Where are your boys tonight? The oral history of emo's mainstream explosion 1999-2008

Emo, or emocore, is short for "emotive hardcore" or "emotional hardcore," a rock music genre known for heart-on-its-sleeve confessional lyrics smothered in a noisy punkish sound. Payne, a New York--based journalist, divides this oral history into five parts, or waves, spanning the years 1999--2008, drawing on long interviews with more than 150 people, including Pete Wentz, bassist of Fall Out Boy, Carnegie Medal--winning critic and poet Hanif Abdurraqib, and many other artists, managers, critics, and "superfans." At nearly 500 pages, Payne's chronicle burrows deeply into stories of the folks who performed the music, wrote about the music, promoted the music, and listened to the music. It places the often-misunderstood genre into historical context, thus helping readers with little to no knowledge of emo to recognize its place in the pop mainstream. Of course, fans who love the music will undoubtedly spend hours reading about the songs, the venues, the ambience, and the artists themselves. In the epilogue, Payne writes about so-called "emo revival" bands, backing up his belief that "emo never went away."

Journalist Payne has skillfully woven together more than 150 in-depth interviews to illustrate the rise and massive popularity of emo, a rock genre that merged hardcore punk with pop melodies and heartfelt, emotion-laden lyrics. Skipping the nascent emergence of the music, he begins in 1999, when "third-wave emo" bands such as Midtown, Saves the Day, Thursday, Taking Back Sunday, and Dashboard Confessional surfaced in basement shows. He continues with the next generation of emo groups such as the progressively pop-oriented Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, the Christian-based Underoath, and Panic! at the Disco. In the book's last sections, Payne charts the national teenage craze surrounding these mostly male bands, which performed at such venues as the 2005 Warped Tour and used the Internet for marketing. He especially focuses on Fall Out Boy, with their million-copy-selling From Under the Cork Tree (2005) and the fashion-conscious, theatrical My Chemical Romance, which released the nearly chart-topping My Black Parade (2006). VERDICT Payne's oral history does a remarkable job of defining and showing the meteoric boom of emo that music fans will find fascinating.--Dr. Dave Szatmary

A full immersion into a musical genre that "was never supposed to be cool." The music called emo (often with derision) rose gradually in the early 2000s, made an explosive popular impact, and then experienced a quick descent. With this oral history, music journalist Payne seeks to keep the legacy alive. Drawing from more than 150 interview sources--musicians, crew, journalists, and fans--this is a book by fans for fans, a celebration of a musical phenomenon too often dismissed as punk lite. The text will satisfy any emo obsessive, those who know everything about the scene that spawned Fall Out Boy and My Chemical Romance and are still hungry to know even more. Others might have trouble keeping all the names and the bands straight, though the author provides an effective overview of how the scene developed and what went right and wrong. For the uninitiated, emo is short for emotional. An offshoot of the DIY punk scene, it was initially branded emocore, a response to the hardcore punk that was so abrasively aggressive and dominated by male stars. Emo was music for and by more sensitive boys as well as the girls who loved them and broke their hearts. It was a grassroots movement from suburbia and flourished on video, in shopping malls, and on the Warped Tour. Some of the bands were so young and became popular so fast that they couldn't possibly have been prepared for the pressures of stardom and international popularity. Record companies were still throwing massive amounts of money at them in the early 2000s. There were plenty of casualties--drug overdoses, rehab, psychological treatment--and a couple of huge success stories. Payne covers it all in exhaustive (and occasionally exhausting) detail. The multiple cast-of-characters lists are helpful for non--die-hards. A must-read for emo fans but not likely to win the genre many new followers. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.