Where Are Your Boys Tonight?: The Oral History of Emo’s Mainstream Explosion 1999–2008

Journalist Payne has skillfully woven together more than 150 in-depth interviews to illustrate the rise and massive popularity of emo, a rock genre that merged hardcore punk with pop melodies and heartfelt, emotion-laden lyrics. Skipping the nascent emergence of the music, he begins in 1999, when “third-wave emo” bands such as Midtown, Saves the Day, Thursday, Taking Back Sunday, and Dashboard Confessional surfaced in basement shows. He continues with the next generation of emo groups such as the progressively pop-oriented Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, the Christian-based Underoath, and Panic! at the Disco. In the book’s last sections, Payne charts the national teenage craze surrounding these mostly male bands, which performed at such venues as the 2005 Warped Tour and used the Internet for marketing. He especially focuses on Fall Out Boy, with their million-copy-selling From Under the Cork Tree (2005) and the fashion-conscious, theatrical My Chemical Romance, which released the nearly chart-topping My Black Parade (2006).