Nothing Feels Good: Punk Rock, Teenagers, and EMO

by Andy Greenwald

Nothing Feels Punk Rock, Teenagers, and Emo tells the story of a cultural moment that's happening right now-the nexus point where teen culture, music, and the web converge to create something new.

While shallow celebrities dominate the headlines, pundits bemoan the death of the music industry, and the government decries teenagers for their morals (or lack thereof) earnest, heartfelt bands like Dashboard Confessional, Jimmy Eat World, and Thursday are quietly selling hundreds of thousands of albums through dedication, relentless touring and respect for their fans. This relationship - between young people and the empathetic music that sets them off down a road of self-discovery and self-definition - is emo, a much-maligned, mocked, and misunderstood term that has existed for nearly two decades, but has flourished only recently. In Nothing Feels Good , Andy Greenwald makes the case for emo as more than a genre - it's an essential rite of teenagehood. From the '80s to the '00s, from the basement to the stadium, from tour buses to chat rooms, and from the diary to the computer screen, Nothing Feels Good narrates the story of emo from the inside out and explores the way this movement is taking shape in real time and with real hearts on the line. Nothing Feels Good is the first book to explore this exciting moment in music history and Greenwald has been given unprecedented access to the bands and to their fans. He captures a place in time and a moment on the stage in a way only a true music fan can.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, History, Pop Culture, Cultural, Journalism, Punk

320 pages, Paperback

First published November 15, 2003

About the author

Andy Greenwald is an author, journalist and screenwriter living in Brooklyn, NY. His writing appears daily on Grantland.com and occasionally in Spin, Entertainment Weekly and Penthouse. He tweets often (www.twitter.com/andygreenwald) yet hasn't updated his website since 2006.

Reviews

[Rachel · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was going to re-read this book so I could have a huge arsenal of shit to hold against Andy Greenwald.
But I'm not. I'm just going to rant. Alot.
I'm going to say that this book is absolutely horrible, and if you want to know about Emo then go to http://www.fourfa.com because it explains what emo really was better than this heap.

Greenwald insults not only the bands, but also the fans that are reading the book by MISQUOTING ALMOST EVERY SONG HE TALKS ABOUT. Listen Andy, there are about 100 sites on the internet nowadays that will show you what the lyrics are to songs! Really great invention, try it out sometime!

Greenwald did a DECENT job in explaining where emo came from, by touching upon things like Minor Threat, Fugazi, Jawbreaker etc, and he did briefly talk about some of the great post emo indie rock that came from it, Get Up Kids, Mineral, Sunny Day Real Estate etc. Notice how I said the words "brief" and "touch upon". These chapters should have been the longest, but I could have read about all of these bands in the time it takes for a trip to the bathroom. The one thing he didn't do, is explain where emo was going...what it has become.

He went off on this tangent about Dashboard Confessional WHO ISN'T EVEN AN EMO BAND. Poor Chris Carrabba has no idea whats going on half the time when people lump him into that category. He just plays acoustic guitar and sings. That doesn't make him emo. Then he continued to talk about websites like makeoutclub, which was a horrible choice because not many people even know what that site is. I didn't even KNOW anyone who ever had a makeoutclub account. It was/is not that popular of a site, and it has nothing to do with emo music at all...and it was repulsive that it would even be in a book that is supposed to be about a music genre.

What makes a band emo? Don't say, "If their music is EMOtional, then it's emo." Well then I suppose the Beatles are emo too, eh? I suppose Aerosmith is emo. And that must make Nine Inch Nails emo. They all have emotional songs; Songs that are happy, sad, jealous, and all the other emotions us humans have. That doesn't make every genre of music "emo."

