Before the First Note, You’ve Already Decided
I’ve never been shy about my fondness for emo music. Although I love the genre’s introspective lyrics and raw instrumentation, I’ve never identified with its visuals. To me, emo music has always been about the sound, rather than the fashion. Think skinny jeans, black eyeliner, studded belts, and long bangs. This is ironic considering that my bangs were never long enough to cover the shame. Yet regardless of the genre, we don’t just listen to music; we see it. And even if I don’t want to accept it, I identify with emo visuals more than I’d like to admit.
When it comes to music, we hear with our eyes. Visual cues, such as fashion, logos, and music videos, act as shortcuts that shape taste, signal tribe membership, and bias our perception of the sound itself. Everything we see frames how we interpret the sounds before we even hear them. Marketers exploit those cues, but fans also co-create and repurpose them. Every band has a subculture style that works as a filter. Its job is to attract some and repel others. It’s basically Tinder, but with eyeliner and power chords.
But the visuals also work as a promise; they set expectations before you even hear the first notes. Visuals shape our perception. Labels and marketers provide symbols so that fans re-encode them however they see fit. We can refer to this as manipulation or meaning-making, but the visual aspect of music is just as important as the music itself.
A Monk and a Punk Walk Into a Bar…
In psychology, there’s something known as the framing effect, a cognitive bias where people’s decisions are influenced by the way information is presented. To complement that, we have something known as the expectation effect, which says that when we expect a certain outcome, our brain processes the experience differently. This means if you expect a band to sound rebellious because of how it looks, that’s exactly how you’ll interpret it, regardless of how the band actually sounds. That’s what makes imagery so powerful in the context of music. Since we often see something before we listen to it, we already have an opinion before hearing the first note. When you combine the framing and expectation effects, this suggests that images bias us. I know what you’re thinking, but before we dismiss the entire thing as manipulative, let’s move forward because, as we’ll see, things are not that simple.
If framing and expectation prime us before the first note, the halo effect takes it a step further: it doesn’t just shape what we hear, it convinces us the music is better because of how the band looks. The halo effect suggests that a positive impression in one domain (such as appearance) bleeds into judgments of another (such as authenticity or quality). If a band’s visuals resonate, we’re more likely to rate their music higher. As painful as it is to admit, without black shirts, red ties, and the hand grenade motif, American Idiot would have hit different. I love early Green Day albums, but no one was buying Kerplunk lunchboxes at Target. American Idiot, on the other hand, was a resounding success, and we owe that, in part, to its carefully curated aesthetics.
It’s not just that good aesthetics make the music feel better, though; they also tell us who we are when we listen. That’s where social identity theory comes in. Social identity theory says that people define themselves through group membership, and they use different symbols (such as fashion, logos, and so on) that become markers of belonging. Since we’re social animals, total avoidance of group identity is almost impossible. Even if you reject one group, you’re defining yourself in contrast to it. This means if you say “I’m not one of them”, that’s still a form of identity. Experts have shown that our brains are wired to categorize, so even if you play a game where you’re randomly assigned to a random group (like the “blue team”), you’ll soon start favoring it, even when it doesn’t mean anything.
To be clear, this is a feature of human psychology, and no one can escape it. Even monks with shaved heads who walk around in robes and live in secluded monasteries have created their own social identities. It’s just that their “band merch” happens to be saffron and patchouli. In short, you can reduce attachment, but you can’t erase it entirely. In the context of music, this is important because when you adopt a specific aesthetic, the visuals give meaning.
Once you’ve picked your tribe, you don’t just recognize the symbols; you start craving them. That’s the mere exposure effect at work. The more you see the same look or hear the same sound, the more it sticks. When a certain band repeats the same sound, look, or logo, you become more comfortable and loyal just by exposure. When a band radically changes its look, some will embrace it while others will feel betrayed by it. Sticking to one brand feels safer commercially, and breaking it requires more courage than you might think because it risks backlash and losing fans.
Bands Don’t Just Play Songs, They Play You
As you can see, this essay draws many concepts from psychology to explain how music relates to the imagery that surrounds it. That said, the topic that it relates to the most comes from the field of influence and persuasion.
Robert Cialdini developed the seven principles of persuasion, which are:
1. Social Proof: When we’re unsure about something, we look to others to evaluate it. When something wears a hoodie from a band, for instance, that signals legitimacy.
2. Liking: When you find someone attractive, relatable, or charismatic, you’re more likely to be persuaded by them. The visual connection you have with the music helps us like the people making it even more.
3. Authority: People are persuaded by symbols of authority, such as uniforms, titles, and prestige. For instance, the Black Parade uniforms from My Chemical Romance make the band look like they are leading a movement.
4. Scarcity: When something is scarce or exclusive, its perceived value skyrockets. Scarcity works visually, too, and aesthetics can make a band feel like a hidden treasure. For instance, a polished look gives the sense that a band is more accessible, but a scrappy look makes a band feel rare.
5. Consistency/Commitment: Once people make a small commitment, they feel pressure to stay consistent. The moment you buy a band tee or post album art on social media, you’re more likely to stick with that band. Aesthetics aren’t just about attraction, but they lock people in.
