Rating: ****
Finding a musician who cops to being emo is like tracking down Bigfoot, so music journalist Andy Greenwald has his work cut out getting to the genre's bleeding heart. It's not as if he can fall back on rock 'n' roll debauchery, either; excitement levels on the Jimmy Eat World tour bus peak with some spontaneous cookie-eating.


To the unconverted, everything about emo is offputting: the gauche lyrics, the overheated emotions, the insufferable self-righteousness. Skeptical but intrigued, Greenwald does his best to find out what the fuss is about, puzzling over the legacy of little-known cult heroes Rites Of Spring and Sunny Day Real Estate, accompanying high school seniors to a Dashboard Confessional show and spending far too long in internet chatrooms.


Apart from a long, fascinating encounter with Dashboard's Chris Carrabba and a fleeting glimpse of Weezer's Rivers Cuomo there's precious little starpower here. Some key figures, including Fugazi's Ian MacKaye, won't talk and those that will don't have much in the way of insight. But none of that matters because this thoughtful, inquisitive book is, like the genre itself, really about the fans: those bored, sensitive, net-savvy teens for whom emo is a vital lifeline. Fundamentally, Greenwald concludes, emo isn't about knowing this or that obscure DC hardcore band, but easing the pain of a thin-skinned adolescence. It's Catcher In The Rye with guitars.
- Dorian Lynskey

By nature, emo refuses to be categorized, but in his debut book, Spin senior contributing writer Andy Greenwald pins down the misunderstood genre and its teary-eyed, dedicated listeners. Taking its title from a Promise Ring song, Nothing Feels Good: Punk Rock, Teenagers, and Emo is an enthusiastic amd exhaustive journalistic account of the music’s history, tracing its roots from D.C. hardcore acts such as Rites of Spring to early breakthroughs Sunny Day Real Estate to present-day success stories New Found Glory and Jimmy Eat World. Simultaneously, Greenwald charts the bloodless revolution taking place on the Internet, where the homegrown online diaries of LiveJournal.com and Makeoutclub.com connect fans to a new universe of music – and to one another. “The Web,” he says, “allows them access to this without having to get a driver’s license or go to a scary record store.”


Like the all-inclusive scene it describes, Nothing Feels Good puts performers like Chris Carrabba and anonymous Internet denizens with screen names like “Emo Is Not A Trend” on the same level, reflecting a world in which everyone is disaffected in different ways, but still equal. “Community sites are basically like rock shows – they’re an invented space, but a safe space, where you control how you present yourself,” says Greenwald. “You can wear Abercrombie and still be conflicted.”
- Adrienne Day

As the title of a classic album by defunct foursome the Promise Ring, Nothing Feels Good defined an aesthetic that has actually become rare in emo: the celebration of feeling-qua-feeling. Today, fans of the platinum-selling Dashboard Confessional use indie rock and sprawling, cyber-social networks to help cope with—and sometimes further churn—mixed emotions. Greenwald, a senior contributing writer at Spin and acquaintance of mine, chronicles emo's trajectory and how the Web has bolstered it. He focuses on teenagers who thrive on typically adolescent turbulence, whether they find it by joining kid-id-driven online communities like makeoutclub.com or downloading Saves the Day songs.


Which is not to say that Greenwald gets any of this, including the Promise Ring, wrong. I was just knocking his book's title. While dry for those not interested in Blake Schwarzenbach's mid-'90s personal turmoil (which, as an unreconstructed emo boy, I find fascinating) or Chris Carrabba's after-show antics (one beer! staying up past three talking quietly!), the book will engross young fans and the culturally curious with its blend of filthy gossip, detailed research, sturdy analysis, and—most important—empathy. The music and message boards of today's messy teen lives rarely make this much sense.
- Nick Catucci