Andy Greenwald

Andy Greenwald writes criticism and scripts while also working as a podcast host, with music and television recurring throughout his career. Before moving into television writing and production, he contributed to Spin, Entertainment Weekly, The Washington Post, The Village Voice, and other publications. St. Martin's Griffin published his 2003 study Nothing Feels Good with the subtitle Punk Rock, Teenagers, and Emo. Greenwald follows emo from its roots in the 1980s Washington, D.C., punk scene through its wider prominence two decades later. Interviews with musicians and listeners let him consider the genre as both a musical tradition and a community shaped by sincerity, fashion, fandom, and changing media. The book's attention to audiences distinguishes it from a simple chronology of bands or records. Greenwald later wrote the novel Miss Misery and became a prominent television critic and commentator. His early music writing nevertheless remains central to his public work, joining reported cultural history with close observation of how listeners build identity around songs.