There is a specific sound to emo. The word emo comes from emotional, but it was a slur word used by punks in the late 80's to describe PUNK music that they thought was too wimpy...because there was a new wave of punk bands singing about things other than politics. They were singing about love. They were singing about loss. They were singing about friends. Thats where emotional punk and emotional hardcore was born. The emo genre ended up having a specific sound at that point. The octave chord was used frequently. There were start stop rhythms, urgency and chaos (indian summer), mellowness and drama, vocals mixed very low (mineral) I could go on forever. Thats where emo really started, and what it really is supposed to be.

Greenwald has simply added to the confusion about what "emo" really is instead of using his popularity as a writer as a platform to finally help clear the air and set things right once and for all. If anyone enjoyed this book it is because you have no idea what emo is. If you did, you would be absolutely insulted.

If you are reading this review because you were going to read this book, and it was because you wanted to know more about emo, it is not the right book. It will only fill your head with misquotes and tacky teenage filler that will fill the void but won't answer questions. Take my word for it. Visit http://www.fourfa.com and you'll see why this book is so absolutely wrong.

[Michael Parkinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

First half was great. Second half was entirely focused on Dashboard Confessional and the merits of the Internet as a communication device. Read the first half.

[Orsolya · Rating 2 out of 5]

As not only a music fan but a music industry professional, I can safetly say (even though this is a subjective statement); that this book is an insult to the genre of "emo" and to music fans in general.

First of all, I don't even know why "punk rock" is in the title except for the minuscule connection that Greenwald makes between the offspring of punk rock, post-punk, and emo. Yes, he backtracks to Minor Threat and Rites of Spring but it mostly seems like a cry at acting like he knows what he talking about. Further, this book might as well be titled "My Crush on Chris Carabba" as Greenwald obviously is just personally in love with Dashboard Confessional. I wouldn't say this is a history into the birth of emo and more of fan stories involving Dashboard.

Since we're touching upon "fan stories", this book is an insult to fans everywhere. Portraying everyone as a crying baby who is also a groupie (mostly the females), Greenwald makes music fans sound pathetic and absurd.

As a writer for Spin, one would expect more but it is obvious that Greenwald is nothing more than the 12 year old teeny bopper-Warped Tour fans he makes fun of.

[Erin Coleman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nothing Feels Good changed my life in the sense that I'm not ignorant anymore. When someone calls another person "emo," I can now proudly correct them and tell them that it doesn't stand for emotional, it stands for emotive rock, and explain to them that there is a relationship between Minor Threat and emo, which before I thought to be without a doubt, impossible.

[Paul Edwards · Rating 1 out of 5]

Nothing Feels Good is full of interesting content, great anecdotes and paints a digestible timeline of emo from the early 2000s. Interviews with band members and label owners are insightful and paint an interesting picture of a sub culture that changed the face of punk music forever.

However, Greenwald's insistence of commenting on women's bodies throughout the book, along with a chapter about how "girls just can't get Emo music sung by guys, and guys can't get Emo music sung by girls" makes this book very very dated, paints the author as a chauvinistic half wit, and a lot of the fan's he interviews as incels. I found myself getting very frustrated throughout the book when Greenwald completely pointlessly comments on a fan's weights, almost abandoning several times as a result.

I found myself hating the narrator, finding him pompous, judgemental and utterly in love with himself. He appears to see himself as some sort of Emo Capote, with all the delivery of a 15 year old fancying himself as the next Salinger.

The last 120 pages being exclusively about Dashboard Confession, and then about chatrooms makes this book seem like a short history of Emo music, with a long history of Dashboard Confessional slapped on the end in order to bring the word count up.

[Spenser Milo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not sure if this book is well-researched or is simply just the only book of its kind, therefore well-researched because there's no comparison. I did like it, though, mostly for its timely release in 2003. After 2003, emo broke into the mainstream and became alt-rock to casual ears so Greenwald's standpoint becomes even larger as its on the brink of everything changing. For instance, there are brief paragraphs and interviews about the absence of women in the genre and, little does anyone know, Paramore will reinvent the scene in five years.

