Emo (music)
Encyclopedia
Emo is a style of rock music
characterized by melodic musicianship and expressive, often confessional lyrics. It originated in the mid-1980s hardcore punk
movement of Washington, D.C.
, where it was known as "emotional hardcore" or "emocore" and pioneered by bands such as Rites of Spring
and Embrace. As the style was echoed by contemporary American punk rock
bands, its sound and meaning shifted and changed, blending with pop punk
and indie rock
and encapsulated in the early 1990s by groups such as Jawbreaker
and Sunny Day Real Estate
. By the mid 1990s numerous emo acts emerged from the Midwestern
and Central United States
, and several independent record labels began to specialize in the style.
Emo broke into mainstream culture in the early 2000s with the platinum-selling success of Jimmy Eat World
and Dashboard Confessional
and the emergence of the subgenre "screamo
". In recent years the term "emo" has been applied by critics and journalists to a variety of artists, including multiplatinum acts and groups with disparate styles and sounds.
In addition to music, "emo" is often used more generally to signify a particular relationship between fans and artists, and to describe related aspects of fashion, culture, and behavior.
scene of early-1980s Washington, D.C.
, both as a reaction to the increased violence within the scene and as an extension of the personal politics espoused by Ian MacKaye
of Minor Threat
, who had turned the focus of the music from the community back towards the individual. Minor Threat fan Guy Picciotto
formed Rites of Spring
in 1984, breaking free of hardcore's self-imposed boundaries in favor of melodic guitars, varied rhythms, and deeply personal, impassioned lyrics. Many of the band's themes would become familiar tropes in later generations of emo music, including nostalgia, romantic bitterness, and poetic desperation. Their performances became public emotional purges where audience members would sometimes weep. MacKaye became a huge Rites of Spring fan, recording their only album and serving as their roadie on tour, and soon formed a new band of his own called Embrace which explored similar themes of self-searching and emotional release. Similar bands soon followed in connection with the "Revolution Summer" of 1985, a deliberate attempt by members of the Washington, D.C. scene to break from the rigid constraints of hardcore in favor of a renewed spirit of creativity. Bands such as Gray Matter
, Beefeater
, Fire Party
, Dag Nasty
, Lunchmeat
, and Kingface were connected to this movement.
The exact origins of the term "emo" are uncertain, but date back to at least 1985. According to Andy Greenwald
, author of Nothing Feels Good: Punk Rock, Teenagers, and Emo, "The origins of the term 'emo' are shrouded in mystery [...] but it first came into common practice in 1985. If Minor Threat was hardcore, then Rites of Spring, with its altered focus, was emotional hardcore or emocore." Michael Azerrad
, author of Our Band Could Be Your Life
, also traces the word's origins to this time:
"The style was soon dubbed 'emo-core,' a term everyone involved bitterly detested, although the term and the approach thrived for at least another fifteen years, spawning countless bands." MacKaye also traces it to 1985, attributing it to an article in Thrasher magazine referring to Embrace and other Washington, D.C. bands as "emo-core", which he called "the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life." Other accounts attribute the term to an audience member at an Embrace show, who yelled that the band was "emocore" as an insult. Others contend that MacKaye coined the term when he used it self-mockingly in a magazine, or that it originated with Rites of Spring. The Oxford English Dictionary
, however, dates the earliest usage of "emo-core" to 1992 and "emo" to 1993, with "emo" first appearing in print media in New Musical Express in 1995.
The "emocore" label quickly spread around the Washington, D.C. punk scene and became attached to many of the bands associated with MacKaye's Dischord Records
label. Although many of these bands simultaneously rejected the term, it stuck nonetheless. Scene veteran Jenny Toomey
has recalled that "The only people who used it at first were the ones that were jealous over how big and fanatical a scene it was. [Rites of Spring] existed well before the term did and they hated it. But there was this weird moment, like when people started calling music 'grunge
,' where you were using the term even though you hated it."
The Washington, D.C. emo scene lasted only a few years. By 1986 most of the major bands of the movement—including Rites of Spring, Embrace, Gray Matter, and Beefeater—had broken up. Even so, the ideas and aesthetics originating from the scene spread quickly across the country via a network of homemade zine
s, vinyl records, and hearsay. According to Greenwald, the Washington, D.C. scene laid the groundwork for all subsequent incarnations of emo:
MacKaye and Piccioto, along with Rites of Spring drummer Brendan Canty
, went on to form the highly influential Fugazi who, despite sometimes being connected with the term "emo", are not commonly recognized as an emo band.
with the uncompromising and dramatic worldview of hardcore. Although the bands were numerous and the locales varied, the aesthetics of emocore in the late 1980s remained more or less the same: "over-the-top lyrics about feelings wedded to dramatic but decidedly punk music." However, in the early 1990s, several new bands reinvented the emo style and carried its core characteristic, the intimacy between bands and fans, into the new decade. Chief among these were Jawbreaker
and Sunny Day Real Estate
, both of whom fostered cult followings, recontextualized the word "emo", and brought it a step closer to the mainstream. According to Andy Greenwald:
In the wake of the 1991 success of Nirvana
's Nevermind
, underground music and subcultures in the United States became big business. New distribution networks emerged, touring routes were codified, and regional and independent acts were able to access the national stage. Teenagers across the country declared themselves fans of independent music, and being punk became mainstream. In this new musical climate, the aesthetics of emo expanded into the mainstream and altered the way the music was perceived: "Punk rock no-nos like the cult of personality
and artistic abstraction suddenly become de rigueur", says Greenwald. "If one definition of emo has always been music that felt like a secret, Jawbreaker and Sunny Day Real Estate were cast in the rolls of the biggest gossips of all, reigning as the largest influences on every emo band that came after them."
Jawbreaker has been referred to as "the Rosetta Stone
of contemporary emo". Emerging from the San Francisco punk rock scene of the late 1980s and early 1990s, their songwriting combined the heft of hardcore with pop punk
sensibilities and the tortured artistry of mid-1980s emocore. Singer/guitarist Blake Schwarzenbach
focused his lyrics on topics that were personal, immediate, and lived, often lifting them directly from his journal. Though they were often obscure and cloaked in metaphor
s, their specificity to Schwarzenbach's own concerns gave the words a bitterness and frustration that made them universal and magnetic to audiences. Schwarzenbach became emo's first idol as listeners related to the singer more than the songs themselves. Jawbreaker's 1994 album 24 Hour Revenge Therapy became their most-loved amongst fans and is a touchstone of mid-1990s emo. The band signed to major label Geffen Records
and toured with Nirvana and Green Day
, but their 1995 album Dear You
sold poorly and they broke up soon after, with Schwarzenbach later forming Jets to Brazil
. Their influence lived on, however, through later successful emo and pop punk bands openly indebted to Jawbreaker's sound.
Sunny Day Real Estate formed in Seattle during the height of the early-1990s grunge
boom. In contrast to Jawbreaker, its members were accomplished musicians with high-quality gear, lofty musical ambitions, intricate songwriting, and a sweeping, epic sound. Frontman Jeremy Enigk
sang desperately, in a falsetto
register, about losing himself and subsuming himself in something greater, often using haphazard lyrics and made-up words. The band's debut album Diary (1994) was over-the-top and romantic, and the music video
for "Seven" received airplay on MTV
. The band's ambitious sound challenged other bands to reach further with their own music in sentiment, instrumentation, and metaphor, and represented a generational shift between grunge and emo. Other emo-leaning punk bands soon followed suit, and the word "emo" began to shift from being vague and undefined to referring to a specific type of emotionally overbearing music that was romantic but distanced from the political nature of punk rock. Sunny Day Real Estate fell apart after Diary, as Enigk became a born-again Christian and launched a solo career while the other members drifted into new projects such as the Foo Fighters
. They released three more albums through a series of breakups and occasional reunions, but are remembered primarily for the promise of their debut and the shift it engendered in the tastes of underground rock fans.
and indie rock
movements, which had been largely underground since the early 1980s, became part of mainstream culture. After Nirvana
's success, major record labels capitalized on the popularity of alternative rock
and other underground music by signing numerous independent bands and spending large amounts of capital promoting them. In 1994, the same year that Jawbreaker's 24 Hour Revenge Therapy and Sunny Day Real Estate's Diary were released, pop punk
acts Green Day
and The Offspring
had mutiplatinum successes with their respective albums Dookie
and Smash. In the wake of the underground going mainstream, over the next several years emo as a genre retreated, reformed, and morphed into a national subculture, then eventually something more. Drawing inspiration from bands like Jawbreaker, Drive Like Jehu
, and Fugazi, the new sound of emo was a mixture of hardcore
's passion and indie rock's intelligence, bearing the anthemic power of punk rock and its do-it-yourself
work ethic but with smoother songs, sloppier melodies, and yearning vocals. Many of the new emo bands originated from the Midwestern
and Central United States
, such as Braid
from Champaign
-Urbana, Illinois
, Christie Front Drive
from Denver, Colorado
, Mineral
from Austin, Texas
, Jimmy Eat World
from Mesa, Arizona
, The Get Up Kids
from Kansas City, Missouri
, and The Promise Ring
from Milwaukee, Wisconsin
. According to Andy Greenwald
, "This was the period when emo earned many, if not all, of the stereotypes that have lasted to this day: boy-driven, glasses-wearing, overly sensitive, overly brainy, chiming-guitar-driven college music."
On the east coast, New York City
-based Texas Is the Reason
bridged the gap between indie rock and emo in their brief three-year lifespan by melding the melodies of Sunny Day Real Estate to churning punk musicianship and singing directly to the listener. In New Jersey
, Lifetime
gained a reputation as a melodic hardcore
act, playing shows in fans' basements. Their 1995 album Hello Bastards
on rising independent label Jade Tree Records
fused hardcore with emo's tunefulness, turning its back on cynicism and irony in favor of love songs. The album sold tens of thousands of copies and the band inspired a number of later New Jersey and Long Island
emo acts such as Brand New
, Glassjaw
, Midtown
, The Movielife
, My Chemical Romance
, Saves the Day
, Senses Fail
, Taking Back Sunday
, and Thursday
.
The Promise Ring were one of the premier bands of the new emo style. Their music took a slower, smoother, pop punk approach to hardcore riffs, blending them with singer Davey von Bohlen
's goofy, picturesque lyrics delivered with a froggy croon and pronounced lisp
, and they played shows in basements and VFW
halls Jade Tree released their debut 30° Everywhere
in 1996 and it sold tens of thousands of copies, a blockbuster by independent standards. Greenwald describes the effect of the album as "like being hit in the head with cotton candy." Other bands such as Karate
, The Van Pelt
, Joan of Arc
, and The Shyness Clinic incorporated elements of post-rock
and noise rock
into the emo sound. The common lyrical thread between these bands was "applying big questions to small scenarios."
