ON the same night that the WB network broadcast the final episode of ''Dawson's Creek,'' a few hundred young fans (everyone calls them ''the kids'') squeezed into S.O.B.'s, the downtown Manhattan nightclub, to hear a punk rock veteran named Christopher Ender Carrabba strum an acoustic guitar and sing lugubrious songs about breaking up. Mr. Carrabba records and performs as Dashboard Confessional, and at his cult-like concerts, the kids sing along with every word, not just mouthing the lyrics but matching Mr. Carrabba's full-throated delivery, and often drowning him out.
Mr. Carrabba told the crowd that he half-wished he was at home, watching the TV show that often played out like one of his clever, anguished songs. Then he sang ''I don't wanna wait for our lives to be over,'' and the kids yelped with delight -- it was the theme from ''Dawson's Creek.''
To a generation raised on ''Beverly Hills, 90210'' and Green Day, Mr. Carrabba is the best of both worlds: a telegenic heartbreaker with more than a decade of punk-rock credibility. His arms are covered with tattoos, and his slicked-back hair looks like something Frank Gehry might have dreamed up. He also happens to be a great songwriter, one of the brightest lights in the sentimental, punk-inspired genre often called emo. (Although no one's happy with the term, and none of the bands themselves use it.) Emo songs tend to be passionate, skeptical and grandly romantic, and the best of these bands seem intent on reinventing that most hackneyed of pop music forms: the love song.
From the three-chord laments of Alkaline Trio to the folky rants of Bright Eyes, from the erudite pop-punk of Brand New to the entropic anthems of Thursday, much of the most exciting rock music is coming from this loose-knit scene. And none of the bands has a better chance at mainstream success than Dashboard Confessional. Last year, Mr. Carrabba recorded a mesmerizing episode of ''MTV Unplugged'' -- in every shot, you could see the kids in the background, singing along. And on Tuesday, Dashboard Confessional releases ''A Mark, a Mission, a Brand, a Scar'' (Vagrant/TVT), a remarkable disc that may become the year's most important rock record.
One recent afternoon, Mr. Carrabba was sitting in a Mexican restaurant in the West Village. In person, as on record, he presents a disarming mix of sincerity and sophistication -- he loves his fans like old friends, but he's also comfortable talking about marketing plans.
Continue reading the main story''There's a difference between being a successful songwriter and being a respected songwriter,'' he said. ''I would like to be both.''
Mr. Carrabba, 28, grew up in West Hartford, Conn., then moved with his family to Boca Raton, Fla. There, he found a community of skaters and punks, some of whom would later become bandmates. Moving out of Connecticut also gave him material for songs -- as he recalled, ''I was incredibly in love with this girl, like you can only be when you're 16, and I just couldn't bear the idea of leaving.'' Mr. Carrabba played in a series of punk-inspired bands, and while he was leading the Christian emo act Further Seems Forever, he recorded a few solo songs on the side. (Mr. Carrabba is still widely perceived as Christian, but he said he never discusses religion.) After quitting the group, he set out on his first solo tour, playing what he calls ''simple songs,'' sitting on a stool while strumming (frantically) and wailing (loudly).
Mr. Carrabba never intended Dashboard Confessional to be a strictly solo outfit, and he has gradually turned the project into a four-piece band, although he still writes and sings all the songs. He says he didn't record or perform under his own name because he wanted his collaborators to feel included. ''If it was called Chris Carrabba, they might think, 'Well, this isn't my thing.' But it is theirs -- it's as much theirs as it is mine and as it is yours.''
Rich Egan, the head of the punk label Vagrant Records, remembers watching Mr. Carrabba play at a punk show. ''He pulled up a stool and started singing to these kids who were there to run around in circles,'' Mr. Egan recalled. ''To me, that was the most punk rock thing I saw all night.''
In 2001, Vagrant released the second full-length Dashboard Confessional album, ''The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most,'' and it became the label's best-selling release. The album's signature song, ''Screaming Infidelities,'' used simple lyrics to devastating effect: ''I'm missing your laugh, how did it break?/ And when did your smile begin to look fake?'' Mr. Carrabba compressed loss and loathing into a four-word refrain -- ''Your hair, it's everywhere.'' You could imagine him rolling over in an empty bed, confronting yet more evidence.
