What genre music do you think of when you hear violent threats and pure degradation towards women? 9 times out of 10 the answer will be Rap or Hip-Hop. Artists like Ludacris, Plies, Lil Wayne, and many others all frequently bash women in their popular songs. Taking Back Sunday, an alternative rock band, actually trumps most of these rappers with their single "Cute Without the E." The title itself is more violent than the content of three rap songs combined. Cute Without the E = "Cut." In this song, the lead singer sings melodically about his options in life, which are limited to one of 2 things: killing a cheating girlfriend or killing himself. The violence expressed towards women in this song is not totally random, as often is the case in rap songs. Basically the song is a story: man catches girlfriend cheating on him ("Your lipstick his collar don't bother angel/I know exactly what goes on"), man must decide whether he wants to punish the girlfriend or punish himself for allowing the secret affair to exist ("Well which would you prefer my finger on the trigger or me face down, down across your floor?"), and finally man realizes how psychotic he is acting and expresses hope for a peaceful ending ("Hoping for the best just hoping nothing happens"). I think this song is truly disturbing, the title in itself just screams "EMO slit-my-wrists-esque music." In my opinion, this alternative rock song is more violent than any rap song I have heard in the last 5 years.
Obviously there are much different realms of musical genres that are much more violent than rap. However Emo rock and Taking Back Sunday don't really scream crazy violent material. I mean I like them a lot but in other songs they show kind of uplifting material--- "Every minute is a minute away" (Up Against) and "we can go back" (ErrorOperator)both show optimism in some sense. I believe if we are looking for a genre outside of Rap/Hip-Hip that encompasses violent and abusive material, we need not look further than Death Metal or Hard Rock. I think most will agree that any line from The Haunted's "Abysmal" (Bury me in a shallow grave/ so the dogs can dig me out/ if I die tonight, well that suits me fine) or any other hard rock metal music blows this Emo stuff out of the water. Just saying.
ReplyDeleteHave you listened to Kim?? "Cute without the 'E'" is violent, and a lot of the darker emo/punk stuff gets into self-destruction, but heavy metal and hip-hop definitely blow emo out of the water when it comes to violence. However, I would agree that sometimes the white-suburban boredom violence can be morally disturbing in its own way, if only because its causes are so twisted. At least gangsta rap is an expression of city violence that has a root cause in social segregation, persecution, and alienating social policies. Self-loathing, cutting, and violence associated with typically white, dissatisfied suburban kids is disturbing because it has no clear reason for existing. Emo/screamo music obviously taps into this angst, but there are other cultural expressions, such as movies like Donnie Darko which explore angst in pretty disturbing ways.
ReplyDeleteOh, just remembered The Butterfly Effect- now that is a messed-up movie. It explores this concept of ennui-violence perfectly too.
ReplyDeleteActually, this song is hardly violent and it doesn't compare to lyrics by NWA like Fuck the Police. The actual, violent part of Rock music is found in Metal. For instance, just the album covers of many bands have mysonistic themes like Electric Wizard, Witchfinder General, Mercyful Fate or X Japan, to name a few. Then you have the violent content of the lyrics themselves, many times involving war, rape, and other undescribable acts of violence. Then you have an entire genre dedicated to nationalism and racism called National Socialist Black Metal, which itself comes from an already violente subgenre of Metal called Black Metal, which started with crazy fans burning churches all over Norway and other violent acts that include murder, not to mention how the songs talk about mutilation, sadism and death, which leave Hip Hop to shame, at least from my perspective. The song in your post is hardly violent to be honest, and Emo is not the genre to look for violent content in Rock music.
ReplyDelete