A cornerstone of mid-1990s emo was Weezer
's 1996 album Pinkerton
. Following the success of their mutiplatinum debut, Pinkerton turned from their power pop
sound to a much darker, more abrasive character. Frontman Rivers Cuomo
's songs were obsessed with messy, manipulative sex and his own insecurities of dealing with celebrity. A critical and commercial failure, it was ranked by Rolling Stone
as the second-worst album of the year. Cuomo retreated from the public eye, later referring to the album as "hideous" and "a hugely painful mistake". However, Pinkerton found enduring appeal with teenagers just discovering alternative rock
, who were drawn to its confessional lyrics and themes of rejection and came to believe that it was directed at them. Sales grew steadily as word of the album passed between fans, over online messageboards, and via Napster
. "Although no one was paying attention", says Greenwald, "perhaps because no one was paying attention—Pinkerton became the most important emo album of the decade." When Weezer returned in 2000, however, they did so with a decidedly pop
sound. Cuomo refused to play songs from Pinkerton, dismissing it as "ugly" and "embarrassing". Nevertheless, the album held its appeal and eventually achieved both high sales and critical praise, and is noted for introducing emo to larger and more mainstream audiences.
The emo aesthetic of the mid-1990s was embodied in Mineral, whose albums The Power of Failing
(1997) and EndSerenading (1998) encapsulated the emo tropes of somber music accompanied by a shy narrator singing seriously about mundane problems. Greenwald calls their song "If I Could" "the ultimate expression of mid-nineties emo. The song's short synopsis—she is beautiful, I am weak, dumb, and shy; I am alone but am surprisingly poetic when left alone—sums up everything that emo's adherents admired and its detractors detested." Another significant band of the era was Braid, whose 1998 album Frame and Canvas
and B-side
song "Forever Got Shorter" blurred the lines between band and listener, as the group was a mirror-image of its own audience in passion and sentiment and sang in the voice of their fans.
Though the emo style of the mid-1990s had thousands of young fans, it never broke into the national consciousness. A few bands were offered contracts with major record labels, but most broke up before they could capitalize on the opportunity. Jimmy Eat World signed to Capitol Records
in 1995 and built a following among the emo community with their album Static Prevails
, but did not break into the mainstream despite their major-label association as their music was mostly lost amongst the popular ska
movement of the period. The Promise Ring were the most commercially successful emo band of the time, with sales of their 1997 album Nothing Feels Good
topping out in the mid-five figures. Greenwald calls the album "the pinnacle of its generation of emo: a convergence of pop and punk, of resignation and celebration, of the lure of girlfriends and the pull of friends, bandmates, and the road." He refers to mid-1990s emo as "the last subculture made of vinyl and paper instead of plastic and megabytes."
In 1997 Deep Elm Records
launched a series of compilation album
s entitled The Emo Diaries
, which continued until 2007 with eleven installments. Featuring mostly unreleased music from unsigned bands, the series included acts such as Jimmy Eat World
, Further Seems Forever
, Samiam
, and The Movielife
. The diversity of bands and musical styles made the case for emo as more of a shared aesthetic than a genre, and the series helped to codify the term "emo" and spread it throughout the community of underground music.
Jimmy Eat World's 1999 album Clarity
was one of the most significant emo albums of the late 1990s and became a touchstone for later emo bands. Writing in 2003, Andy Greenwald
called it "one of the most fiercely beloved rock 'n' roll records of the last decade. It is name-checked by every single contemporary emo band as their favorite album, as a mind-bending milemarker that proved that punk rock could be tuneful, emotional, wide-ranging, and ambitious." However, despite warm critical reception and promotion of the single "Lucky Denver Mint" in the Drew Barrymore
comedy film Never Been Kissed
, Clarity was commercially unsuccessful in a musical climate dominated by teen pop, and the band left major label Capitol Records
the following year. Nevertheless, the album gained steady popularity via word-of-mouth and was treasured by fans, eventually selling over 70,000 copies. Jimmy Eat World self-financed the recording of their next album Bleed American
(2001) before signing to Dreamworks Records
. The album sold 30,000 copies in its first week and went gold shortly after. In 2002 it went platinum as emo broke into the mainstream.
Drive-Thru Records
, founded in 1996, steadily built up a roster of primarily pop punk
bands with emo characteristics such as Midtown
, The Starting Line
, The Movielife, and Something Corporate
. Drive-Thru's partnership with major label MCA
enabled their brand of emo-inflected pop to reach wider audiences. The label's biggest early success was New Found Glory
, whose 2000 eponymous album
reached No. 107 on the Billboard 200
with the single "Hit or Miss" reaching No. 15 on Modern Rock Tracks. Drive-Thru's unabashedly populist and capitalist approach to music allowed its bands' albums and merchandise to sell heavily through popular outlets such as Hot Topic
:
Independent label Vagrant Records
was behind several successful emo acts of the late 1990s and early 2000s. The Get Up Kids
had sold over 15,000 copies of their debut album Four Minute Mile
(1997) before signing to Vagrant, who promoted the band aggressively and put them on tours opening for big-name acts like Green Day
and Weezer
. Their 1999 album Something to Write Home About
was an independent success, reaching No. 31 on Billboard
's Top Heatseekers
chart. Vagrant signed and released albums by a number of other emo and emo-related acts over the next two years, including The Anniversary
, Reggie and the Full Effect
, The New Amsterdams, Alkaline Trio
, Saves the Day
, Dashboard Confessional
, Hey Mercedes
, and Hot Rod Circuit
. Saves the Day had built a large following on the east coast and sold almost 50,000 copies of their second album Through Being Cool
(1999) before signing to Vagrant and releasing Stay What You Are
(2001), which sold 15,000 copies in its first week, reached No. 100 on the Billboard 200, and went on to sell over 200,000 copies. In the summer of 2001 Vagrant organized a national tour featuring every band on the label, sponsored by corporations such as Microsoft
and Coca-Cola
. This populist approach and the use of the internet
as a marketing tool helped Vagrant become one of the country's most successful independent labels and also helped to popularize the term "emo". According Greenwald, "More than any other event, it was Vagrant America that defined emo to masses—mainly because it had the gumption to hit the road and bring it to them."
's Bleed American
album went platinum on the strength of "The Middle", which reached No. 1 on Billboard
's Modern Rock Tracks chart. Dashboard Confessional
reached No. 22 on the same chart with "Screaming Infidelities" from their Vagrant Records
debut The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most
, which was No. 5 on Independent Albums
, and became the first non-platinum-selling artist to record an episode of MTV Unplugged
(the resultant live album itself was a No. 1 Independent Album in 2003 and quickly went platinum). New Found Glory
's album Sticks and Stones
debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard 200
. Saves the Day
toured with Green Day
, Blink-182
, and Weezer
, playing large arenas such as Madison Square Garden
, and by the end of the year had performed on Late Night with Conan O'Brien
, appeared on the cover of Alternative Press, and had music video
s for "At Your Funeral" and "Freakish" in heavy rotation on MTV2
. Articles on Vagrant Records were published in Time
and Newsweek
, while the word "emo" began appearing on numerous magazine covers and became a catchall term for any music outside of mainstream pop. Andy Greenwald
attributes emo's sudden explosion into the mainstream to media outlets looking for the "next big thing" in the wake of the September 11 attacks:
In the wake of this success, many emo bands were signed to major record labels and the style became a marketable product. Dreamworks Records
senior A&R
representative Luke Wood remarked that "The industry really does look at emo as the new raprock, or the new grunge. I don't think that anyone is listening to the music that's being made—they're thinking of how they're going to take advantage of the sound's popularity at retail." The depoliticized nature of emo, coupled with its catchy music and accessible themes, gave it a broad appeal to young mainstream audiences.
At the same time, a darker, more aggressive offshoot of emo gained popularity. New Jersey–based Thursday
signed a multi-million-dollar, multialbum contract with Island Def Jam on the strength of their 2001 album Full Collapse
, which reached No. 178 on the Billboard 200. Their music differed from the prominent emo bands of the time in that it was more politicized and lacked dominant pop hooks and anthems, drawing influence from more maudlin bands such as The Smiths
, Joy Division
, and The Cure
. However, the band's accessibility, openness, basement-show roots, and touring alongside bands like Saves the Day made them part of the emo movement.
and uses typical rock instrumentation, but is noted for its brief compositions, chaotic execution, and screaming vocals
. The genre is "generally based in the aggressive side of the overarching punk-revival scene." The style began in 1991, in San Diego, at the Ché Café
, with groups such as Heroin
, Antioch Arrow
, Angel Hair, Mohinder
, Swing Kids
, and Portraits of Past
. These groups were influenced by Washington D.C. post-hardcore
(particularly Fugazi and Nation of Ulysses
), straight edge
, the Chicago group Articles of Faith
, hardcore punk band Die Kreuzen
and post-punk
, such as Joy Division
and Bauhaus
.
Some bands that formed in the United States during the late 1990s and remained active throughout the 2000s, such as Thursday
, Thrice
, and Poison the Well
made screamo much more popular. Many of these bands took influence from the likes of Refused
and At the Drive-In
. By the mid-2000s, the over-saturation of the screamo scene caused many bands to purposefully expand past the genre’s trademarks and incorporate more experimental elements. Even bands that weren’t necessarily screamo would often use the style's characteristic guttural vocal style. Derek Miller, guitarist for the post-hardcore band Poison the Well
, claimed that the term screamo "describes a thousand different genres." According to Jeff Mitchell of Iowa State Daily
, "there is no set definition of what screamo sounds like but screaming over once deafeningly loud rocking noise and suddenly quiet, melodic guitar lines is a theme commonly affiliated with the genre." Juan Gabe, vocalist for the band Comadre
, alleged that the term "has been kind of tainted in a way, especially in the States."
influences, such as more concise songs and hook
filled chorus
es. Allmusic describes the style as blending "youthful angst
" with "slick production" and mainstream appeal, using "high-pitched melodie
s, rhythm
ic guitars, and lyrics concerning adolescence
, relationships, and heartbreak." Britain
's The Guardian
described the style as a cross between "saccharine boy-band pop" and emo. Modern emo pop bands have toned down extremities in loud/soft variations to provide a more widespread appeal.
