NFL
By Keith Richards
All good things must come to an end. A project that started as a single article now ends in a trilogy. After two tiers of Emo Mt. Rushmore, we’ve reached the final tier. The final four artists who, in my opinion, have had the most profound effect on emo music. Tier One was tough. Tier Two was very difficult. Tier III, the final tier, was next to impossible.
As always, my picks are my picks. I neither believe them to be the correct answer nor do I believe there is a correct answer. It’s all about how the music speaks to you. The 12 artists I have chosen throughout this journey are how the music has spoken to me throughout the years.
So, let’s finish this journey! I present to you the final tier of Emo Mt. Rushmore!
Ben Gibbard – Death Cab for Cutie/The Postal Service – Washington
You seem so out of context in this gaudy apartment complex
A stranger with your door key explaining that I am just visiting
And I am finally seeing
Why I was the one worth leaving
Ben Gibbard is an artist akin to Anthony Green from Tier One. Not stylistically, though their styles are horribly dissimilar. Instead, Gibbard is the only other artist from Tier One, Tier Two, or the Final Tier that could make the final tier of Emo Mt. Rushmore with two different bands. Ben does make the final tier with two different bands: Death Cab for Cutie and The Postal Service.
Ben Gibbard first began to gain the notoriety that would put him on the final tier with Death Cab for Cutie. Death Cab Cutie was formed in 1997 in Bellingham, Washington, and is still active today. There have been minimal lineup changes but Ben is the only member that has been there since day one.
Much like Taking Back Sunday in Tier One, and AFI in Tier Two, Death Cab for Cutie’s entire catalog could not be classified as emo. However, the group’s earlier work is emo to the core. It was Transatlanticism that would thrust the band into the mainstream in 2003. The singles on the album were “The Sound of Settling” and “Title and Registration”. It is the latter, though, that sets the tone for Gibbard’s emo roots.
In “Title and Registration,” Gibbard sings:
There’s no blame for how our love did slowly fade
And now that it’s gone it’s like it wasn’t there at all
And here I rest where disappointment and regret collide
Lying awake at night
What makes Ben Gibbard so unique with Death Cab for Cutie is the tone of the music. In reviewing the group’s first album, You Can Play These Songs With Chords, Jenny Eliscu stated, “Deatch make icily pretty music that conveys emotion through its lack of emotion – there’s vague gloominess in Ben Gibbard’s breathy, faraway voice and the creepy analog synthesizers that it accompany it.” It is that unique style and the sounds of Jimmy Tamborello that would launch Gibbard into the emo stratosphere and the final tier of Emo Mt. Rushmore.
Ben Gibbard, along with Jimmy Tamborello (Dntel), would end up forming the indie pop supergroup The Postal Service after working together on a Dntel song named “(This Is) The Dream of Evan and Chan.” There’s something about the melancholy tones of Gibbard mixed with the upbeat music of Tamborello that’s infectious.
It’s on songs like “Nothing Better,” you still get the seemingly emotionless delivery of lyrics by Gibbard, but you don’t feel that in the end once Jimmy has his say. There are songs on the album where the lyrics match the instrumental like “This Place Is A Prison” and “Recycled Air”. Give Up ends up being a beautiful combination of both.
Give Up, outside of touring and a few B-Sides, is the only project The Postal Service would put out. With that project alone, Gibbard makes a strong argument for the final tier of Emo Mt. Rushmore. When you couple his work with The Postal Service with the work of Deathcab for Cutie, though, there’s no doubt that Ben Gibbard is on the final tier of Emo Mt. Rushmore.
Bert McCracken – The Used – Utah
He wears his heart
Safety pinned to his backpack
His backpack is all that he knows
Shot down by strangers
Whose glances can cripple
The heart and devour the soul
Unlike a few other members of all three tiers, Bert McCracken and The Used are emo through and through. Well, to be exact, screamo. Coming up in the 2000s with bands like Thrice and Silverstein, McCracken and The Used have been staples in screamo every since.
The Used was formed in Orem, Utah in the year 2000. If you’ve ever been to Orem, you would know that it’s simultaneously the best and the worst place for the origins of a screamo band. In a state/region known for its Latter Day Saint (Mormon) culture, it’s unlikely that a band as aggressive as The Used would come from there. It’s that fact, though, that makes Utah the perfect breeding ground for McCracken and The Used.
Bert is similar to Adam Lazzara (Tier One) and Davey Havok (Tier Two) in his initial attitude toward the emo label. However, in the final tier, we find acceptance. In an interview from earlier this year, McCracken addresses his feelings on the emo label.
Bert stated, “I used to cringe about that term ‘emo’, but I think we’ve swallowed it. We are emo.” He would go on to say, “The resurgence [emo] is having is crazy. It’s not surprising, though. Music comes in waves. And it’s a perfect time for it. This music has always been about feelings and emotions: the things that fell tragic in people’s lives.”
Bert McCracken is all too familiar with the tragedy and feelings that shine in emo music. In that same interview, McCracken addressed his struggles with depression and anxiety while discussing their new album Toxic Positivity.
He states, “A lot of people I know don’t struggle with depression and anxiety. That makes me furious. It makes me sad. It makes me feel all sorts of things. I’ve come to learn that everyone has their moments, but Toxic Positivity reflects that anger and frustration towards people who’ve been alright and who’ll be alright – and my guilt over being my depressive, anxiety-ridden self.”
