"This book let me re-encounter bands I loved when I was young and re-evaluate some that I had ignored or written off. It is more personal than From the Basement, more focused on emo than Sellout, and a great example of what can happen when oral history and musical/cultural history meet. You can dive deep, or just dip in. I would recommend it to oldsters like myself looking back and youngsters riding the nostalgia/emo revival wave. I might even recommend it to my parents in hopes of helping them understand what that horrible noise coming out of my stereo was all about."
Publisher Dey Street Books
Publication Date 2022-11
Section Music / All Staff Suggestions / Nonfiction Suggestions / Anna Geneva R.
Format Hardcover
ISBN 9780063251281
“A vivid and breathless read” – Billboard
An explosive oral history of emo’s takeover from 1999 to 2008, featuring My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy, Paramore, Panic! At the Disco, Taking Back Sunday, Jimmy Eat World, Dashboard Confessional.
If Meet Me in the Bathroom traced New York City's early 2000’s rock scene, Where Are Your Boys Tonight? gives the inside story of the turn-of-the-millennium emo subculture that became bigger than anyone thought possible. There was Pete Wentz, the Fall Out Boy leader who launched a litany of scene-stealing bands and preposterous side-hustles, and Gerard Way, the wizard behind My Chemical Romance and The Black Parade. Panic! At the Disco and Paramore emerged soon after—a pair of intrepid outsiders who got massive playing by their own rules. As they ascended, MySpace took over the internet and the age of influencers dawned, with emo its choice aesthetic.
Music journalist Chris Payne experienced emo's mainstream takeover from sweaty crowds and mosh pits growing up in New Jersey. In Where Are Your Boys Tonight? he offers an authoritative, impassioned, and occasionally absurd account told through interviews with more than 150 people, from the scene's biggest bands, producers, and managers to the teenage fans who helped redefine American music culture.