As emo became more successful in the mid-1990s due to the rise of grunge
, emo pop was developed by bands such as The Wrens
, which pioneered a form of emo-pop on 1996's Secaucus, and Weezer
, which in 1996 released the definitive emo pop album Pinkerton
. Other bands which put out emo pop releases in the 90s included Sense Field
, Jejune
, Alkaline Trio
, and The Get Up Kids
. As emo became commercially successful in the early 2000s, the emo pop movement was birthed by Jimmy Eat World
's 2001 release Bleed American
and the success of that album's single "The Middle". Genre pioneers Weezer and The Wrens both saw great success in this new movement, the former with its release The Green Album and the latter with Meadowlands, which "reinvented punk-pop for the new generation". As the genre coalesced, the record label Fueled by Ramen
became a center of the movement, releasing platinum
selling albums from bands like Fall Out Boy
, Panic! at the Disco
, and Paramore
. Two main regional scenes developed; in Florida
the scene was created by the label Fueled by Ramen and the band Dashboard Confessional
, and in the Midwest
emo-pop was promoted by Pete Wentz, whose band Fall Out Boy rose to the front of the style in the mid-2000s. In 2008, the band Cash Cash
released Take It to the Floor
, which Allmusic stated could be "the definitive statement of airheaded, glittery, and content-free emo-pop. Allmusic further stated that with this release "the transformation of emo from the expression of intensely felt, ripped-from-the-throat feelings played by bands directly influenced by post-punk and hardcore to mall-friendly Day-Glo pop played by kids who look about as authentic as the "punks" on an old episode of Quincy
did back in the '70s was made pretty much complete with the release of Cash Cash's Take It to the Floor album."
s (usually short-sleeved) which often bear the names of emo bands. Studded belts
and black wristbands are common accessories in emo fashion. Some males also wear thick, black horn-rimmed glasses
.
The emo fashion is also recognized for its hairstyles. Popular looks include long side-swept bangs
, sometimes covering one or both eyes. Also popular is hair that is straightened and dyed black. Bright colors, such as blue, pink, red, or bleached blond, are also typical as highlights in emo hairstyles. Short, choppy layers of hair are also common. This fashion has at times been characterized as a fad. In the early 2000s, emo fashion was associated with a clean cut look, but as the style spread to younger teenagers, the style has become darker, with long bangs and emphasis on the color black replacing sweater vests.
Emo has been associated with a stereotype that includes being particularly emotional, sensitive, shy, introverted, or angst
-ridden. It has also been associated with depression
, self-injury, and suicide
.
. Andy Greenwald
notes that there are very few women in emo bands, and that even those few do not typically have an active voice in the songs' subject matter: "Though emo—and to a certain degree, punk—has always been a typically male province, the monotony of the labels' gender perspective can be overwhelming." The triumph of the "lonely boy's aesthetic" in emo, coupled with the style's popularity, has led to a litany of one-sided songs in which males vent their fury at the women who have wronged them: Some emo bands' lyrics disguise violent anti-women sentiments in a veneer of pop music. However, despite emo's frequent portrayal of women as powerless victims, fans of the style are from both genders, and some acts have even greater popularity with women than with men. One explanation for this is that the unifying appeal of emo, its expression of emotional devastation, can be appreciated equally by both sexes regardless of the songs' specific subjects.
founder Kevin Lyman
stated that there was a "real backlash" among bands on the tour towards emo groups, but he dismissed the hostility as "juvenile" in nature. The movement grew with intensity over time. Time reported in 2008 that "anti-emo" groups attacked teenagers in Mexico City, Querétaro
, and Tijuana
. In Russia, a law was presented at the Duma
to regulate emo websites and forbid emo style at schools and government buildings, for fears of emo being a "dangerous teen trend" promoting anti-social behaviour, depression, social withdrawal and even suicide. In May 2010 in Saudi Arabia
, the religious police in the city of Dammam
arrested 10 emo girls for allegedly offensive un-Islamic behaviour and dress.
of teenager Hannah Bond by both the coroner
at the inquest into her death and her mother, Heather Bond, after it was claimed that emo music glamorized suicide and her apparent obsession with My Chemical Romance
was said to be linked to her suicide. The inquest heard that she was part of an Internet "emo cult" and her Bebo
page contained an image of an 'emo girl' with bloody wrists. It also heard that she had discussed the "glamour" of hanging online and had explained to her parents that her self harming was an "emo initiation ceremony". Heather Bond criticised emo fashion, saying: "There are 'emo' websites that show pink teddies hanging themselves." After the verdict was reported in NME
, fans of emo music contacted the magazine to defend against accusations that it promotes self harm and suicide.
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
characterized by melodic musicianship and expressive, often confessional lyrics. It originated in the mid-1980s hardcore punk
Hardcore punk
Hardcore punk is an underground music genre that originated in the late 1970s, following the mainstream success of punk rock. Hardcore is generally faster, thicker, and heavier than earlier punk rock. The origin of the term "hardcore punk" is uncertain. The Vancouver-based band D.O.A...
movement of Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, where it was known as "emotional hardcore" or "emocore" and pioneered by bands such as Rites of Spring
Rites of Spring
Rites of Spring was an American post-hardcore band from Washington, D.C. in the mid-1980s, known for their energetic live performances. A part of the D.C. hardcore punk scene, Rites of Spring increased the frenetic violence and visceral passion of hardcore while simultaneously experimenting with...
and Embrace. As the style was echoed by contemporary American punk rock
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
bands, its sound and meaning shifted and changed, blending with pop punk
Pop punk
Pop punk is a fusion music genre that combines elements of punk rock with pop music, to varying degrees. Allmusic describes the genre as a strand of alternative rock, which typically merges pop melodies with speedy punk tempos, chord changes and loud guitars...
and indie rock
Indie rock
Indie rock is a genre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom and the United States in the 1980s. Indie rock is extremely diverse, with sub-genres that include lo-fi, post-rock, math rock, indie pop, dream pop, noise rock, space rock, sadcore, riot grrrl and emo, among others...
and encapsulated in the early 1990s by groups such as Jawbreaker
Jawbreaker (band)
Jawbreaker was an American punk rock band active from 1986 to 1996 and considered one of the most influential acts of the early-1990s emo movement...
and Sunny Day Real Estate
Sunny Day Real Estate
Sunny Day Real Estate is an American rock band from Seattle, Washington. In the 1990s, the group expanded upon the grunge style that was popular in the local scene to make a more melodic sound. While not the first band to be classified as emo, they were instrumental in establishing the genre. In...
. By the mid 1990s numerous emo acts emerged from the Midwestern
Midwestern United States
The Midwestern United States is one of the four U.S. geographic regions defined by the United States Census Bureau, providing an official definition of the American Midwest....
and Central United States
Central United States
The Central United States is sometimes conceived as between the Eastern United States and Western United States as part of a three-region model, roughly coincident with the Midwestern United States plus the western and central portions of the Southern United States; the term is also sometimes used...
, and several independent record labels began to specialize in the style.
Emo broke into mainstream culture in the early 2000s with the platinum-selling success of Jimmy Eat World
Jimmy Eat World
Jimmy Eat World is an American alternative rock band from Mesa, Arizona, that formed in 1993. The band is composed of lead vocalist and guitarist Jim Adkins, guitarist and backing vocalist Tom Linton, bassist Rick Burch and drummer Zach Lind....
and Dashboard Confessional
Dashboard Confessional
Dashboard Confessional is an American rock band from Boca Raton, Florida, led by singer-songwriter Chris Carrabba. The name of the band is derived from the song "The Sharp Hint of New Tears" from the debut album The Swiss Army Romance....
and the emergence of the subgenre "screamo
Screamo
Screamo, though used loosely to generally describe music that features screamed vocals, is actually a musical subgenre of hardcore punk which predominantly evolved from emo, among other genres, in the early 1990s...
". In recent years the term "emo" has been applied by critics and journalists to a variety of artists, including multiplatinum acts and groups with disparate styles and sounds.
In addition to music, "emo" is often used more generally to signify a particular relationship between fans and artists, and to describe related aspects of fashion, culture, and behavior.
Origins: 1980s
Emo emerged from the hardcore punkHardcore punk
Hardcore punk is an underground music genre that originated in the late 1970s, following the mainstream success of punk rock. Hardcore is generally faster, thicker, and heavier than earlier punk rock. The origin of the term "hardcore punk" is uncertain. The Vancouver-based band D.O.A...
scene of early-1980s Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, both as a reaction to the increased violence within the scene and as an extension of the personal politics espoused by Ian MacKaye
Ian MacKaye
Ian Thomas Garner MacKaye is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist, musician, label owner, and producer. Active since 1979, MacKaye is best known for being the frontman of the influential hardcore punk bands Minor Threat and The Teen Idles, the post-hardcore bands Embrace and Fugazi, as well...
of Minor Threat
Minor Threat
Minor Threat was an American hardcore punk band formed in Washington, D.C. in 1980 and disbanded in 1983. The band was relatively short-lived, but had a strong influence on the hardcore punk music scene, both stylistically and in establishing a "do it yourself" ethic for music distribution and...
, who had turned the focus of the music from the community back towards the individual. Minor Threat fan Guy Picciotto
Guy Picciotto
Guy Picciotto is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist, musician, and producer from Washington, DC.He is most widely known for his role as the guitarist and vocalist of Fugazi, as well as Rites of Spring.-Rites of Spring & Early Projects:...
formed Rites of Spring
Rites of Spring
Rites of Spring was an American post-hardcore band from Washington, D.C. in the mid-1980s, known for their energetic live performances. A part of the D.C. hardcore punk scene, Rites of Spring increased the frenetic violence and visceral passion of hardcore while simultaneously experimenting with...
in 1984, breaking free of hardcore's self-imposed boundaries in favor of melodic guitars, varied rhythms, and deeply personal, impassioned lyrics. Many of the band's themes would become familiar tropes in later generations of emo music, including nostalgia, romantic bitterness, and poetic desperation. Their performances became public emotional purges where audience members would sometimes weep. MacKaye became a huge Rites of Spring fan, recording their only album and serving as their roadie on tour, and soon formed a new band of his own called Embrace which explored similar themes of self-searching and emotional release. Similar bands soon followed in connection with the "Revolution Summer" of 1985, a deliberate attempt by members of the Washington, D.C. scene to break from the rigid constraints of hardcore in favor of a renewed spirit of creativity. Bands such as Gray Matter
Gray Matter (band)
Gray Matter was a post-hardcore band from Washington, D.C., who played in the 1980s and '90s. They disbanded in 1986, but reformed in 1990.On September 12, 2008, the band reformed for a one off reunion show to celebrate the 15th Anniversary of the Black Cat, a night club in Washington DC,...
, Beefeater
Beefeater (band)
Beefeater was an American post-hardcore band from late 1984 until 1986. Formed by Tomas Squip, Fred "Freak" Smith, Dug E. Bird and Bruce Atchley Taylor, they were pioneers of the post-hardcore genre and the Revolution Summer which took place in the Washington D.C. hardcore in the mid-'80s with...
