I’ll definitely be re-reading this every now and again.
i've thought about this before but this great post reminded me of it... where do you see bands like Day At The Fair, or some of those other late era DriveThru type bands? I feel like pop punk in 2005 kind of fell through the cracks or was floating in between eras with nowhere really to stand. They were obviously influenced by New Found Glory and other early 2000s acts, and they were pretty great at what they did, but it was like the scene was done. Even emo had problems finding its place, skewing between indie and more "grown up" sounds and like weird attempts at dance music. The DIY/underground scene really gave those 2007-2013 bands a home where emo and pop punk could come together to form a really great union, but that 2005-2007 feels like an empty space on a bunch of timelines.
i should absolutely do a post on that extremely weird mass of gray space that happened smack in the middle of the 2000s. Day at the Fair rule for sure, but yeah Drive-Thru disintegrating in relevance also kind of mirrored what was happening with the indiemo scene, what with Deep Elm's Emo Diaries comps really being the only widely-released music of that style happening. it was a bizarre time. i think if you really want to know what was happening, it was a combination of the older bands in the genre breaking up or moving on to completely different commercial planes/audiences, while the newer wave of bands were still tooling around in ultra-DIY screamo and hardcore bands (for example, Lion of the North, who broke up and split into La Dispute and Grown Ups).
I graduated high school in 2003 and felt like I grew out of the scene the same time the scene grew out of itself. It was like everyone looked around at each other and said “okay so I guess we like the shins and death cab now?” I didn’t hear of grown ups or into it over it and Joyce manor until like 2010 and I was like “oh wow finally this feels like a spiritual successor, the logical progression, it feels like home!”
thanks for the article here. I'm 30 and The Wonder Years are pretty much the only band of that era that I still listen to. I was in High School, getting into Four Year Strong, Fireworks, The Wonder Years all in the late 200s - going to warped tour, tiny shows, big shows etc. Felt like a special time and this article really brought me back and captured so many of my emotions and memories.
Thank you so much for writing this! I loved reading it, hit all the right notes. I'm still wiping away tears trying to type this from reliving my journey of being introduced to The Wonder Years and all the other bands you mentioned in the timeline. It was such a time, so hard, so tumultuous, like being tossed around in the surf at the beach. You put an incredible amount of insight into your work and I cannot express my gratitude for you putting my feelings to words.
comments like these always make me so happy that i didn't stop writing this piece the nine million times i felt like i needed to
Just wanted to say that I ended up crying over this article. It’s funny because you wrote somewhere that The Wonder Years told kids things they felt and needed to hear before their therapists ever did; I was listening to TWY around the time my mental health was reaching its absolute worst and I could not tell you how many times I’d cry (and sometimes still do) to random lines from Suburbia, The Devil In My Bloodstream, and I Just Want To Sell Out My Funeral during walks on overpasses and commutes home, and hearing Cigarettes & Saints was when I hit both my lowest and highest of suffering depression and deciding to seek professional help. You wrote about TWY amazingly. I think this does their history and works so much justice. It brought up so many memories complete with the raw emotion of experiencing them when I did. I also adore how you were able to draw out the sociological from the band (I’m also a sociologist lol), and how you were able to put into words that TWY epitomized the weird late-millenial-early-gen-Z culture of suffering/joking about depression and a crumbling society *together*, with the bit about how going through boredom and self-hate together made for undying loyalty. Thanks for this. I’ll definitely be re-reading this every now and again.
I'm speechless. This is my favorite piece of music writing I've ever read. Right in the feels. I Stan now. Thank you so much <3.
i've thought about this before but this great post reminded me of it... where do you see bands like Day At The Fair, or some of those other late era DriveThru type bands? I feel like pop punk in 2005 kind of fell through the cracks or was floating in between eras with nowhere really to stand. They were obviously influenced by New Found Glory and other early 2000s acts, and they were pretty great at what they did, but it was like the scene was done. Even emo had problems finding its place, skewing between indie and more "grown up" sounds and like weird attempts at dance music. The DIY/underground scene really gave those 2007-2013 bands a home where emo and pop punk could come together to form a really great union, but that 2005-2007 feels like an empty space on a bunch of timelines.
i should absolutely do a post on that extremely weird mass of gray space that happened smack in the middle of the 2000s. Day at the Fair rule for sure, but yeah Drive-Thru disintegrating in relevance also kind of mirrored what was happening with the indiemo scene, what with Deep Elm's Emo Diaries comps really being the only widely-released music of that style happening. it was a bizarre time. i think if you really want to know what was happening, it was a combination of the older bands in the genre breaking up or moving on to completely different commercial planes/audiences, while the newer wave of bands were still tooling around in ultra-DIY screamo and hardcore bands (for example, Lion of the North, who broke up and split into La Dispute and Grown Ups).
I graduated high school in 2003 and felt like I grew out of the scene the same time the scene grew out of itself. It was like everyone looked around at each other and said “okay so I guess we like the shins and death cab now?” I didn’t hear of grown ups or into it over it and Joyce manor until like 2010 and I was like “oh wow finally this feels like a spiritual successor, the logical progression, it feels like home!”
thanks for the article here. I'm 30 and The Wonder Years are pretty much the only band of that era that I still listen to. I was in High School, getting into Four Year Strong, Fireworks, The Wonder Years all in the late 200s - going to warped tour, tiny shows, big shows etc. Felt like a special time and this article really brought me back and captured so many of my emotions and memories.