That being said, the genre is absolutely riddled with self-congratulatory misogyny, sexism, and overall laziness through mall walker marketing. We can blame Dashboard Confessional, who is profiled frequently inside the book's chapters, offering a perspective of a singer who scratched teenage poetry, saw an opportunity with an acoustic guitar, and quickly got onto MTV Unplugged. When Greenwald gets around to interviewing Geoff Rickley from Thursday, the book shifts (not purposely, I don't think) and suddenly there's an alternate view on the emo movement. MTV and major record labels served emo undercooked while bands like Thursday, who wrote about politics, capitalism, war, and grief, could have prevailed. Instead, bands like The Starting Line ended up selling impressionable teenagers their own bullshit and rinse and repeat. Until, perhaps, My Chemical Romance and Paramore in 2005.

In the future there will be a more definitive book about emo. Maybe Greenwald can do it as he's clearly versed in the genre, but the extreme focus on the mainstream damages what's authentic and should have been.

[Candice · Rating 3 out of 5]

FOURFA, the ultimate website on Emo says: "By 1999, [post-emo indie rock:] had achieved a fan base far larger than any of the original emo stuff. In fact, that's what prompted me to write this website in the first place - the glut of info on the web about this and the lack of a historical perspective. Statistically, you the reader are most likely to be familiar with this type of emo. In the years since then, it's only grown far, far bigger. Jimmy Eat World and Thursday are in regular rotation on MTV and many corporate alternative radio stations, and sappy music like this Dashboard Confessional fellow is pulling in a whole new audience. This is well on its way to becoming a major demographic market, soon after which we'll see a lot of new bands with zero real connection to the original underground scene (unlike for instance Jimmy Eat World, who used to open at every emo show in Phoenix way back in 1994)."

Interesting prediction, because it came true!

Author Andy Greenwald very accurately captures the world I and perhaps millions of American teenagers lived in from 1999-2003, the time period that the second half of the book covers. Jimmy Eat World, Dashboard, livejournal, makeoutclub... all of it was right there in black and white. I liked the discussion about how the internet (Napster, LJ, MOC) really changed the music scene. I found it to be an interesting snapshot of this time for American teenagers, however it felt very repetitive. I felt Greenwald was trying to prove his point over and over again that emo is about feelings and community and less about a style and sound.

I really believe that Greenwald could have cut this book in half and made two separate books. I would've loved to have seen more information about Minor Threat, Jawbreaker, Sunny Day, etc. Reading chapter after chapter of Jimmy Eat World and Dashboard Confessional left me feeling a bit exhausted, even as a former obsessive and now nostalgic fan of both of these bands.

There are some inaccuracies, though. For one, whatever people are considering emo today (and even back ten years ago when I was listening to Dashboard), it should have been more strongly noted that emo music is from a certain time period. Whatever bastardized versions of emo have come out of this place and time are not the same as Mineral or Fugazi or Texas is the Reason. People who think that Jawbreaker is the same genre of music as The Starting Line are clueless. Lots of bands have the standard set up of singer, guitarist, bassist, and drummer, but that doesn't make the music of the same genre.

Furthermore, I don't completely buy Greenwald's hypothesis that "emo" has no consistent sound, but instead is about the longing, confusion, and sadness amongst the teenagers who listen to it. EVERY teenager has a sense of longing, confusion, and sadness. I didn't appreciate Greenwald feeding into the stereotype that emo = sadness. Perhaps everything and everyone is emo. Whatever it means today is not what it meant in DC in the mid-80s. Point blank.

Chris Burlingame's and Rachel Beckwith's goodreads reviews are really spot on. You should read them.

HEY KIDS! Go to http://www.fourfa.com/ and check out some bands that you've never heard of in your entire life. Does it sound the same as Panic! at the Disco, My Chemical Romance, or Something Corporate?

[Lindy · Rating 2 out of 5]

ugh. where to begin.