, Fire Party
Fire Party
Fire Party were an emotional hardcore band from Washington, D.C. They were together from the autumn of 1986 to the spring of 1990. The band members were Amy Pickering , Natalie Avery , Kate Samworth , and Nicky Thomas ....
, Dag Nasty
Dag Nasty
Dag Nasty was a Washington D.C. punk band formed in 1985 by guitarist Brian Baker of Minor Threat, drummer Colin Sears and bassist Roger Marbury, both of Bloody Mannequin Orchestra, and vocalist Shawn Brown...
, Lunchmeat
Soulside
Soulside were a post-hardcore band from the greater Washington, D.C. area. The original name of the band was Lunchmeat, formed in 1985. The name was changed to Soulside in spring 1986 and they disbanded in summer of 1989, after an extensive European tour and recording the definitive Hot Bodi-Gram...
, and Kingface were connected to this movement.
The exact origins of the term "emo" are uncertain, but date back to at least 1985. According to Andy Greenwald
Andy Greenwald
Andy Greenwald is a writer of social commentary, specifically about popular music. He is currently a senior contributing writer at Spin Magazine, and has also written for such publications as The Washington Post, Blender, Entertainment Weekly, The Village Voice, MTV Magazine, Complex, and Magnet...
, author of Nothing Feels Good: Punk Rock, Teenagers, and Emo, "The origins of the term 'emo' are shrouded in mystery [...] but it first came into common practice in 1985. If Minor Threat was hardcore, then Rites of Spring, with its altered focus, was emotional hardcore or emocore." Michael Azerrad
Michael Azerrad
Michael Azerrad is an American author, journalist and musician. He grew up in the New York City area and received his BA degree from Columbia College in 1983...
, author of Our Band Could Be Your Life
Our Band Could Be Your Life
Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981-1991 is a book by Michael Azerrad. It chronicles the careers of several underground rock bands who, while finding little or no mainstream success, were hugely influential in establishing American alternative and indie...
, also traces the word's origins to this time:
"The style was soon dubbed 'emo-core,' a term everyone involved bitterly detested, although the term and the approach thrived for at least another fifteen years, spawning countless bands." MacKaye also traces it to 1985, attributing it to an article in Thrasher magazine referring to Embrace and other Washington, D.C. bands as "emo-core", which he called "the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life." Other accounts attribute the term to an audience member at an Embrace show, who yelled that the band was "emocore" as an insult. Others contend that MacKaye coined the term when he used it self-mockingly in a magazine, or that it originated with Rites of Spring. The Oxford English Dictionary
Oxford English Dictionary
The Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press, is the self-styled premier dictionary of the English language. Two fully bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989. The first edition was published in twelve volumes , and...
, however, dates the earliest usage of "emo-core" to 1992 and "emo" to 1993, with "emo" first appearing in print media in New Musical Express in 1995.
The "emocore" label quickly spread around the Washington, D.C. punk scene and became attached to many of the bands associated with MacKaye's Dischord Records
Dischord Records
Dischord Records is a Washington, D.C.-based independent record label specializing in the independent punk music of the D.C.-area music scene. The label is co-owned by Ian MacKaye and Jeff Nelson, who founded Dischord in 1980 to release Minor Disturbance by The Teen Idles...
label. Although many of these bands simultaneously rejected the term, it stuck nonetheless. Scene veteran Jenny Toomey
Jenny Toomey
Jenny Toomey is an American indie rock musician and arts activist from Chevy Chase, Maryland, and later, Washington, D.C. She was a member of the bands Geek, Tsunami, Liquorice, Grenadine, So Low and Choke, among others, and has also recorded under her own name...
has recalled that "The only people who used it at first were the ones that were jealous over how big and fanatical a scene it was. [Rites of Spring] existed well before the term did and they hated it. But there was this weird moment, like when people started calling music 'grunge
Grunge
Grunge is a subgenre of alternative rock that emerged during the mid-1980s in the American state of Washington, particularly in the Seattle area. Inspired by hardcore punk, heavy metal, and indie rock, grunge is generally characterized by heavily distorted electric guitars, contrasting song...
,' where you were using the term even though you hated it."
The Washington, D.C. emo scene lasted only a few years. By 1986 most of the major bands of the movement—including Rites of Spring, Embrace, Gray Matter, and Beefeater—had broken up. Even so, the ideas and aesthetics originating from the scene spread quickly across the country via a network of homemade zine
Zine
A zine is most commonly a small circulation publication of original or appropriated texts and images. More broadly, the term encompasses any self-published work of minority interest usually reproduced via photocopier....
s, vinyl records, and hearsay. According to Greenwald, the Washington, D.C. scene laid the groundwork for all subsequent incarnations of emo:
What had happened in D.C. in the mid-eighties—the shift from anger to action, from extroverted rage to internal turmoil, from an individualized mass to a mass of individuals—was in many ways a test case for the transformation of the national punk scene over the next two decades. The imagery, the power of the music, the way people responded to it, and the way the bands burned out instead of fading away—all have their origins in those first few performances by Rites of Spring. The roots of emo were laid, however unintentionally, by fifty or so people in the nation's capital. And in some ways, it was never as good and surely never as pure again. Certainly, the Washington scene was the only time "emocore" had any consensus definition as a genre.
MacKaye and Piccioto, along with Rites of Spring drummer Brendan Canty
Brendan Canty
Brendan Canty is an American musician, composer, producer and film maker, best known as the drummer for the band Fugazi....
, went on to form the highly influential Fugazi who, despite sometimes being connected with the term "emo", are not commonly recognized as an emo band.
Reinvention: early 1990s
As the ideals of the Washington, D.C. emo movement spread across the United States, many bands in numerous local scenes began to emulate the sound as a way to marry the intensity of hardcore with the complex emotions associated with growing older. The style combined the fatalism, theatricality, and outsiderness of The SmithsThe Smiths
The Smiths were an English alternative rock band, formed in Manchester in 1982. Based on the song writing partnership of Morrissey and Johnny Marr , the band also included Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce...
with the uncompromising and dramatic worldview of hardcore. Although the bands were numerous and the locales varied, the aesthetics of emocore in the late 1980s remained more or less the same: "over-the-top lyrics about feelings wedded to dramatic but decidedly punk music." However, in the early 1990s, several new bands reinvented the emo style and carried its core characteristic, the intimacy between bands and fans, into the new decade. Chief among these were Jawbreaker
Jawbreaker (band)
Jawbreaker was an American punk rock band active from 1986 to 1996 and considered one of the most influential acts of the early-1990s emo movement...
and Sunny Day Real Estate
Sunny Day Real Estate
Sunny Day Real Estate is an American rock band from Seattle, Washington. In the 1990s, the group expanded upon the grunge style that was popular in the local scene to make a more melodic sound. While not the first band to be classified as emo, they were instrumental in establishing the genre. In...
, both of whom fostered cult followings, recontextualized the word "emo", and brought it a step closer to the mainstream. According to Andy Greenwald:
Sunny Day Real Estate was emo's head and Jawbreaker its busted gut—the two overlapped in the heart, then broke up before they made it big. Each had a lasting impact on the world of independent music. The bands shared little else but fans, and yet somehow the combination of the two lays down a fairly effective blueprint for everything that was labeled emo for the next decade.
In the wake of the 1991 success of Nirvana
Nirvana (band)
Nirvana was an American rock band that was formed by singer/guitarist Kurt Cobain and bassist Krist Novoselic in Aberdeen, Washington in 1987...
's Nevermind
Nevermind
Nevermind is the second studio album by the American rock band Nirvana, released on September 24, 1991. Produced by Butch Vig, Nevermind was the group's first release on DGC Records...
, underground music and subcultures in the United States became big business. New distribution networks emerged, touring routes were codified, and regional and independent acts were able to access the national stage. Teenagers across the country declared themselves fans of independent music, and being punk became mainstream. In this new musical climate, the aesthetics of emo expanded into the mainstream and altered the way the music was perceived: "Punk rock no-nos like the cult of personality
Cult of personality
A cult of personality arises when an individual uses mass media, propaganda, or other methods, to create an idealized and heroic public image, often through unquestioning flattery and praise. Cults of personality are usually associated with dictatorships...
and artistic abstraction suddenly become de rigueur", says Greenwald. "If one definition of emo has always been music that felt like a secret, Jawbreaker and Sunny Day Real Estate were cast in the rolls of the biggest gossips of all, reigning as the largest influences on every emo band that came after them."
Jawbreaker has been referred to as "the Rosetta Stone
Rosetta Stone
The Rosetta Stone is an ancient Egyptian granodiorite stele inscribed with a decree issued at Memphis in 196 BC on behalf of King Ptolemy V. The decree appears in three scripts: the upper text is Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, the middle portion Demotic script, and the lowest Ancient Greek...
of contemporary emo". Emerging from the San Francisco punk rock scene of the late 1980s and early 1990s, their songwriting combined the heft of hardcore with pop punk
Pop punk
Pop punk is a fusion music genre that combines elements of punk rock with pop music, to varying degrees. Allmusic describes the genre as a strand of alternative rock, which typically merges pop melodies with speedy punk tempos, chord changes and loud guitars...
sensibilities and the tortured artistry of mid-1980s emocore. Singer/guitarist Blake Schwarzenbach
Blake Schwarzenbach
Alexander Blake Schwarzenbach is an American musician. He was the singer and left-handed guitarist of Jawbreaker , Jets to Brazil , The Thorns of Life , and forgetters -Education:...
focused his lyrics on topics that were personal, immediate, and lived, often lifting them directly from his journal. Though they were often obscure and cloaked in metaphor
Metaphor
A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...
s, their specificity to Schwarzenbach's own concerns gave the words a bitterness and frustration that made them universal and magnetic to audiences. Schwarzenbach became emo's first idol as listeners related to the singer more than the songs themselves. Jawbreaker's 1994 album 24 Hour Revenge Therapy became their most-loved amongst fans and is a touchstone of mid-1990s emo. The band signed to major label Geffen Records
Geffen Records
Geffen Records is an American record label, owned by Universal Music Group, and operated as one third of UMG's Interscope-Geffen-A&M label group.-Beginnings:...
and toured with Nirvana and Green Day
Green Day
Green Day is an American punk rock band formed in 1987. The band consists of lead vocalist and guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong, bassist and backing vocalist Mike Dirnt, and drummer Tre Cool...
, but their 1995 album Dear You
Dear You
Dear You is Jawbreaker's only major label album. Released on September 12, 1995 through DGC Records, it is their fourth and final full-length studio album....
sold poorly and they broke up soon after, with Schwarzenbach later forming Jets to Brazil
Jets to Brazil
Jets to Brazil was an American rock band formed in 1997. It was founded by Blake Schwarzenbach, former frontman of Jawbreaker. When Schwarzenbach relocated to Brooklyn, New York, after Jawbreaker had disbanded, he reunited with friend Jeremy Chatelain and the two began working on four-track...