6. Reciprocity: When someone gives us something, we feel obligated to return the favor. Even something as simple as behind-the-scenes videos can be seen as a gift that creates intimacy and makes you feel like you owe something back to the band you like. When you receive something you see as a personal touch, you’ll reciprocate with loyalty.
7: Unity: People are persuaded by a sense of shared identity. Something as simple as a uniform creates unity, which deepens persuasion. Aesthetics aren’t just visuals; they’re the glue that binds people into a single identity.
Paramore Got Weird, but I Still Bought Their T-Shirt
Certain bands experiment with different music styles, and that leads to aesthetic changes as well. Take Paramore, for example. Although their first album enjoyed moderate success, it wasn’t until Riot! came out in 2007 that the band exploded and became associated with the emo scene. I distinctly remember the punk-influenced guitars, the singer’s bold neon hair, heavily lined eyes, and Converse sneakers. The overall look combined youthful rebellion with the pop punk sensibilities of the era, and it worked.
As the band kept making music, though, their aesthetic and sound changed accordingly. Their follow-up album was Brand New Eyes. Represented by a broken butterfly motif, the sound still had pop punk sensibilities, but the lyrics reflected themes of broken innocence, personal struggle, and new beginnings. Photos from this era show a different band: sepia tones, a less juvenile look, and less colorful clothing. By the time their fourth album came out, the band started experimenting with new sounds and aesthetics, which translated into a minimalist look with little to no branding.
But then the changes are surprising. The next album, After Laughter, features an 80s new wave sound that mixed elements from funk, synth-pop, and disco. The band combined the upbeat music with lyrics about depression and melancholy. I find the evolution both in terms of sounds and visuals fascinating, but the most fascinating part about this is that I keep going back to this band. How else was I going to listen to such a diverse concoction of music genres? It’s as if I feel tricked, but in a good way. Paramore’s evolving looks and sounds didn’t push me away; they invited me in, showing that when a band dares to reinvent itself, the visual story becomes just as compelling as the music itself.
This Band Looks Better Than It Sounds
Although I’m providing only one example of a band whose sound changed dramatically from album to album, there are numerous other examples. If anything, changing music styles and aesthetics is the rule and not the exception. Radiohead, Arctic Monkeys, Fall Out Boy, and My Chemical Romance have all used this idea of “reinvention as growth” before. As the sound matured, so did the aesthetics.
For better or for worse, we owe that to the MTV era. The station made music videos feel as important as the songs, think Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” or Blink-182 parodying pop tropes. Even though music videos aren’t as culturally meaningful as they once were, they’re still somewhat relevant thanks to YouTube. Before that, certain bands used imagery to their advantage, and as painful as it is to admit, it all starts with The Beatles, and it leads to K-pop.
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band came out in 1967, and this is arguably the first major rock album where the visuals were as carefully curated as the sound. The concept of dressing up as an entirely different band, with that colorful, surreal cover art, created a new “universe” for listeners. Since then, every conceivable major artist has used this concept to promote their music, such as David Bowie, Pink Floyd, Queen, and Michael Jackson. The extreme example of this is Kiss, where their music is inseparable from the imagery. Although it might seem that they have nothing in common, Kiss is the precursor to K-pop, or at least how K-pop operates.
Kiss did so much more than write songs; they created entire worlds around them. The painted faces, the leather clothing, and the fire-breathing weren’t accessories to the music; they were an integral part of the performance. For the first time, people didn’t go to hear a band; they went to see it. The imagery made as much of an impact as the sound. Now K-pop takes those concepts and pushes them further. Instead of using a single identity, groups adopt rotating concepts, such as school uniforms, cyberpunk futurism, dreamy pastels, and dystopian rebellion. Since each era has a unique look, the visuals reshape how the music feels.
Is That an Artist or a Marketing Intern?
If you’re into music, you can’t deny the power of imagery. Record labels and marketers know this. When a band “rebrands” (and this happens more often than you think), that’s not an accident but a calculated marketing move. Likewise, fans also want the visuals. Aesthetic, whether we like it or not, is part of the art of performing and making music. Concert stage design, album covers, and music videos are all part of what makes a cohesive idea of what a band stands for.
So is this manipulation or an extension of the art form? That’s the question that served as the basis for this article, but there’s no clear answer. If anything, it’s both. On the one hand, labels, stylists, and marketers can hack our psychology to sell us something. They carefully design aesthetics to capture attention and persuade us, sometimes to overcome flaws in the quality of the music itself. But then again, visuals have always been part of music, from opera costumes to punk fashion. You could argue that those aesthetic choices expand the storytelling behind the sounds. It’s not manipulation, but world-building.
Conclusion: Music Is a Costume, and That’s Okay
We started this essay with a confession about emo music, eyeliner, and the unfortunate fact that I had long bangs. That little anecdote wasn’t just nostalgia but proof that we never experience music as sound alone. From the neon hair of Paramore to the fire-breathing theatrics of Kiss, the imagery around a band shapes how we hear, feel, and identify with their music.
If you listened to the same track while imagining different visuals, your perception would shift. So maybe this isn’t manipulation, but how we experience art. We’re wired to engage our every sense to take the full story in. Music isn’t just what you hear, but the world you step into when you hit play. And if that world comes with eyeliner, leather, or neon hair? Well, that just makes the ride a little more fun.