1) This book is all over the place. I get the impression Greenwald had no idea what he was doing while he was writing it; he just kind of threw everything at the page and saw what stuck.

2) The interviews for this book were conducted between 2001 and 2003 and the book is primarily about that period in time. It is not a history of emo music/subculture. Anything before 1998 or so is breezed through in around a quarter of the book. Over half the book is dedicated specifically to Dashboard Confessional. This might as well be a book about Dashboard Confessional. I did not want to read a book about Dashboard Confessional. That being said, Nothing Feels Good is interesting as a snapshot in a period of time where industry people were aware that the internet was going to be the primary mode of promoting and distributing music but didn't quite know what to make of it yet.

3) The minuscule chapter about women and emo feels like lipservice and Greenwald makes no mention of the overwhelming whiteness of emo musicians, or how gender and race are constructed within the environment of the suburbs, or the implications of socioeconomic class on the musical landscape. I mean, in 2003, the home internet connection which Greenwald locates as the primary residence emo teenagers was far from ubiquitous at this point. I recognize that Greenwald is a music journalist and not a sociologist, but it seems like common sense to note which groups of teenagers are going to have the ability to spend hours discussing music online and how that's going to impact which artists come to define the genre.

4) Just because you interviewed people on LiveJournal doesn't mean you gotta write your book like it's one long LJ entry. once again, I recognize that Greenwald is a music journalist, but some of the prose is truly eyeroll-worthy in its floridity.

5) Greenwald has little to offer in the way of conclusions, ever.

6) all this being said... Greenwald managed to forecast Fall Out Boy's impending explosion on the nose, so like, at some level the analysis (the tiny, tiny bit that there is) works.

[Benoit Lelièvre · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm of two minds when it comes to this book. I think Andy Greenwald really nailed the cultural experience that was/is emo. The exploration of vulnerability and hypersensibility that defined an entire generation (my own) and whatnot. There's also a great history of the genre that is presented from both point of view: the artists and the fans. Which is great.

BUT...

Because there is always a but, right? Nothing Feels Good is anchored around the rise in popularity of Dashboard Confessional, one of the flashship bands of emo and at some point (around page 200) is just becomes somewhat a road memoir about them. This book is about emo a lot, but half of it is about Dashboard alone. This is fine to a certain point, but Nothing Feels good went beyond that and started veering into rock star biography territory.

I'm not a big fan of the "this book could've been 100 pages shorter" because what-the-hell-do-I-know-I'm-not-an-editor, but this felt like a book about Dashboard Confessional a lot at times.

[Tara · Rating 3 out of 5]

andy greenwald from spin magazine writes about how the music genre 'emo' developed out of punk rock and why its so sacred to the teenagers who listen to it. i really liked the book since i listened to a lot of 'emo' but he made it seem like only high schoolers liked it, i listened to those bands in high school but also my first two years of college a lot and he also made it seem like it was only sad kids listen to it, but i wasnt all sad and depressed when i listened to it either. but it was still interesting to hear someone try to define the genre especially the whole chapter on how it came out of punk rock. i will always love me some Jimmy Eat World

[Dee · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book while hospitalized. I was only allowed an ipod shuffle filled with *only* sunny day real estate, jawbreaker, texas is the reason, promise ring, get up kids, fugazi & dashboard. This book was the perfect compliment & made me appreciate a genre I already loved even more. I wish I could make all my friends read this. I wish I could make anyone who thinks fall out boy is emo read this. The books is a little dated, written at the height of pop-punk commercial "emo" in the early 2000s, but I think that makes it even more endearing. I love this book.

[Luke Murphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oof. Incredibly outdated now, but provides a good insight into the early days of emo up until about 2001-2. Does make it super apparent that it’s always been privileged white boys moaning and thinking too highly of themselves. There’s also a big section on LiveJournal, which is amazingly cringe.