. Their influence lived on, however, through later successful emo and pop punk bands openly indebted to Jawbreaker's sound.
Sunny Day Real Estate formed in Seattle during the height of the early-1990s grunge
Grunge
Grunge is a subgenre of alternative rock that emerged during the mid-1980s in the American state of Washington, particularly in the Seattle area. Inspired by hardcore punk, heavy metal, and indie rock, grunge is generally characterized by heavily distorted electric guitars, contrasting song...
boom. In contrast to Jawbreaker, its members were accomplished musicians with high-quality gear, lofty musical ambitions, intricate songwriting, and a sweeping, epic sound. Frontman Jeremy Enigk
Jeremy Enigk
Jeremy Enigk is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist known for being the front man of the Seattle band Sunny Day Real Estate.-Biography:...
sang desperately, in a falsetto
Falsetto
Falsetto is the vocal register occupying the frequency range just above the modal voice register and overlapping with it by approximately one octave. It is produced by the vibration of the ligamentous edges of the vocal folds, in whole or in part...
register, about losing himself and subsuming himself in something greater, often using haphazard lyrics and made-up words. The band's debut album Diary (1994) was over-the-top and romantic, and the music video
Music video
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...
for "Seven" received airplay on MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
. The band's ambitious sound challenged other bands to reach further with their own music in sentiment, instrumentation, and metaphor, and represented a generational shift between grunge and emo. Other emo-leaning punk bands soon followed suit, and the word "emo" began to shift from being vague and undefined to referring to a specific type of emotionally overbearing music that was romantic but distanced from the political nature of punk rock. Sunny Day Real Estate fell apart after Diary, as Enigk became a born-again Christian and launched a solo career while the other members drifted into new projects such as the Foo Fighters
Foo Fighters
Foo Fighters is an American alternative rock band originally formed in 1994 by Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl as a one-man project following the dissolution of his previous band. The band got its name from the UFOs and various aerial phenomena that were reported by Allied aircraft pilots in World War...
. They released three more albums through a series of breakups and occasional reunions, but are remembered primarily for the promise of their debut and the shift it engendered in the tastes of underground rock fans.
Underground popularity: mid 1990s
In the mid-1990s the American punkPunk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
and indie rock
Indie rock
Indie rock is a genre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom and the United States in the 1980s. Indie rock is extremely diverse, with sub-genres that include lo-fi, post-rock, math rock, indie pop, dream pop, noise rock, space rock, sadcore, riot grrrl and emo, among others...
movements, which had been largely underground since the early 1980s, became part of mainstream culture. After Nirvana
Nirvana (band)
Nirvana was an American rock band that was formed by singer/guitarist Kurt Cobain and bassist Krist Novoselic in Aberdeen, Washington in 1987...
's success, major record labels capitalized on the popularity of alternative rock
Alternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
and other underground music by signing numerous independent bands and spending large amounts of capital promoting them. In 1994, the same year that Jawbreaker's 24 Hour Revenge Therapy and Sunny Day Real Estate's Diary were released, pop punk
Pop punk
Pop punk is a fusion music genre that combines elements of punk rock with pop music, to varying degrees. Allmusic describes the genre as a strand of alternative rock, which typically merges pop melodies with speedy punk tempos, chord changes and loud guitars...
acts Green Day
Green Day
Green Day is an American punk rock band formed in 1987. The band consists of lead vocalist and guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong, bassist and backing vocalist Mike Dirnt, and drummer Tre Cool...
and The Offspring
The Offspring
The Offspring is an American punk rock band from Huntington Beach, California, formed in 1984. Known as Manic Subsidal until 1986, the band consists of lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Dexter Holland, lead guitarist Kevin "Noodles" Wasserman, bassist Greg K. and drummer Pete Parada...
had mutiplatinum successes with their respective albums Dookie
Dookie
Dookie is the third studio album by the American punk rock band Green Day. It was released on February 1, 1994 through Reprise Records. It was the band's first collaboration with producer Rob Cavallo and its major record label debut. Dookie became a worldwide commercial success, peaking at number...
and Smash. In the wake of the underground going mainstream, over the next several years emo as a genre retreated, reformed, and morphed into a national subculture, then eventually something more. Drawing inspiration from bands like Jawbreaker, Drive Like Jehu
Drive Like Jehu
Drive Like Jehu was an American post-hardcore and alternative rock band from San Diego active from 1990 to 1995. Formed by rhythm guitarist and vocalist Rick Froberg and lead guitarist John Reis following the breakup of their band Pitchfork, the band's lineup also included bassist Mike Kennedy and...
, and Fugazi, the new sound of emo was a mixture of hardcore
Hardcore punk
Hardcore punk is an underground music genre that originated in the late 1970s, following the mainstream success of punk rock. Hardcore is generally faster, thicker, and heavier than earlier punk rock. The origin of the term "hardcore punk" is uncertain. The Vancouver-based band D.O.A...
's passion and indie rock's intelligence, bearing the anthemic power of punk rock and its do-it-yourself
Do it yourself
Do it yourself is a term used to describe building, modifying, or repairing of something without the aid of experts or professionals...
work ethic but with smoother songs, sloppier melodies, and yearning vocals. Many of the new emo bands originated from the Midwestern
Midwestern United States
The Midwestern United States is one of the four U.S. geographic regions defined by the United States Census Bureau, providing an official definition of the American Midwest....
and Central United States
Central United States
The Central United States is sometimes conceived as between the Eastern United States and Western United States as part of a three-region model, roughly coincident with the Midwestern United States plus the western and central portions of the Southern United States; the term is also sometimes used...
, such as Braid
Braid (band)
Braid is an influential emo/post-hardcore band from Illinois that formed in 1993. After forming, the band went through several line-up changes but eventually settled on: Bob Nanna on guitar/vocals, Todd Bell on bass, Chris Broach on guitar/vocals and, Roy Ewing on drums. Roy was replaced in 1997 by...
from Champaign
Champaign, Illinois
Champaign is a city in Champaign County, Illinois, in the United States. The city is located south of Chicago, west of Indianapolis, Indiana, and 178 miles northeast of St. Louis, Missouri. Though surrounded by farm communities, Champaign is notable for sharing the campus of the University of...
-Urbana, Illinois
Urbana, Illinois
Urbana is the county seat of Champaign County, Illinois, United States. As of the 2010 census, the population was 41,250. Urbana is the tenth-most populous city in Illinois outside of the Chicago metropolitan area....
, Christie Front Drive
Christie Front Drive
Christie Front Drive was an American Emo/Indie band formed in Denver in 1993. Citing influences such as Superchunk, Jawbox, Buffalo Tom and Drive Like Jehu, the lineup consisted of Ron Marschall , Jason Begin , Kerry McDonald and Eric Richter .-History:The band released a self-titled EP and a 7"...
from Denver, Colorado
Colorado
Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...
, Mineral
Mineral (band)
Mineral was a prominent mid-90s emo band originally from Houston, Texas, but soon relocated to Austin following their formation. All four members of Mineral were signed to Interscope Records on individual contracts...
from Austin, Texas
Austin, Texas
Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in...
, Jimmy Eat World
Jimmy Eat World
Jimmy Eat World is an American alternative rock band from Mesa, Arizona, that formed in 1993. The band is composed of lead vocalist and guitarist Jim Adkins, guitarist and backing vocalist Tom Linton, bassist Rick Burch and drummer Zach Lind....
from Mesa, Arizona
Mesa, Arizona
According to the 2010 Census, the racial composition of Mesa was as follows:* White: 77.1% * Hispanic or Latino : 26.54%* Black or African American: 3.5%* Two or more races: 3.4%* Native American: 2.4%...
, The Get Up Kids
The Get Up Kids
The Get Up Kids are an American alternative rock band from Kansas City, Missouri. Formed in 1995, the band was a major player in the mid-90's emo scene, otherwise known as the "second wave" of emo music...
from Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...
, and The Promise Ring
The Promise Ring
The Promise Ring is an American emo band from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In their early years, their music was usually classified as emo, but their later albums could be described more accurately as indie pop. They split up in 2002 and temporarily reunited in 2005...
from Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Wisconsin
Wisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...
. According to Andy Greenwald
Andy Greenwald
Andy Greenwald is a writer of social commentary, specifically about popular music. He is currently a senior contributing writer at Spin Magazine, and has also written for such publications as The Washington Post, Blender, Entertainment Weekly, The Village Voice, MTV Magazine, Complex, and Magnet...
, "This was the period when emo earned many, if not all, of the stereotypes that have lasted to this day: boy-driven, glasses-wearing, overly sensitive, overly brainy, chiming-guitar-driven college music."
On the east coast, New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
-based Texas Is the Reason
Texas Is the Reason
Texas Is the Reason was an American post-hardcore band founded by former Shelter guitarist Norm Arenas and 108 drummer Chris Daly in 1994. They disbanded in 1997...
bridged the gap between indie rock and emo in their brief three-year lifespan by melding the melodies of Sunny Day Real Estate to churning punk musicianship and singing directly to the listener. In New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
, Lifetime
Lifetime (band)
Lifetime is an American melodic hardcore/emo band from New Jersey. Lifetime was formed in 1990 and disbanded in 1997. In late 2005, they announced their reunion.-History:...
gained a reputation as a melodic hardcore
Melodic hardcore
Melodic hardcore is a subgenre of hardcore punk with a strong emphasis on vocal melody. The genre is commonly defined with fast hardcore drum beats, complex guitar riffs and melodic singing with occasional screaming and shouting.-History:...
act, playing shows in fans' basements. Their 1995 album Hello Bastards
Hello Bastards
Hello Bastards is the second full length album by melodic hardcore band Lifetime. It was recorded at Trax East Studio in New Jersey during May and June of 1995 and was released by Jade Tree Records on September 25, 1995. On February 20, 2010 No Idea Records re-released the album on 12" color vinyl...
on rising independent label Jade Tree Records
Jade Tree Records
Jade Tree International, Inc. was an independent record label formed by Darren Walters and Tim Owen in August 1991, out of Wilmington, Delaware....
fused hardcore with emo's tunefulness, turning its back on cynicism and irony in favor of love songs. The album sold tens of thousands of copies and the band inspired a number of later New Jersey and Long Island
Long Island
Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...
emo acts such as Brand New
Brand New
Brand New is an American rock band from Long Island, New York. Formed in 2000, the band currently consists of vocalist/guitarist/lyricist Jesse Lacey, guitarist/vocalist/lyricist Vincent Accardi, bassist Garrett Tierney, drummer Brian Lane, and guitarist/keyboardist Derrick Sherman.In the late...
