ha, as someone who still has his warped tour all access pass and literally headlined an emo night concert week before last I don't really disagree with you overall. In this thread I'm needling a little bit because it's fun and also because, while I don't disagree with you broadly, I truly don't get the band choices (modest mouse and at the drive in) you've made to illustrate the point. Which, also, totally fine. We covered Modest Mouse - for At The Drive In, I personally don't understand the first fucking thing about what they're saying in the lyrics and while yes I know you said it's not about lyrics, I also don't get where else you have the limp passive thing or the my fees fees thing unless it's because they're wearing girl jeans. Which, fine, but that's one of the cross generational things and is a tale as old as time.
I am about 1000% certain that you could track the rise and fall of mall emo with instances of teen self harm. There were several fucked up toxic things about that genre, one of which was how mental health and generally being fucked up and somehow traumatized got turned into what makes you special and essentially fashion or part of the whole affectation. That stuff is bad, but on the flip side you also have very sick and twisted people (obviously not talking about 650) who use that kind of obvious toxicity to take a completely opposite and evil stance towards mental illness and people who are different than themselves or have had the audacity to face actual obstacles in their lives. I bristle at that because I think we should treat others how we'd like to be treated. Anyways, that's a tangent that's really not related to even this side conversation which is distracting us from the important purpose of this thread.
Also I really don't know anything about Mumford and Sons - before I ever listened to them I got the sense that they sucked and so I never did. But there have been several times I've been tricked into liking his stuff (Ted Lasso theme, Oscar Isaac duet from Llewyn Davis, New Basement Tapes, which also reminds me of Dawes being a band from this category) and so my assumption is that he is actually a super talented guy who has the audacity to make extremely accessible music that girls like. So maybe I'll check out that album.
If you really want to hurt my millennial feelings, tell me that Sufjan is a pussy whose music is bad.