From Grating to Great: How My Dad's Punk Influence Led Me to Embrace Emo
Is it Nature or Nurture for me to love the music I do?
This is a post written in conjunction with
. Make sure you read their post. I will be cross-posting their essay so that it will be sent to your email and/or the app.In my parents’ bedroom, on top of my mother’s dresser, lived my mother’s sound system. She would turn the knob on its silver face, the speakers would make a slight pop that let you know it was on, and then music would play. When my mom cranked the volume up, the music would reverberate throughout the entire house. Hardly a day passed without her turning the radio on to one of her favorite radio stations. Sometimes it was the Golden Oldies station that would play the best songs from that era—one of my favorites was ‘Lollipop’ by the Chordettes. Other times, it was 80’s rock. We listened to a lot of Stevie Nicks, Pat Benatar, the Eurythmics, and other female powerhouses that reigned in the 80’s. When I was exceptionally young, my mom would turn on the Classical station and we would dance interpretively to the music and imagine what story or imagery the composer was trying to convey.
My father loved punk and classic rock. It was one of his passions, nay, obsessions. He had an encyclopedic knowledge of punk and rock music, music history, and the members of all the bands he was interested in. I’m probably underselling the depth of his knowledge. The truth, however, was that for most of my youth I couldn’t stand my dad’s taste in music. I remember sitting in his car as he drove me somewhere, listening to ‘Holiday in Cambodia’ by the Dead Kennedys and hating how raw and grating every song was on the cassettes he would pop into the car’s sound system. I enjoy them now that I’m old enough to appreciate them, but back then car rides with Dad were a unique form of torture.
It was inevitable that I would fall in love with rock.
My dad’s favorite music-loving coworker sent home a burned CD of Acceptance’s album, ‘Phantoms’, and Anberlin’s ‘Blueprints for the Black Market’ after my dad told him I had started to listen to alternative rock. I loved and treasured those CDs. I even added them to my off-brand mp3 player so I could listen to them on the go.
Then, my church brought in a Christian rock band called ‘Sanctified’ to play during the youth group service. Because I arrived early, I was able to chat with the band until it was time for the them to take the stage. I felt so grown-up talking to these adults and asking them all my questions. They treated me like an equal, and that has stuck with me all this time. After the concert, I waited for my dad to pick me up so that I could beg for a CD and t-shirt. By the time he arrived, the members of Sanctified had already packed up most of their things into their car and were about to drive off. We made the deal in the parking lot, my dad pulling the money out of his wallet and handing it to the one of the singers of the band, who then handed me a CD and a t-shirt in my size from the trunk of his car. It was my very first band shirt.
Sometime between 7th and 8th grade, I started listening to The World Famous KROQ radio station. They played songs from Nirvana, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Linkin Park, Beastie Boys, Queens of the Stone Age, Muse, Rise Against, and so on. Every single day, you could reliably expect to hear at least one song from Bob Marley, Tupac’s ‘California Love’, and at least one song from Sublime. Very rarely, on special occasions, they would play King Missile’s avant-garde song, “Detachable Penis”, which was a shock to my good, Christian sensibilities the first time I heard it. And KROQ also started playing emo music, like My Chemical Romance, AFI, and Panic! At the Disco.
I didn’t fall head over heels for emo music until ‘The Black Parade’ came out a couple of months after starting my freshman year of high school at a Catholic all-girls school. I remember the first time KROQ played “Welcome to the Black Parade” on the air. Surrounding me on the floor was the contents of my backpack fanned around me, where I was working on my homework. The first piano notes from the intro was like Cupid’s arrow to the chest. I set my pencil down, turned the volume on my stereo up, and completely forgot about my homework. This was the music that spoke to me.
From then on, I listened almost exclusively to emo music. It helped me survive high school, which I think we all can agree is a special kind of hell we put our youth through. My high school years were right in the middle of the golden era of emo. The playlist I created with the help of
and ’s husband is pure nostalgia for most other millennial emo kids out there. I hope you enjoy!