, Glassjaw
Glassjaw
Glassjaw is a four-piece rock band from Long Island, New York. The band is fronted by vocalist Daryl Palumbo and guitarist Justin Beck, and have undergone numerous line-up changes since their inception...
, Midtown
Midtown (band)
Midtown was an American pop punk band from Springfield, New Jersey. Midtown was formed in November 1998 by three Rutgers University students, but soon became a quartet. The band took advantage of the fertile New Jersey punk scene to develop a sound that combined elements of pop punk and punk rock...
, The Movielife
The Movielife
The Movielife was a Long Island Melodic hardcore band, composed of vocalist Vinnie Caruana, bassist Phil Navetta, guitarist Brandon Reilly, drummer Evan Baken, and guitarist Alex Amiruddin, until 2001 when Alex Amiruddin left and was replaced by Dan Navetta....
, My Chemical Romance
My Chemical Romance
My Chemical Romance is an American alternative rock band from New Jersey, formed in 2001. The band consists of lead vocalist Gerard Way, guitarists Ray Toro and Frank Iero, and bassist Mikey Way and have a diverse sound incorporating elements of punk, emo, glam metal, and progressive rock...
, Saves the Day
Saves the Day
Saves the Day is an American rock band from Princeton, New Jersey, formed in 1994. The band consists of lead vocalist and guitarist Chris Conley, guitarist Arun Bali, bassist Rodrigo Palma, and drummer Claudio Rivera....
, Senses Fail
Senses Fail
Senses Fail is an American post-hardcore band from Ridgewood, New Jersey. Formed in 2002, the line up initially consisted of vocalist Buddy Nielsen, drummer Dan Trapp, guitarists Dave Miller and Garrett Zablocki and being completed by bassist Mike Glita. The band quickly issued their debut EP, From...
, Taking Back Sunday
Taking Back Sunday
Taking Back Sunday is a rock band from Long Island, NY, formed in 1999 by guitarist Eddie Reyes. Current members of the band are Adam Lazzara , John Nolan , Eddie Reyes , Shaun Cooper and Mark O'Connell ....
, and Thursday
Thursday (band)
Thursday were an American rock band from New Brunswick, New Jersey. Formed in 1997, the group has released six full-length albums, their most recent being No Devolución, which was released in April 2011 on Epitaph Records...
.
The Promise Ring were one of the premier bands of the new emo style. Their music took a slower, smoother, pop punk approach to hardcore riffs, blending them with singer Davey von Bohlen
Davey von Bohlen
Davey von Bohlen is an American musician and songwriter, best known for his roles as guitarist and vocalist in Cap'n Jazz, The Promise Ring, Vermont, and currently, Maritime...
's goofy, picturesque lyrics delivered with a froggy croon and pronounced lisp
Lisp
A lisp is a speech impediment, historically also known as sigmatism. Stereotypically, people with a lisp are unable to pronounce sibilants , and replace them with interdentals , though there are actually several kinds of lisp...
, and they played shows in basements and VFW
Veterans of Foreign Wars
The Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States is a congressionally chartered war veterans organization in the United States. Headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri, VFW currently has 1.5 million members belonging to 7,644 posts, and is the largest American organization of combat...
halls Jade Tree released their debut 30° Everywhere
30° Everywhere
-Personnel:*Davey von Bohlen – vocals, guitar*Jason Gnewikow – guitar*Scott Beschta – bass guitar*Dan Didier – drums*Rachel Dietkus – violin on tracks 9 & 12*Casey Rice - engineer*Tim Owen & Scott Beschta – photography...
in 1996 and it sold tens of thousands of copies, a blockbuster by independent standards. Greenwald describes the effect of the album as "like being hit in the head with cotton candy." Other bands such as Karate
Karate (band)
Karate was an American band, formed in Boston, Massachusetts in 1993 by Geoff Farina, Eamonn Vitt and Gavin McCarthy. In 1995, Jeff Goddard joined the band as bass player, and Vitt moved to second guitar...
, The Van Pelt
The Van Pelt
The Van Pelt is an American Indie band, who formed in 1993 at New York University. The band released two albums, Stealing From Our Favorite Thieves and Sultans Of Sentiment, on Gern Blandsten Records in 1996 and 1997 respectively...
, Joan of Arc
Joan of Arc (band)
Joan of Arc are an American indie rock band from Chicago, Illinois. They formed in 1995, following the breakup of Cap'n Jazz.Singer Tim Kinsella has been the only permanent member of the group; he has also recorded as a solo artist....
, and The Shyness Clinic incorporated elements of post-rock
Post-rock
Post-rock is a subgenre of rock music characterized by the influence and use of instruments commonly associated with rock, but using rhythms and "guitars as facilitators of timbre and textures" not traditionally found in rock...
and noise rock
Noise rock
Noise rock describes a style of post-punk rock music that became prominent in the 1980s. Noise rock makes use of the traditional instrumentation and iconography of rock, but incorporates atonality and especially dissonance, and also frequently discards usual songwriting conventions.-Style:Noise...
into the emo sound. The common lyrical thread between these bands was "applying big questions to small scenarios."
A cornerstone of mid-1990s emo was Weezer
Weezer
Weezer is an American alternative rock band. The band currently consists of Rivers Cuomo , Patrick Wilson , Brian Bell , and Scott Shriner . The band has changed lineups three times since its formation in 1992...
's 1996 album Pinkerton
Pinkerton (album)
Pinkerton is the second studio album by American alternative rock band Weezer, released on September 24, 1996. After finishing tours in promotion of their 1994 album Weezer, the band originally planned to record a space-themed rock opera entitled Songs from the Black Hole...
. Following the success of their mutiplatinum debut, Pinkerton turned from their power pop
Power pop
Power pop is a popular musical genre that draws its inspiration from 1960s British and American pop and rock music. It typically incorporates a combination of musical devices such as strong melodies, crisp vocal harmonies, economical arrangements, and prominent guitar riffs. Instrumental solos are...
sound to a much darker, more abrasive character. Frontman Rivers Cuomo
Rivers Cuomo
Rivers Cuomo is an American musician, best known as the lead singer, lead guitarist, and principal songwriter of the alternative rock band Weezer. Raised in an Ashram in Connecticut, Cuomo moved to Los Angeles at age 19, where he participated in a number of rock bands before founding Weezer in 1992...
's songs were obsessed with messy, manipulative sex and his own insecurities of dealing with celebrity. A critical and commercial failure, it was ranked by Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
as the second-worst album of the year. Cuomo retreated from the public eye, later referring to the album as "hideous" and "a hugely painful mistake". However, Pinkerton found enduring appeal with teenagers just discovering alternative rock
Alternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
, who were drawn to its confessional lyrics and themes of rejection and came to believe that it was directed at them. Sales grew steadily as word of the album passed between fans, over online messageboards, and via Napster
Napster
Napster is an online music store and a Best Buy company. It was originally founded as a pioneering peer-to-peer file sharing Internet service that emphasized sharing audio files that were typically digitally encoded music as MP3 format files...
. "Although no one was paying attention", says Greenwald, "perhaps because no one was paying attention—Pinkerton became the most important emo album of the decade." When Weezer returned in 2000, however, they did so with a decidedly pop
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
sound. Cuomo refused to play songs from Pinkerton, dismissing it as "ugly" and "embarrassing". Nevertheless, the album held its appeal and eventually achieved both high sales and critical praise, and is noted for introducing emo to larger and more mainstream audiences.
The emo aesthetic of the mid-1990s was embodied in Mineral, whose albums The Power of Failing
The Power of Failing
The Power of Failing is the first studio album from the emo band Mineral. The Power of Failing was released on both LP and CD format.-Track listing:# "Five, Eight and Ten" - 5:26# "Gloria" - 3:42# "Slower" - 5:47# "Dolorosa" - 5:10# "80-37" - 4:33...
(1997) and EndSerenading (1998) encapsulated the emo tropes of somber music accompanied by a shy narrator singing seriously about mundane problems. Greenwald calls their song "If I Could" "the ultimate expression of mid-nineties emo. The song's short synopsis—she is beautiful, I am weak, dumb, and shy; I am alone but am surprisingly poetic when left alone—sums up everything that emo's adherents admired and its detractors detested." Another significant band of the era was Braid, whose 1998 album Frame and Canvas
Frame and Canvas
Frame and Canvas is an album released by Braid in 1998 on Polyvinyl.-Track listing:# "The New Nathan Detroits" – 4:18# "Killing a Camera" – 2:34# "Never Will Come For Us" – 3:31# "First Day Back" – 3:22# "Collect From Clark Kent" – 3:26...
and B-side
A-side and B-side
A-side and B-side originally referred to the two sides of gramophone records on which singles were released beginning in the 1950s. The terms have come to refer to the types of song conventionally placed on each side of the record, with the A-side being the featured song , while the B-side, or...
song "Forever Got Shorter" blurred the lines between band and listener, as the group was a mirror-image of its own audience in passion and sentiment and sang in the voice of their fans.
Though the emo style of the mid-1990s had thousands of young fans, it never broke into the national consciousness. A few bands were offered contracts with major record labels, but most broke up before they could capitalize on the opportunity. Jimmy Eat World signed to Capitol Records
Capitol Records
Capitol Records is a major United States based record label, formerly located in Los Angeles, but operating in New York City as part of Capitol Music Group. Its former headquarters building, the Capitol Tower, is a major landmark near the corner of Hollywood and Vine...
in 1995 and built a following among the emo community with their album Static Prevails
Static Prevails
Static Prevails is the second album by Jimmy Eat World. It was released on July 23, 1996. Along with Clarity, the album was re-released in 2007 in remastered form with bonus tracks...
, but did not break into the mainstream despite their major-label association as their music was mostly lost amongst the popular ska
Ska
Ska |Jamaican]] ) is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1950s, and was the precursor to rocksteady and reggae. Ska combined elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues...
movement of the period. The Promise Ring were the most commercially successful emo band of the time, with sales of their 1997 album Nothing Feels Good
Nothing Feels Good
-Personnel:*Davey von Bohlen – vocals, guitar*Jason Gnewikow – guitar*Scott Beschta – bass guitar*Dan Didier – drums...
topping out in the mid-five figures. Greenwald calls the album "the pinnacle of its generation of emo: a convergence of pop and punk, of resignation and celebration, of the lure of girlfriends and the pull of friends, bandmates, and the road." He refers to mid-1990s emo as "the last subculture made of vinyl and paper instead of plastic and megabytes."
