Does any other band ride the line between emo and indie sleaze more closely?
Some random thoughts after coming across a few things:
1 - this video for a wow I can get sexual too
2 - the recent EP covering animal collective and YYY
3 - this video describing Indie Sleaze https://www.instagram.com/reel/DYXYBngBFD7/?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==
In their heyday, Say Anything felt like a band in a perpetual identity crisis. A creative ambition too challenging for the traditional emo/pop punk scene, but a self-consciousness too doubtful to push out of the genre and into a bigger scene.
I do understand their hesitation, and wonder if the continued fan revolts of emo acts branching out kept them from pushing things too far (cases in point: Saves The Day / In Reverie, The Get Up Kids / On a Wire, The Anniversary / Your Majesty). There were a few later success stories from the scene who broke through (Sonny Moore, Jack Antonoff), but it always felt like Max would retreat to the scene when pressed on ambitions of breaking out.
I specifically remember talking points like “I’d rather listen to New Found Glory than Bob Dylan” when he was compared to Bright Eyes, and there’s maybe no greater evidence than the fact that he named his first follow up record after a big success “In Defense of the Genre” and filled it up with emo superstars. It seems like he was uncomfortable with the lofty comparisons being thrown at him.
None of this is intended to be critical by the way, just more of an observation. No one other than Max knows what was truly in his heart, and I always appreciated that there was someone out there throwing his lot in with the people who had more fun at Warped Tour than Coachella, but I always wondered if there was a part of him holding himself back from pushing out of the box out of fear of going from being a big fish in a small ocean to whatever mainstream Indie was at the time.
There were a few calculated risks here and there, but he always seem to wave a big flag to indicate where his allegiances were. Hebrews took a big swing, but he also made a big point about being on Equal Vision (and kept the guest appearances largely in his comfort zone).
All this to say, there seemed to be a small moment when Wow I Can Get Sexual Too came out that he really had a foot in two genres—comfortable on a tour with Saves The Day, but not too many degrees away from early LCD Soundsystem, Hot Chip, and the like. When I watch the video of this performance on Carson Daly, I can’t help but wonder what the parallel universe might look like where Max threw off the safety net of the emo/pop punk scene and dove headfirst into the world of mainstream 2000s Indie world. Would it have been a total catastrophe, or led to more interesting music?
I can’t think of too many other bands straddling these two genres, but a few examples that popped to mind (all for different reasons):
Nightmare of You
Cobra Starship
The Blood Brothers
Hellogoodbye (Everything is Debatable era)
The Faint (early records)
What do you think? Could there have been a world that saw Max find success on this path? Or is it all just a wayward “what if” daydream?