[SJ L · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read this book in college, as a super emo kid in the scene.
This book felt like a creepy old man riding along with high schoolers trying to figure out why they like emo. Too author focued, no appreciation for the music. Don't read this book, read Sellout by Dan Ozzi.

[Hannah Lewis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked up this book because I wrote two papers this semester— one about emo music and the other about emo fandom— and this seemed like a nice broad-stroke exploration of the subculture.

Greenwald’s writing itself is engaging. He did give me one of my favorite physical descriptions of Geoff Rickly ever— “Rickly is handsome in a doofy sort of way, with floppy hair and wide, almost feminine eyes— the cumulative effect is that he appears happy but constantly bracing himself for bad news”— and you get the sense that he is as interested in the visuals and aesthetics of this movement just as much as the sounds of the music.

Because this was written in 2003, it is able to recap first and second wave emo and focus largely on the current event: the start of third wave emo. Emo that is growing because of the internet— Dashboard Confessional, Saves the Day, Thursday, Jimmy Eat World, Taking Back Sunday, etc. In 2025, we can fully understand the heights to which this wave of emo rose, but in 2003, it was unclear. Would this just be a fad? Just like with many movements kickstarted by teenagers, there was a reluctance by many to recognize emo’s importance or potential for permanence. Unfortunately, Greenwald falls into this trap at times, I think. He has empathy for the teenagers he interviews, but he often dismisses their struggles as uniquely teenage, implicitly labeling them as lesser than.

I found the discussion of sexism lacking as well, but that is coming to be a theme in most books I read about the emo scene. It *is* an incredibly nuanced topic and probably deserves its own book, but I’ll just say this. In 2003, Greenwald could not have known that many of these emo figureheads would have sexual assault allegations and/or allegations of sleeping with minors against them in the 2010s and 2020s. However, his interviews betray the fact that these attitudes were pervasive.

Even Chris Carrabba, who, to my knowledge (and I am not a Dashboard fan so I don’t know what I’m talking about), is a veritable Golden Boy and has stayed clean from scandals, remarked to Greenwald “This beautiful girl gave me [a sweatband] yesterday. And it smells like a girl. She was like eighteen!” To which Greenwald says “tsk tsk! Be careful!”, and a 28 year old Carrabba jokes “oh yeah, that’s bad. I don’t want anyone to know I’m into hot girls”. Oh, she was “like”eighteen? So you didn’t know for sure? Yikes! And let’s not even get started on what Jesse Lacey was allegedly doing around this time…

The other fascinating thing to me is how much youth culture on the internet has changed in twenty years. The internet was a place you could anonymously and performatively express your deepest, most taboo emotions. You could pour your heart out on LiveJournal even if you had to be cool and ironic in real life. Now, that irony has bled onto the internet like never before. Which makes me wonder— when are teenagers allowing themselves to be earnest? If they aren’t doing it in person OR online, where do they go?

All in all, an interesting read, but not a definitive one.

[Mags · Rating 4 out of 5]

The pros of this book: the in-depth interviews. Andy spends time with the bands he interviews, mostly Dashboard and Jimmy Eat World. But he also spends time with the teens who love these bands! And it’s so fun reading their thoughts, because they mirror my own twenty years ago. Andy writes well and with attention to detail!

And I absolutely loved the history from even earlier emo, like The Promise Ring or Sunny Day Real Estate.

The cons: parts of the book dragged for me, especially the last two chapters. Sometimes the detail was a bit more than I needed.

[Amanda Hatton · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would suggest this book to a person who is just beginging learn about the genre of emo. I would hand this book to a kid today who grew up thinking that the acoustic guitar and whiney voices they heard was all the emo ever was. Sure, it's not the greatest exmeplar of a historically accurate novel, but it's well written and funny. I am an English Major and I always keep a pencil with me when reading and I found myself underling passages I liked and circling bands I didn't know. I ended up compiling that list and finding some great music! I don't think this book should be the bible of emo or the end all be all of music books, but I think it is a good start.