Independent success: late 1990s and early 2000s
Beginning in the late 1990s emo had a surge of popularity in the realm of independent music, as a number of notable acts and record labels experienced successes that would lay the foundation for the style's later mainstream breakthrough. As emo gained a larger fanbase the music business began see its marketing potential, and as big business entered the picture many of the acts previously associated with the term intentionally distanced themselves from it:
As the '90s wore to a close, the music that was being labeled emo was making a connection with a larger and larger group of people. the aspects of it that were the most contagious—the sensitivity, hooks, and average-guy appeal—were also the easiest to latch onto, replicate, and mass market. As with any phenomenon—exactly like what happened with Sunny Day [Real Estate]—when business enters into a high-stakes, highly personal sphere, things tend to go awry very quickly [...] As fans threatened to storm the emo bandwagon, the groups couldn't jump off of it fast enough. The popularity and bankability of the word—if not the music—transformed an affiliation with the mid-nineties version of emo into an albatross.
In 1997 Deep Elm Records
Deep Elm Records
Deep Elm Records is an independent record label putting out albums by bands such as The Appleseed Cast, Brandtson, The White Octave, and Planes Mistaken for Stars...
launched a series of compilation album
Compilation album
A compilation album is an album featuring tracks from one or more performers, often culled from a variety of sources The tracks are usually collected according to a common characteristic, such as popularity, genre, source or subject matter...
s entitled The Emo Diaries
The Emo Diaries
The Emo Diaries is a series of twelve compilation albums released by Deep Elm Records between 1997 and 2011. The series had an open submissions policy and featured mostly acts that were unsigned at the time of the albums' releases...
, which continued until 2007 with eleven installments. Featuring mostly unreleased music from unsigned bands, the series included acts such as Jimmy Eat World
Jimmy Eat World
Jimmy Eat World is an American alternative rock band from Mesa, Arizona, that formed in 1993. The band is composed of lead vocalist and guitarist Jim Adkins, guitarist and backing vocalist Tom Linton, bassist Rick Burch and drummer Zach Lind....
, Further Seems Forever
Further Seems Forever
Further Seems Forever is an American rock band formed in 1998 in Pompano Beach, Florida and disbanded in 2006. Over the course of their career the band experienced several lineup changes, resulting in a different lead vocalist performing on each of their three studio albums...
, Samiam
Samiam
-Biography:Samiam was formed in late 1988 after the breakup of the Gilman club mainstay Isocracy. Their first show was in January 1989 with Christ on Parade. They released records through New Red Archives and Hopeless Records in the US and Burning Heart Records in Europe. In the mid-'90s, the band...
, and The Movielife
The Movielife
The Movielife was a Long Island Melodic hardcore band, composed of vocalist Vinnie Caruana, bassist Phil Navetta, guitarist Brandon Reilly, drummer Evan Baken, and guitarist Alex Amiruddin, until 2001 when Alex Amiruddin left and was replaced by Dan Navetta....
. The diversity of bands and musical styles made the case for emo as more of a shared aesthetic than a genre, and the series helped to codify the term "emo" and spread it throughout the community of underground music.
Jimmy Eat World's 1999 album Clarity
Clarity (Jimmy Eat World album)
Clarity is the third studio album by American rock band Jimmy Eat World, released on February 23, 1999 through Capitol Records. Overlooked upon its release, Clarity has since amassed cult status and critical acclaim, often lauded as one of the best records of the 1990s...
was one of the most significant emo albums of the late 1990s and became a touchstone for later emo bands. Writing in 2003, Andy Greenwald
Andy Greenwald
Andy Greenwald is a writer of social commentary, specifically about popular music. He is currently a senior contributing writer at Spin Magazine, and has also written for such publications as The Washington Post, Blender, Entertainment Weekly, The Village Voice, MTV Magazine, Complex, and Magnet...
called it "one of the most fiercely beloved rock 'n' roll records of the last decade. It is name-checked by every single contemporary emo band as their favorite album, as a mind-bending milemarker that proved that punk rock could be tuneful, emotional, wide-ranging, and ambitious." However, despite warm critical reception and promotion of the single "Lucky Denver Mint" in the Drew Barrymore
Drew Barrymore
Drew Blyth Barrymore is an American actress, film director, screenwriter, producer and model. She is a member of the Barrymore family of American actors and granddaughter of John Barrymore. She first appeared in an advertisement when she was 11 months old. Barrymore made her film debut in Altered...
comedy film Never Been Kissed
Never Been Kissed
Never Been Kissed is a 1999 comedy film directed by Raja Gosnell and starring Drew Barrymore, David Arquette, Michael Vartan, Molly Shannon, Leelee Sobieski, John C. Reilly, Jessica Alba, Marley Shelton, James Franco , Giuseppe Andrews, Jeremy Jordan and Garry Marshall...
, Clarity was commercially unsuccessful in a musical climate dominated by teen pop, and the band left major label Capitol Records
Capitol Records
Capitol Records is a major United States based record label, formerly located in Los Angeles, but operating in New York City as part of Capitol Music Group. Its former headquarters building, the Capitol Tower, is a major landmark near the corner of Hollywood and Vine...
the following year. Nevertheless, the album gained steady popularity via word-of-mouth and was treasured by fans, eventually selling over 70,000 copies. Jimmy Eat World self-financed the recording of their next album Bleed American
Bleed American
-Personnel:Jimmy Eat World*Jim Adkins – vocals, guitar, percussion, bass guitar on "Your House", piano, organ on "My Sundown", bells, art direction*Rick Burch – bass guitar, vocals*Zach Lind – drums, percussion on "Your House" and "My Sundown"...
(2001) before signing to Dreamworks Records
DreamWorks Records
DreamWorks Records was an American record label. Founded in 1996 by David Geffen, Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg as a subsidiary of DreamWorks SKG, the label operated until 2005 when it was shut down...
. The album sold 30,000 copies in its first week and went gold shortly after. In 2002 it went platinum as emo broke into the mainstream.
Drive-Thru Records
Drive-Thru Records
Drive-Thru Records, established in 1996, was a California-based record label owned by siblings Richard and Stefanie Reines. It has produced various pop punk bands, many with a distinct SoCal sound....
, founded in 1996, steadily built up a roster of primarily pop punk
Pop punk
Pop punk is a fusion music genre that combines elements of punk rock with pop music, to varying degrees. Allmusic describes the genre as a strand of alternative rock, which typically merges pop melodies with speedy punk tempos, chord changes and loud guitars...
bands with emo characteristics such as Midtown
Midtown (band)
Midtown was an American pop punk band from Springfield, New Jersey. Midtown was formed in November 1998 by three Rutgers University students, but soon became a quartet. The band took advantage of the fertile New Jersey punk scene to develop a sound that combined elements of pop punk and punk rock...
, The Starting Line
The Starting Line
The Starting Line is an American pop punk band based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania that formed in 1999.- Formation and history :In 1999, the band that would become The Starting Line was initiated in Churchville, Pennsylvania via an e-mail from guitarist Matt Watts to vocalist/bassist Kenny Vasoli...
, The Movielife, and Something Corporate
Something Corporate
Something Corporate is an American rock band from Orange County, California, formed in 1998. Their current line-up includes pianist and vocalist Andrew McMahon, guitarist Josh Partington, bassist Kevin Page and drummer Brian Ireland....
. Drive-Thru's partnership with major label MCA
MCA Records
MCA Records was an American-based record company owned by MCA Inc., which later gave way to the larger MCA Music Entertainment Group , of which MCA Records was still part. MCA Records was absorbed by Geffen Records in 2003...
enabled their brand of emo-inflected pop to reach wider audiences. The label's biggest early success was New Found Glory
New Found Glory
New Found Glory is an American rock band from Coral Springs, Florida. Formed in the summer of 1997, founding members were lead vocalist Jordan Pundik, guitarists Chad Gilbert and Steve Klein, bassist Ian Grushka and drummer Joe Marino...
, whose 2000 eponymous album
New Found Glory (album)
New Found Glory is the eponymously-titled second studio album by the American rock band of the same name. It was produced and mixed by Neal Avron and released on September 26, 2000 through Drive-Thru Records...
reached No. 107 on the Billboard 200
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
with the single "Hit or Miss" reaching No. 15 on Modern Rock Tracks. Drive-Thru's unabashedly populist and capitalist approach to music allowed its bands' albums and merchandise to sell heavily through popular outlets such as Hot Topic
Hot Topic
Hot Topic is an American retail chain specializing in music and pop culture-related clothing and accessories, as well as licensed music on CD. The majority of the stores are located in regional shopping malls. The first Hot Topic store was opened in 1988 by Orv Madden, who retired as CEO in 2000...
:
In a world where cars are advertised as punk, Green Day members are platinum rock stars, and getting pierced and tatted up is as natural as a sweet-sixteen party, everyone is free to come up with their own definition of punk—and everyone is ready to embrace it. Emo had always connected with young people—it had just never aggressively marketed itself to them.
Independent label Vagrant Records
Vagrant Records
Vagrant Records is an indie rock label based in Los Angeles, California and is home to such artists as The Hold Steady, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes, Active Child, PJ Harvey, Reptar, School of Seven Bells, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Thrice, James Vincent McMorrow, Placebo, and many...
was behind several successful emo acts of the late 1990s and early 2000s. The Get Up Kids
The Get Up Kids
The Get Up Kids are an American alternative rock band from Kansas City, Missouri. Formed in 1995, the band was a major player in the mid-90's emo scene, otherwise known as the "second wave" of emo music...
had sold over 15,000 copies of their debut album Four Minute Mile
Four Minute Mile
Four Minute Mile is the first full-length album released by Kansas City, Missouri emo band The Get Up Kids.-Recording:The album was recorded in April 1997 on a budget of $4,000. It was produced by Shellac bassist Bob Weston in Chicago over the course of two and a half days. It was released by...
(1997) before signing to Vagrant, who promoted the band aggressively and put them on tours opening for big-name acts like Green Day
Green Day
Green Day is an American punk rock band formed in 1987. The band consists of lead vocalist and guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong, bassist and backing vocalist Mike Dirnt, and drummer Tre Cool...
and Weezer
Weezer
Weezer is an American alternative rock band. The band currently consists of Rivers Cuomo , Patrick Wilson , Brian Bell , and Scott Shriner . The band has changed lineups three times since its formation in 1992...
