One question keeps echoing through the halls of scholarly institutions across the world: what exactly IS tumblrcore? These days it’s probably best defined as the likes of LA DISPUTE and TOUCHE AMORE: sincere, dedicated artists whose music really means something.
But it wasn’t always like that: astute scene historians will remember the hallowed days of 2010-2011 (even in 2012) when it was all about OLD SCHOOL tumblrcore. When your dash was clogged with gifsets of all your favorite scene boy bands, each with its own unique combination of breakdowns, clean vocals and a cute singer. But the question remains, which one was the best??
Although Austin Carlile is a shitbag with one of the least aesthetic physiques of all time, it is hard to find a band that serves as better posterchildren for OLD SCHOOL TUMBLRCORE than OF MICE & MEN. And to their credit, whenever I have dealt with all the other guys in the band, they were super cool and seemed like good dudes. “Shitbag singer syndrome” is a common thing in this genre.
And then at the opposite end of the spectrum we have BLESSTHEFALL, fronted by the world’s oldest scenebro Beau Bokan (32 years old): he seems like a good dude is very aesthetic. Also, bonus points for smashing LIGHTS. Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but despite BTF’s impressive viewcount (4.5 million on this video), they don’t seem that big IRL??
PIERCE THE VEIL are the one band that perhaps could take the title from OM&M as the leaders of old school TUMBLRCORE. When I saw JASON DERULO and NEW BOYZ repping PTV back in 09 or whatever, I tried to get into this band but I never really could due to lack of breakdowns and bass drops. Also, it’s really funny to me that Equal Vision started as a Krishna sxe hardcore label and now they put out this kind of stuff.
Can’t really get into SLEEPING WITH SIRENS either (via not being into noodly boring ‘post-hardcore’) but the sheer volume of Kellin Quinn-related posts on Tumblr warrants their inclusion in this post. Do they have any good songs that I am missing out on?
The story with TUMBLRCORE bands is usually that their online popularity doesn’t really translate into live draw, so I was pretty shocked to see WE CAME AS ROMANS sell out a 750-1000 cap venue in Columbus last year. Surprisingly good live too (another typical weak spot for Pod Farm/Superior Drummer/Sturgiscore bands).
Do THE WORD ALIVE belong in this post?? Rly not sure :(( I feel like they are maybe only a B-level TUMBLRCORE band that doesn’t have enough gifsets to be included, but maybe I am wrong??