Those feelings discussed by Bert come through strongly in The Used’s self-titled debut. This album alone could land Bert on the final tier of Emo Mt. Rushmore. The pinnacle of that album and the launching point for The Used is the song “On My Own.” On that track, McCracken sings:
And now it seems that I have found
Nothing at all
I want to hear your voice out loud
Slow it down, slow it down
Without it all
I’m choking on nothing
It’s clear in my head
And I’m screaming for something
Knowing nothing is better than knowing at all
On my own
The Used’s self-titled item is an emo anthem in its own right. “The Taste of Ink”, “Buried Myself Alive”, “A Box Full of Sharp Objects”, and “Blue and Yellow” all come from that album. If you were to build a list of emo anthems, all five songs would make it. And that’s before you get to all their other work. Yes, Bert McCracken’s place on the final tier of Emo Mt. Rushmore, and in that overall pantheon of Emo Mt. Rushmore, is set in stone.
Pete Wentz – Fall Out Boy – Illinois
I’m two quarters and a heart down
And I don’t want to forget how your voice sounds
These words are all I have so I write them
So you need them just to get by
Of all the artists in the Pantheon of Emo Mt. Rushmore, Pete Wentz is unique. Wentz finds his way to the final tier as the only artist of all three tiers who is not the lead man, or woman. At least, not as the perceived lead. That in itself shows the strength of Pete’s claim to being on the final tier.
Fall Out Boy was founded in 2001 in the Chicago suburb of Wilmette. Outside of a few minor changes in the early year or so, the band has consisted of the same group: Pete Wentz, Patrick Stump, Andy Hurley, and Joe Trohman. Along with that lineup, the group has thrived off the unique partnership of Stump and Wentz.
While Patrick is the lead singer of Fall Out Boy, he primarily composes the music. Though I’m sure other members have input in the end, Pete primarily writes the lyrics for the group. I’m sure it’s not a situation unique to music, but it’s well-publicized and unique to Emo Mt. Rushmore.
With the debut of the group’s first studio album, Take This to Your Grave, Fallout gained a large underground, cult following. That’s when I was introduced to Fall Out Boy. I saw them in October 2004 in Salt Lake City at the Ogden Theatre with Taking Back Sunday. It wasn’t long after that that Wentz and the group would explode with From Under the Cork Tree. They were thrust into the mainstream and haven’t looked back since.
Many would argue that the band “sold out” but I would disagree. Yes, their sound has changed over the years, but the group has always felt the same. Wentz and the group proved this with the release of Believers Never Die – Greatest Hits in 2009. By that time, Fall Out Boy was four studio albums deep. On the compilation album, they added the unreleased song “’ From Now On We Are Enemies.’”
On the track, Wentz writes and Stump sings:
A composer, but never composed
Singing the symphonies of the overdosed
A composer, but never composed
Singing, “I only want what I can’t have”
“I only want what I can’t have”
Even then, at the height of the claims of the group selling out, Pete Wentz and Fall Out Boy stuck to their emo roots. It’s songs like that that keep Wentz on the final tier of Emo Mt. Rushmore and what keeps him there today.
Jim Adkins – Jimmy Eat World – Arizona
I have one last wish
And it’s from my heart
Just let me down
Just let me down, easy
For the last entry of the final tier of Emo Mt. Rushmore, and rounding out the Pantheon of Emo royalty, we go back to the beginning. The back to the nexus of Emo music and culture. Without Jim Adkins and Jimmy Eat World, there may not be any Emo at all.
Jimmy Eat World was formed in Mesa, Arizona in 1993. Three of the four members of the band today were there in the beginning: Jim Adkins, Tom Linton, and Zach Lind. Even then, Rick Burch replaced Mitch Porter in 1995 and has been with the band since. Much like The Used it’s rare to see such continuity in a band.
When the band formed in 1993, they had a punk rock sound but that wouldn’t last for long. Influenced by bands like Sunny Day Real Estate, by the time of their major-label debut Static Prevails, Jim Adkins and the group were deep in the Emo space.
In 1999, Jimmy Eat World released Clarity. It wasn’t until 2001, though, that the band gained recognition when they released Bleed American. Though Jim Adkins and the band had always been pioneers of Emo, it wasn’t until Bleed American that they began to be recognized as such. By then, bands like Dashboard Confessional had paved the way for the explosion of Emo into the mainstream.
Jimmy Eat World would not look back after the release of Bleed American. However, it’s Bleed American that many often look back to when asked how to describe Jimmy Eat World. On the track “If You Don’t, Don’t,” Adkins signs:
I left you waiting (I know I left you waiting)
At the least could we be friends?
Should have never started (never started)
Ain’t that the way it always ends?
On my life I’ll try today
There’s so much I’ve felt I should say but
Even if your heart would listen
I doubt I could explain
That consistency of sound and lyrics has stuck with Jimmy Eat World ever since. Jim Adkins and Jimmy Eat World are forever immortalized in the Pantheon of Emo Mt. Rushmore on its final tier.
And that concludes the chapter of Emo Mt. Rushmore. Who makes your final tier? As I said, all good things come to an end. However, as they say, when one door closes, another one opens.
