The 1990s was a decade of regeneration and re-birth for rock music, with first grunge, then pop-punk, then nu-metal changing the face of the music world. Away from the glare of the media spotlight however, a quieter but no less significant musical revolution was birthed… and its implications are being felt now more than ever.
Emo might have had its origins in Washington DC’s Revolution Summer of 1985, but the form found definition and direction in the mid to late ‘90s, when artists such as Christie Front Drive, The Get Up Kids, The Promise Ring, Braid and Jimmy Eat World married the DIY aesthetic and passion of hardcore punk with the more cerebral, sensitive aspects of indie rock to create a new underground movement.
Texan quartet Mineral were among the pioneers of this new sound. Originally from Houston, but largely based in Austin, the state’s most liberal city, the quartet’s The Power Of Failing (1997) and EndSerenading (1998) albums established a blueprint for emo that would influence and inspire musicians throughout the following three decades. Melding quiet/loud dynamics, chiming guitars and heart-on-sleeve lyrics, Mineral offered refreshingly pure perspectives on life, love and loss, channelling their own experiences into raw, nakedly emotional songs which resonated profoundly with a generation of rock fans alienated by the increasingly cartoonish nature of ‘90s punk rock and the lunk-headed machismo of nu-metal. Both albums are essential listening for those interested in the development of US underground rock in the 1990s, with EndSerenading in particular continuing to find a new audience.
Just ask Beabadoobee, who cites it as her favourite album, and has taken on the influence of mid-west emo on her forthcoming record, Pylon.
“I remember it was a hard, hard time for me,” the 26-year-old singer/songwriter recalls in a new interview with BBC 6Music, “and someone showed me this album, and I listened to LoveLetterTypewriter, “I think, on repeat for about six months. It’s the opening track, and lyrically it’s only four or five lines long, but this singer [Chris Simpson], who is incredible, sings it really long, soaring over the song: it’s epic. It makes me feel a lot, and it feels very nostalgic… he’s reminiscing about summer. Yes, you can have a really beautiful melody, but how can you encapsulate that feeling through guitars, and just tension, like drums coming out, drums coming back… it just makes me feel like I’m on edge constantly, and I really like that about it.
“I’m obsessed with the whole record,” she adds, “I’m obsessed with the emotion he holds in his voice. Sonically, as a whole, it’s incredible. Epic, epic album.”
Frank Turner is another English singer-songwriter who’s fallen in love with Mineral.
“I stumbled across them as a teenager, a while after they’d broke up, and it was hard to get hold of their records, which gave the whole thing an extra frisson of excitement,” he says. “But it was the music, pure and simple, that hit me. I still consider them to be one of my bigger influences to this day, one of the bands of my youth that have totally stood the test of time.”
