Damn emo. I just don’t understand it. Why should an abbreviation for the term “emotional” get a genre unto itself? Does it corner the market on pathos? Does all other music preceding Sunny Day Real Estate just kinda seem heartlessly impersonal?

Still, it’s unfair to blame or even pigeonhole Mock Orange into this set, just because they obviously love “emo.” As far as I can tell, emo spawned from the math rock (another unidentifiable genre that everyone’s heard of, and yet, no one can give me any characteristics or classifications), only it became a hybrid of squelchingly annoying pop tunes and prog rock—wait, I’m forgetting the influence of eighties hair bands, without whom, no emo band would have the harmony doused choruses of forced uplift…. 

And so begins the genre-ization of all things intangible.

I used to think that all that was needed to be a rock critic was an etymology class. Now apparently, you need the class to be in a college band too; the artists themselves are so willing to impose genre classifications in an attempt at self-aggrandizement. Emo seems like the in prefix or suffix to add whenever people ask “What kind of music do you play?” (My personal favorite: “emo-core.”) Essentially though, emo’s the college sound of music aficionados whose musical pretensions involve over-thinking their songwriting. It jumps tempo to tempo (as if not too highly sustained by short-attention spans), has more bridges than you off-beatly count, and most likely has technically brilliant drummers with tourette’s syndrome. That’s not to say there aren’t any good emo acts: Built To Spill has disdained the whole ten-riffs-a-song rule, and knows just how long to sustain a chord (they then play it one extra time for good measure, just for art’s sake). Even Jimmy Eat World (whose Clarity was produced by Record Play’s Mark Trombino, who also did Blink 182’s Dude Ranch) have been so focused in their emo, they’ve emerged as one of the better genre acts. Emo is easily the most avant-garde style to massively invade pop songwriting in the past decade, but it’s so rarely accomplished. It deflates pop’s purpose; while trying to sound intelligent, it loses catchiness. It’s different, but it’s also non-committal, frustrating to anyone with a traditional pop-sense on the mind, and is easily the most headache inducing music this side of noise-rock (I took etymology; I can therefore “genre-ize”). To their credit, Mock Orange is the one of the more focused emo acts you’ll find, and they’re so much at its forefront that the coattail genre-ization of emo’s self-aggrandizing doesn’t apply to them. But again, Record Play is emo—for better or worse.

And me condemning emo is pretty unfair to MO—they’ve further cemented themselves again as the king of local records and have deservedly asserted themselves at the top of the local scene's hierarchy. Record Play is distinctly slower and lighter than their locally made self-titled Minus 7 CD, or their Lobster Records debut Nines and Sixes. Granted, not somber/sad, nor bland or weightless, just slower. It’s with Trombino that they get such a highly professional sound, whose trademark dual-harmony work is oddly underused. Record Play is breath-takingly slick, though, a marvel when you think, “Hey, these guys are from Newburgh.” But for me, that’s the problem. I don’t think that anymore.

As oxymoronic as it sounds, Record Play is so professional that it alleviates me from the normal concerns of a local review. I don’t have to cream my pants at the realization that the local band I’m listening to knows rudimentary songwriting and I don’t have to marvel at their attempts to sound like they haven't recorded off of their boom-box. Mock Orange has already essentially made it big and they’re well on their way up (example: they have plenty of songs on Napster—if that ain’t makin’ it…). As a local act and a long-time performer in the scene, I can’t be happier for them or this amazing recording they have on their hands. I will tell everyone I know about them, tell them to go see their local shows, to support their scene and buy this CD. But as an unbiased listener, with unbiased musical guidelines…I don’t think there’s a song on here that’s bore on my memory for longer than five minutes.

I should just make the conceit here and get it over with: Maybe 100,000 college students can’t be wrong. Maybe Mock Orange has the pulse of something great and grand. Maybe emo really is the newest emerging genre that’s here to stay. Maybe it’s more than the a fledgling token genre taking the mantle from ska as the chic not-yet-mainstream music style. Maybe it’s not just the flawed attempt of misplaced hearted music fans to make a new underground-to-mainstream movement to combat one of the most devoid musical landscapes in years. Maybe someday, someone will give me a satisfying answer as to what the hell “emo” is.

And maybe I just don’t get it. Damn emo.