[Chris Garrett · Rating 4 out of 5]

I came across this book while browsing my local book store and decided to flip through a few pages. Nothing Feels Good is a multi-sourced dissection of the indie, punk,and "emo" music scene and how it has evolved since their origins. I feel that the book and its chapters are all over the place instead of having a single focus on one solid genre.

[Eric · Rating 1 out of 5]

This reads like a high school term paper. It's FILLED with typos. It's insulting to anyone who released a 7", booked Braid at a basement show, or let At the Drive-In sleep on his/her floor. AVOID THIS BOOK!

[Molly · Rating 3 out of 5]

first half: amazing, informative, fun to read
second half: have you heard of Chris Carrabba?

[Khanh · Rating 3 out of 5]

such a product of its time, i love it !!

[Derek · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have been a big fan of Andy Greenwald from his work in television criticism for Grantland and his podcast The Watch, in which he and his friend Chris Ryan mostly discuss recent happenings in television and cinema and pop culture in general; they also occasionally dip into their shared history as music journalists, as both cut their teeth writing about music, which inspired me to seek out Greenwald's seminal text on "emo", which is to date considered to be the authoritative text on the musical movement that started in the '80s.

Greenwald spends the first portion of the book struggling to define "emo", which is unsurprising considering that it is a term that has meant a lot of different things to different people, and, as he acknowledges, has largely been eschewed by the artists to whom it has been applied as an adjective. Once he manages to pin down a still somewhat loose definition (not by his fault), he starts to trace the roots of emo in the DC punk and hardcore scene through to its breakthrough to the mainstream in the early '00s with Dashboard Confessional and many others.

Greenwald's work is considered authoritative in part because it is so exhaustive - almost anyone who had been considered to be a part of the history of emo by the book's publishing in 2003 is included in some way, and a large portion of the book is devoted to identifying a number of the bands who were at the forefront of emo's emergence at the turn of the millennium.

The most interesting parts of the book are the sections in which Greenwald spends time with the artists and fans who are part of the emo subculture, whether that's Weezer, Jimmy Eat World, Thursday, Taking Back Sunday, or Dashboard Confessional; most of the final third of the book is devoted to telling the story of Greenwald's week spent on tour with Chris Carraba and company and how he embodies the ethos of emo so completely.

Greenwald also devotes a couple of sections of the book, including its closing, to analysis of how the then-emerging online community was developing and affecting the subculture through fads like LiveJournals. It was fascinating to read in part as a cultural document of its time, since so much has changed about the internet in the past decade and a half, but I was also surprised at how much of what Greenwald wrote, although dated by its publishing date, still seemed somewhat applicable even in the age of social media.

As much as I appreciated this work for what it was - a relatively universally acknowledged history of a subculture - I left with many questions about the period that has unfolded since. I would love to read a follow-up that analyzed the way that "emo" has grown and changed since 2003, including the online culture, the musical markers, the arguments over whether artists like The Killers or Death Cab for Cutie are, in fact, emo or not, and even the ways in which the emo idea has now arguably been co-opted into hip-hop.

But those questions, unfortunately, are not the territory of this book, which has given me a much better grasp of emo, what it means, and how to approach some of those questions now. Nothing Feels Good is a must-read for music fans and modern pop music historians and philosophers, and I think it will likely always remain significant as a historical document as well as a snapshot of its time, both in terms of music and technology.

[April Marble · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although this probably prevents me from truly enjoying anything, I compulsively read book reviews as I’m reading a book. I cannot rest until I know what Sidney G. from Nova Scotia thinks about the book and how she relates it to her youth. I know this removes the pure experience from reading something and forming my own opinions, but it also helps me understand what matters when reading a topic I know very little about. In this case, I was a whopping 9 years old when this book was published and hardly alive or self-aware when the contents of the book were happening.

