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What if I tried to listen to all my music-in order? Every song, on every album, by every artist (alphabetically)- in chronological order. ...

Friday, January 12, 2018

AFI


I first became aware of AFI when I was teaching teenagers in the late 90s and I asked them what AFI  meant on all their black t-shirts. Turns out it stands for "A Fire Inside," which kinda made me roll my eyes and worry about what the music might be like before I even heard it. Then I traded iTunes music libraries with one of these young people and acquired the entire AFI catalog. It's not exactly my thing, despite some occasional hard rocking. The affectations and drama are meant to appeal to someone far younger and more emotional than I am. 

They seem to embody that weird period for rock-radio in the early 2000s when the influence of Green Day on pop music had become inescapable. The 90s were over but modern-rock radio was just getting started. These guys certainly found a home in that niche. My understanding is that there are radio stations still devoted to this type of rock music: more Buckcherrry than Led Zeppelin. I'm looking at you 98 Rock

AFI does not want to be called an emo band. However, in a statement regarding the band's 9th album, AFI frontman Davey Havok said, "This record is of silence, and the burials that result from that silence. It's of betrayal, cruelty, weakness, anxiety, panic – deep and slow – despair, injury and loss. And in this it is shamefully honest and resolutely unforgiving". You, sir, are in an emo band! No matter how many times you and your fans keep changing wikipedia to say "rock band," you will always be in an emo band. Own that shit. I'm not an expert, but I'm pretty sure this is exactly what an emo band looks like.



It was vaguely fascinating to listen in order and hear this band morph subtlety from a straight-on punk rock band to a pop-rock juggernaut. Being from California, they sound very West Coast, Second Wave Punk on their early albums. It sounds incredibly similar to Pennywise, specifically, but maybe I am just saying that because that's a touchstone of West Coast punk for this mostly-East Coast guy. Actually, at their best, in the early years they sound a bunch like The Misfits, especially in the vocals sometimes and with all the woo-ohh-ohhs backing vocals and sing-along choruses. In fact they end up covering "Halloween" on an EP. Hot tip: if you're going to cover a punk classic it should come out fast and shorter, not longer and slower. 

By the time they achieve commercial success they had already begun to drift away from the punk sound. They say 2003's Sing the Sorrow brought them mainstream success via the singles "Girl's Not Grey" and "Silver and Cold," but I don't remember hearing those songs when they came out and couldn't distinguish those two tracks from any of the others I listented to now. Similarly, their seventh album debuts at number one and contains a hit single "Miss Murder." Again- no idea what that song was or why it was a hit; it didn't stand out when listening to the album. It's the perfect example of a song I would hear while channel flipping, and keep right on flipping. I was travelling in very different musical circles than these guys by the time of their mainstream super-stardom in 2006, despite us both starting on pretty much the same page. I know I'm supposed to hate emo, and I mostly did, but I don't wanna go to hard on these guys for some reason. They are playing The Victim, The Misfit, The Outcast, and it is working. Many of us have been there, right? It is still too polished and commercial for music that is supposed to be extreme. It's always a little too earnest, but that's what they are going for, so who am I to judge? Their live album highlights their legions of devoted fans, and good for them. Everything is relative: it was in many ways more tolerable than Aerosmith. Nonetheless, it's still pretty annoying at times: their most recent album, their tenth, is self-titled. Come on!

Frankly, I'm trying hard to avoid getting too worked-up about this band so that I can move on to the next artist. I don't dispute the great value in what they provide some listeners, but it is difficult to imagine adults listening to this stuff on purpose.