I break the indie scene cardinal rule in that I don't "get" Fugazi. Yes, I own quite a few of their albums (all bought used) and actually enjoy quite a number of tracks. Their best stuff sounds good until you realize that they sound like Sonic Youth b-sides. And then you start wonder what all of the fuss is about. Because I'll take Sonic Youth any day over Fugazi. I know people will disagree with me... but more often than once I'm absentmindedly listening to a song and I wonder what's playing. My first guess is Sonic Youth and I'm wrong. Or my first guess is Fugazi and the song is crap. So that may be why I've never quite understood how so much music can get compared to Fugazi these days. (If someone want's to enlighten me, I'm definitely open to hearing about it below.)
People have been calling mewithoutYou a Fugazi knock-off. Ok, I don't really see it but I'm sure they're more attune to the Fugazi difference than I am. The only thing I know is that mewithoutYou doesn't sound like Sonic Youth (though they, like every other rock band, owe them a magnificent debt) and their songs aren't crap.
Upon first listening to mewithoutYou you will come to the conclusion that I came to when I first heard "[A->B] Life," their first album. You will notice how emotional Aaron Weiss' delivery is and how poetic they make things and you will label them an "emo" band. It's not bad to have emotion in music and it's not bad to be artistic and the combination of the two does not equal emo. What separates "emo" from music with emotion is that emo is a trend and will die with the trend while music with emotion will rise above it and become separate. mewithoutYou has become something separate because, although this is only their second album, they have proved that they are not a trend but genuine.
Article comments
1 - Mark Saleski
prentious bastard!!
...uh, seriously though...check out Our Band Could Be Your Life for interesting bits about Fugazi and other bands from that era.