There is only one thing in the world that gives me more of a… thrill, more of an “experience” than listening and dancing to hardcore.
For most of my life, I’ve been looking for music that encompasses all the highs and lows and in betweens of my experience at least, and the only thing that came close was classical music. Classical music, however, does not totally fit my personality, and though at times it sated my need for a thrill, it never really made that much sense (does that make sense?), it satisfied but it didn’t. It was really just making do. Then one day I heard Emery, my first introduction to hardcore, and I was floored. The strength and beauty of the melody versus the harshness of raw emotion in a pure, true emo scream (not the sappy, watered down crap that MTV has labeled emo and has none of the real emo/screamo heart or hardness behind it); the intertwining of emotion an clear cutting and descriptive yet cryptic lyrics; the combination of romance and fury, what more could I ask for?
“Returning the Smile You Had From the Start” is one of the songs that got me through my mother’s death. It said a lot of the things that I couldn’t at the time, a lot of the things that I still can’t say, not by myself, not in my own words. And though I love reggae, and hip hop, and metal, and southern rock, and classical music, and folk/folk rock, and alt pop; though I love all these things, no other genre speaks in my own voice the way hardcore does. Emery or Atra or Anberlin or As I Lay Dying or Living Sacrifice, when a lyric or musical phrase sounds like it was pulled straight from my mind, straight from my heart, how can but respond in kind with a twist, a turn, a scream, a thrash, a punch, a strike, a full body seizure, an unmistakable movement or sound that shows my complete assent? In all truth, my body does this with or without my say-so.
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