Some criticisms I felt were valid as I don’t feel like I necessarily needed the 100 pages of Chris Cabarra even though I mostly enjoyed that portion of the book. However, I think when you think about this book from an internet-centered perspective, the experience you get out of it is way more enjoyable.

Do I think this book is bad? No. The title, I must say, is incredibly misleading. There is very little “punk rock”, or what we know traditionally as “punk rock” throughout the book. However, at the same time, there are no end all, be all answers when it comes to genre - especially emo.

That being said, there are many, many reviews I read that frowned upon this book. Perhaps the definition of emo was incorrect by some standards, the focus on Dashboard Confessional was too much, and there was nothing about punk rock even delved into.

But, in Greenwald’s defense, this book was being written in 2003 as it happened. Emo, still largely without a singular definition, was still being defined and developing more and more subgenres. The internet was in its earliest form of what we know. Punk rock, emo, and all other related genres ended up completely splintering off in give or take a million different directions. The version of emo I grew up with, a version which is pop-punk that relies heavily on emo aesthetics such as My Chemical Romance, The Used, etc. These things simply didn’t exist yet.

However, the beginning of the book gave me insight about the beginnings of the subculture and genre. Seriously, the first half of the book is 10/10. The other thing I loved is how creating scenes and connecting was working in 2002-2003. This book is a fantastic examination of the internet and what it would become.

Therefore, if you’re looking for a comprehensive examination of emo music, you’re looking in the wrong place. If you want to book about how the internet has changed music subcultures, particularly for bands such as Jimmy Eat World, Dashboard Confessional, etc. this book is a great introduction.

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

A hardly essential but nonetheless entertaining read for those who want a fan's perspective on the 'emo' genre circa 2003. This is a fairly well-documented but scattershot tour through various aspects of the sub-culture surrounding emo just a year or two before it transformed into the goth-cribbing 'mallcore' phenomenon, which many people still (unfortunately) associate with the term.

As someone who came of age in the early 2000's and fell in love with the genre through the gateway drugs of polished pop-punk and Dashboard Confessional, I feel that this book - despite its many flaws - really captures the essence of this strange and special moment in time.

Using the internet to learn about the deeper punk/hardcore roots of the emo genre and defending it against naysayers was a big part of being an emo fan during this time - and this is where the book is most successful. The first few chapters connect the dots between Rites of Spring, Jawbreaker, Sunny Day Real Estate, and Dashboard with an effective tone and some surprisingly poetic moments. The book loses its momentum near the second half, however, and some chapters - such as the questionable diversion in the culture of makeoutclub.com - are essentially skippable.

It's no fourfa.com, but "Nothing Feels Good" is still a fun and light-hearted document of how it felt to be a teenage emo fan at the turn of the century.

[Lauren Shawcross · Rating 2 out of 5]

an interesting snapshot in time when it comes to interviews with band members and fans and especially the ruminations on how the internet would change the music industry. there's not really much in the way of analysis, but greenwald gets bonus points for actually interrogating the origins of emo in its existence as an offshoot of punk, even if the early aspects of the scene are breezed through in order to focus on bands contemporary to the book's 2003 publication. or should i say band, singular, because this book is bogged down by its reverence for and over-emphasis on dashboard confessional. greenwald argues DC commercialized emo, to which i disagree- i would say jimmy eat world did that, and credit could also go in part to the promise ring, whose 1997 album the book is inexplicably titled after despite the book not really focusing on the promise ring. the book is pretty much half DC biography, to its detriment. nonetheless an interesting curio if you are interested in the emo scene, especially in the early 2000s.

[Ruth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very mediocre, but it’s probably the only book out there that talks about emo.

Pros: It was pretty thorough in the sense that it described ALL aspects of emo culture i.e. the music (of course), the Internet forums, the fan base, and more. I learned about a lot of important bands and got to see a lot of interviews.

