Full Collapse, Zach

Apparently I have a deep reserve of love for emo music. Who knew? I never thought this to be true, really, at any point in my life, not until I heard the Hotelier album and fell madly in love with it. Maybe it's just a function of where I'm at in life right now. I'm probably objectively more "emo" than I used to be. I never was someone whose identity was based around "talking about their emotions." Now that I've leaned into that part of myself much more—and it's really what my soul wants—emo music is speaking to me. And now that I feel certain frustrations—with my job, with love, with living in this foreign country—emo music gives an American voice to some of my feelings.

Or maybe I've liked it all along and I never realized?

It doesn't hurt that Thursday is from New Brunswick. I think some of its essence has been papered over since Thursday's time in the city. George Street is now trying to be cutesy, with a World of Beer and various overtures to pharma workers who decided to pay $2,500 for a one-bedroom apartment there. The grunge places are a little further out. I think they still exist, but they've been pushed to the fringes, in favor of every city everywhere trying to cater to "young professionals" and gentrifying themselves. 

New Brunswick isn't a cute town. It's a city with somewhat shitty housing stock, socioeconomic divides, and a beautiful riverside park that absolutely no one uses. It's a place that births bands like Thursday, who play in dimly lit basements on Hamilton Street somewhere. They might go to Ale 'N 'Wich afterward, or they might go somewhere else that I, as a young professional grad student at Rutgers, never actually learned about. 

There are some albums that remind me of middle of the night drives home in Maryland. Those are usually tinged with sadness. But there are other albums that remind me of middle of the night drives down some godforsaken highway in New Jersey. Route 46, for instance. Route 18. Route 10. Could be any of them. The lights from whatever terrible restaurant that's there are still blazing. Chuck E. Cheese, maybe. Is there a sadder place than Chuck E. Cheese? I'd drive down these roads on the strength of a band like Thursday. There's gas in the car, but it's really running on the strength of the power chords and the emotion that can only be born from the asphalt roads and neon lights that every New Jersey kid knows so well.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: New Jersey is the most misunderstood state in the US.