The history of emo -- short for emotional -- begins in the mid-1980's, when hardcore punk bands from Washington started playing slower and stranger. Rites of Spring, the best of these bands, captured emo's introspective ethos in a song called ''Deeper Than Inside,'' in which Guy Picciotto screamed, ''You wonder just how close close-up can be?/ Can't you see? Can't you see?''
By the 1990's, there was a thriving emo underground, full of bands that sounded nothing alike, from the tuneful melancholy of Jawbreaker to the exhilarating chaos of Heroin. For years, emo has hovered near the edge of the mainstream, and now some of the bands are showing up on MTV, and with Mr. Carrabba, emo has an icon -- although not, to be sure, a willing one. ''It's a silly word,'' he said.
The term is descriptive, not prescriptive: it's not a rallying cry like punk or hip-hop, but an imprecise way to gesture at a broad sensibility. Even worse, the word itself is ridiculous -- it sounds like a psychological condition or a flightless bird.
Still, something's happening, even if no one can decide what to call it. Interscope Records recently purchased a share in Vagrant, and Jimmy Iovine, the chairman of Interscope Geffen A&M Records, compares Mr. Carrabba to another Interscope star who's good with words -- Eminem. He says this isn't merely another punk revival: it's a ''songwriting revival.''
It's tempting to claim that these bands are strikingly honest, but it would be more accurate to say they're obsessed with the idea of honesty -- how to convey it, how to fake it. This obsession has helped them find fresh ways of singing about love.
''Good Mourning,'' the new Alkaline Trio album, recharges romantic metaphors by turning them into cartoons, starting with a lover begging an ex to finish him off: ''Step one: slit my throat/ Step two: play in my blood.'' On a lovely album called ''Song in the Air,'' the Kentucky band Elliott uses strings and pianos to accompany the singer Chris Higdon, who remembers a lover with a tender (and not quite grammatical) sigh: ''And the sun rised everywhere.'' While Bright Eyes (along with Cursive, another Omaha band) specializes in dense, dazzling treatises on love and truth, other bands are finding success by mixing emo's mopiness with pop-punk's enthusiasm. The Starting Line's infectious hit, ''The Best of Me,'' sets romantic bliss against a woe-is-you backdrop: ''Tell me what you thought about when you were gone and so alone/ The worst is over.''
The year's most surprising emo album is ''Deja Entendu'' by Brand New, a band that has moved from anti-girlfriend rants to ambitious, ambivalent ballads in the course of two years. In one song, Jesse Lacy announces ''My secrets for a buck/ Watch me as I cut myself wide open on this stage, yes I am paid to spill my guts.'' Mr. Carrabba is a fan, and Brand New is scheduled to tour with Dashboard Confessional this fall.
If ''Deja Entendu'' sounds like the giddy work of a singer-songwriter who has suddenly figured out how good he is, the new Dashboard Confessional album sounds like the work of a singer-songwriter who has known all along. While ''A Mark, a Mission, a Brand, a Scar'' uses plenty of strumming and falsetto wailing, Mr. Carrabba has learned to use these weapons in moderation, giving his marvelous songs room to breathe by relying more on his bandmates.
The album's first single is ''Hands Down,'' a perfect dose of emo optimism -- and a sly rejoinder to listeners who dismiss Mr. Carrabba as a one-dimensional whiner peddling second-hand heartbreak. He rolls his eyes at friends who ask, '' 'Did you get some?'/ Man, that is so dumb.'' Then he whispers to his lover, ''Stay quiet, stay near, stay close, they can't hear/ So we can get some.'' The chorus is a pick-up line only an emo kid could love: ''My hopes are so high that your kiss might kill me/ So won't you kill me, so I die happy?''
Elsewhere on the album, he candy-coats some of the most hopeless lyrics by adding vocal harmonies, and near the end, there's a buoyant, flirty song called, ''Hey Girl,'' which borrows a few tricks from Elvis Costello.
The six-minute finale, ''Several Ways to Die Trying,'' describes the end of the world, or maybe just the tortuous process of writing a song. It climaxes when Mr. Carrabba sings, ''I'm dying to live,'' stretching that last word into perhaps the longest note he has ever sung. It may sound like a pure expression of emo longing -- but then again, mainstream pop stars like to end their ballads the same way.
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