Cons: The organization and time dedicated to each topic were terribly thought out. I would have loved to see more recent emo bands. And why was there so much time dedicated to Dashboard Confessional? The author should write a book detailing solely that. Sometimes important bands were mentioned too briefly. The author didn’t qualify why he interviewed certain people over others; lack of establishing credibility was common. And many times, the author’s tone was really unbefitting of what was told...

All in all, a need-to-read for emo fans but only in the sense that it’s the only book out there about the genre.

[Ben · Rating 2 out of 5]

First two parts of this book are pretty great, Greenwald spends a decent amount of time discussing emo legends such as but not limited to Sunny Day Real Estate, Jimmy Eat World, etc. along with legendary hardcore bands such as Rites of Spring. I disagree with Greenwald's idea of Dashboard Confessional being the thing that really "commercialized emo" and gave the genre a large fanbase with a lump sum of money, but instead it was Jimmy Eat World that really kicked this off. I could be biased just because of my admiration for Jimmy Eat World, but I digress. Greenwald does spend a bit too much time discussing Dashboard Confessional for my taste though, I'm really not a fan of this band, but this could go for any band even if I liked them: This book is about the history of emo (or you'd at least think so) and focusing on one band when the stories and history of emo are not as black and white as Greenwald makes it out to be, just seems silly and winds up quite being quite tiring.

[Louis · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was a long slog to get finished with my pleasure read of 2022. This book has as much earnestness and attention to detail as befits a book about emo music. The whole thing is overwrought and out of date in the same way that having been a teenager feels by the time you're 35 and reading this. Really enjoyed the passages about Jimmy Eat World, Thursday and The Promise Ring even if it all seems to be a Chris Carraba fest towards the end. The references to early phases of music community on the Internet brought up a lot of memories but have little resonance now given how over-plugged we are by comparison. Not to mention the book's narrow takes on what digital music means for the industry, which are a contemporary sour point, particularly in the DIY and emo scene that is in its fifth generation. All that being said, Andy wrote the hell out of this and it is basically a history book. A living artifact of a genre that is immortal, insufferable and undeniable.

[Amory · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's so interesting to learn about what post punk/emo/pop punk culture was like and how much it changed just from the start of the twenty-first century to now. Greenwald explores so many important parts of what this genre's music scene was like, from how basements shows used to be put together to how the popular bands of the time transitioned from that to touring and playing stadiums. The impact the internet had on forever changing the music scene was also interesting to read about from the perspective that it was so evolved even in 2003.
Reading this after "Where Are Your Boys Tonight?", published in 2022, also made for a fascinating comparison, since what is looked back on as the most prominent, identifiable features and bands from early 2000s emo has shifted from the time "Nothing Feels Good" was written in 2003.

[Neil · Rating 2 out of 5]

I first read this when I was like 12 and it was my holy grail and probably the book I owe a lot of my taste to, definitely my introduction to proper emo. I got into rites of spring because of this book. Never read it fully though until now and it gets reaaaally boring in the second half, and it also focuses too much on certain things. the whole internet forum part was unnecessary. Some of the interviews went on far too long.
I really liked some of the descriptions on the shows and the music, it made me very jealous of being born after it was all over. I want to have experienced it in its prime before phones were a thing. But alas...
Anyway the first 100 or so pages are good, rest is a drag, also not really worth reading unless you are new to emo like I was when I was 12/13, reading it now I didn't get much out of it

[Lavender Rathman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lightly touches on the actual emo origins and then launches into the midwest emo/mtv emo thing (which as a certain type of person will tell you, "isn't real emo"), so much of this book is about the wonderful new invention called "the internet" and how napster is impacting the music industry! Remember web forums? He sure wants you to! Also about how the kids keep selling out to bigger labels because they wanna get rich.
What isn't about this is just Greenwald's love letter to Dashboard Confessional.
Gave me such a headache after reading that Nirvana was "mainstream underground" as if you could really be both and namedropped the Used calling them "scruffy punk" without any further elaboration on that point.