. Their 1999 album Something to Write Home About
Something to Write Home About
Something to Write Home About is the second full-length studio album by American rock band The Get Up Kids, released on September 21, 1999. The album was produced by The Get Up Kids themselves, with co-producers Chad Blinman and Alex Brahl. Blinman also recorded and mixed the album, with Brahl...
was an independent success, reaching No. 31 on Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
's Top Heatseekers
Top Heatseekers
Top Heatseekers refers to either of two separate "Breaking and Entering" music charts issued weekly by Billboard Magazine: the Heatseekers Albums chart or the Heatseekers Songs chart. They were introduced by Billboard in 1993 with the purpose of highlighting the sales by new and developing musical...
chart. Vagrant signed and released albums by a number of other emo and emo-related acts over the next two years, including The Anniversary
The Anniversary
The Anniversary was an American band formed in Lawrence, Kansas in 1997 by Josh Berwanger, James David, Christian Jankowski, Adrianne Verhoeven and Justin Roelofs. The Anniversary was the solidification of a line-up that had been in flux for a year...
, Reggie and the Full Effect
Reggie and the Full Effect
Reggie and the Full Effect was a Kansas City indie rock band, the solo project for The Get Up Kids keyboardist James Dewees.-Early years, Greatest Hits 1984-1987, Promotional Copy and Under the Tray :...
, The New Amsterdams, Alkaline Trio
Alkaline Trio
Alkaline Trio is an American punk rock band that formed in McHenry, Illinois, in 1996. The band's line-up consists of Matt Skiba , Dan Andriano , and Derek Grant...
, Saves the Day
Saves the Day
Saves the Day is an American rock band from Princeton, New Jersey, formed in 1994. The band consists of lead vocalist and guitarist Chris Conley, guitarist Arun Bali, bassist Rodrigo Palma, and drummer Claudio Rivera....
, Dashboard Confessional
Dashboard Confessional
Dashboard Confessional is an American rock band from Boca Raton, Florida, led by singer-songwriter Chris Carrabba. The name of the band is derived from the song "The Sharp Hint of New Tears" from the debut album The Swiss Army Romance....
, Hey Mercedes
Hey Mercedes
Hey Mercedes was an emo band from Milwaukee, WI/Chicago, IL, USA, that formed in 1999/2000 after the dissolution of Braid. The band consisted of Bob Nanna on guitar and vocals, Todd Bell on bass and vocals, Mark Dawursk on guitar and vocals and Damon Atkinson on drums.Hey Mercedes' first release...
, and Hot Rod Circuit
Hot Rod Circuit
Hot Rod Circuit is an American emo band from New Haven, Connecticut established in 1997.-Early years:The band was originally known as Antidote under which they released the album Mr. Glenboski, which won the group the award of Best Unsigned Band of 1998 by Musician Magazine...
. Saves the Day had built a large following on the east coast and sold almost 50,000 copies of their second album Through Being Cool
Through Being Cool
Through Being Cool is the second album by Princeton, New Jersey-based rock band Saves the Day. It has a more melodic sound than their first release, Can't Slow Down, which was a more punk/hardcore driven record. The album was released one year after the band's first release even though they had...
(1999) before signing to Vagrant and releasing Stay What You Are
Stay What You Are
Stay What You Are is the third album release from Princeton, New Jersey, based rock band Saves the Day, released in 2001. Singles and videos from the album were "At Your Funeral" and "Freakish". At the time of the recording, Saves The Day consisted of Chris Conley, Dave Soloway, Ted Alexander, Eben...
(2001), which sold 15,000 copies in its first week, reached No. 100 on the Billboard 200, and went on to sell over 200,000 copies. In the summer of 2001 Vagrant organized a national tour featuring every band on the label, sponsored by corporations such as Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
and Coca-Cola
The Coca-Cola Company
The Coca-Cola Company is an American multinational beverage corporation and manufacturer, retailer and marketer of non-alcoholic beverage concentrates and syrups. The company is best known for its flagship product Coca-Cola, invented in 1886 by pharmacist John Stith Pemberton in Columbus, Georgia...
. This populist approach and the use of the internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
as a marketing tool helped Vagrant become one of the country's most successful independent labels and also helped to popularize the term "emo". According Greenwald, "More than any other event, it was Vagrant America that defined emo to masses—mainly because it had the gumption to hit the road and bring it to them."
Mainstream popularity: 2000s
Emo broke into the mainstream media in the summer of 2002 with a number of notable events: Jimmy Eat WorldJimmy Eat World
Jimmy Eat World is an American alternative rock band from Mesa, Arizona, that formed in 1993. The band is composed of lead vocalist and guitarist Jim Adkins, guitarist and backing vocalist Tom Linton, bassist Rick Burch and drummer Zach Lind....
's Bleed American
Bleed American
-Personnel:Jimmy Eat World*Jim Adkins – vocals, guitar, percussion, bass guitar on "Your House", piano, organ on "My Sundown", bells, art direction*Rick Burch – bass guitar, vocals*Zach Lind – drums, percussion on "Your House" and "My Sundown"...
album went platinum on the strength of "The Middle", which reached No. 1 on Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
's Modern Rock Tracks chart. Dashboard Confessional
Dashboard Confessional
Dashboard Confessional is an American rock band from Boca Raton, Florida, led by singer-songwriter Chris Carrabba. The name of the band is derived from the song "The Sharp Hint of New Tears" from the debut album The Swiss Army Romance....
reached No. 22 on the same chart with "Screaming Infidelities" from their Vagrant Records
Vagrant Records
Vagrant Records is an indie rock label based in Los Angeles, California and is home to such artists as The Hold Steady, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes, Active Child, PJ Harvey, Reptar, School of Seven Bells, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Thrice, James Vincent McMorrow, Placebo, and many...
debut The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most
The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most
The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most is the second studio album recorded by the American emo band Dashboard Confessional. The album, released on March 20, 2001, features ten songs, which are all written by the singer of Dashboard Confessional, Chris Carrabba...
, which was No. 5 on Independent Albums
Independent Albums
The Billboard Independent Albums is a chart of the highest-selling independent music albums and extended plays in the United States, compiled by Nielsen SoundScan and published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is used to list artists who are not signed to major labels...
, and became the first non-platinum-selling artist to record an episode of MTV Unplugged
MTV Unplugged
MTV Unplugged is a TV series showcasing many popular musical artists usually playing acoustic instruments. The show has received the George Foster Peabody Award and 3 Primetime Emmy nominations among many accolades.-Unplugged:...
(the resultant live album itself was a No. 1 Independent Album in 2003 and quickly went platinum). New Found Glory
New Found Glory
New Found Glory is an American rock band from Coral Springs, Florida. Formed in the summer of 1997, founding members were lead vocalist Jordan Pundik, guitarists Chad Gilbert and Steve Klein, bassist Ian Grushka and drummer Joe Marino...
's album Sticks and Stones
Sticks and Stones (New Found Glory album)
Sticks and Stones is the third studio album and major label debut by American rock band New Found Glory. As with its predesossor, their eponymously-titled second album, it was again produced by Neal Avron and was released on June 11, 2002 through MCA Records...
debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard 200
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
. Saves the Day
Saves the Day
Saves the Day is an American rock band from Princeton, New Jersey, formed in 1994. The band consists of lead vocalist and guitarist Chris Conley, guitarist Arun Bali, bassist Rodrigo Palma, and drummer Claudio Rivera....
toured with Green Day
Green Day
Green Day is an American punk rock band formed in 1987. The band consists of lead vocalist and guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong, bassist and backing vocalist Mike Dirnt, and drummer Tre Cool...
, Blink-182
Blink-182
Blink-182 is an American rock band consisting of vocalist and bass guitarist Mark Hoppus, vocalist and guitarist Tom DeLonge, and drummer Travis Barker. They have sold over 27 million albums worldwide since forming in Poway, California in 1992...
, and Weezer
Weezer
Weezer is an American alternative rock band. The band currently consists of Rivers Cuomo , Patrick Wilson , Brian Bell , and Scott Shriner . The band has changed lineups three times since its formation in 1992...
, playing large arenas such as Madison Square Garden
Madison Square Garden
Madison Square Garden, often abbreviated as MSG and known colloquially as The Garden, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in the New York City borough of Manhattan and located at 8th Avenue, between 31st and 33rd Streets, situated on top of Pennsylvania Station.Opened on February 11, 1968, it is the...
, and by the end of the year had performed on Late Night with Conan O'Brien
Late Night with Conan O'Brien
Late Night with Conan O'Brien is an American late-night talk show hosted by Conan O'Brien that aired 2,725 episodes on NBC between 1993 and 2009. The show featured varied comedic material, celebrity interviews, and musical and comedy performances. Late Night aired weeknights at 12:37 am...
, appeared on the cover of Alternative Press, and had music video
Music video
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...
s for "At Your Funeral" and "Freakish" in heavy rotation on MTV2
MTV2
MTV2 is a cable network that is widely available in the United States on digital cable and satellite television, and is progressively being added to analogue cable lineups across the nation...
. Articles on Vagrant Records were published in Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
and Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
, while the word "emo" began appearing on numerous magazine covers and became a catchall term for any music outside of mainstream pop. Andy Greenwald
Andy Greenwald
Andy Greenwald is a writer of social commentary, specifically about popular music. He is currently a senior contributing writer at Spin Magazine, and has also written for such publications as The Washington Post, Blender, Entertainment Weekly, The Village Voice, MTV Magazine, Complex, and Magnet...
attributes emo's sudden explosion into the mainstream to media outlets looking for the "next big thing" in the wake of the September 11 attacks:
The media business, so desperate for its self-obsessed, post-9/11 predictions of a return to austerity and the death of irony to come true, had found its next big thing. But it was barely a "thing," because no one had heard of it, and those who had couldn't define it. Despite the fact that the hedonistic, materialistic hip-hop of Nelly was still dominating the charts, magazine readers in the summer of '02 were informed that the nation was deep in an introverted healing process, and the way it was healing was by wearing thick black glasses and vintage striped shirts. Emo, we were told, would heal us all through fashion.
In the wake of this success, many emo bands were signed to major record labels and the style became a marketable product. Dreamworks Records
DreamWorks Records
DreamWorks Records was an American record label. Founded in 1996 by David Geffen, Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg as a subsidiary of DreamWorks SKG, the label operated until 2005 when it was shut down...
senior A&R
A&R
Artists and repertoire is the division of a record label that is responsible for talent scouting and overseeing the artistic development of recording artists. It also acts as a liaison between artists and the record label.- Finding talent :...
representative Luke Wood remarked that "The industry really does look at emo as the new raprock, or the new grunge. I don't think that anyone is listening to the music that's being made—they're thinking of how they're going to take advantage of the sound's popularity at retail." The depoliticized nature of emo, coupled with its catchy music and accessible themes, gave it a broad appeal to young mainstream audiences.
At the same time, a darker, more aggressive offshoot of emo gained popularity. New Jersey–based Thursday
Thursday (band)
Thursday were an American rock band from New Brunswick, New Jersey. Formed in 1997, the group has released six full-length albums, their most recent being No Devolución, which was released in April 2011 on Epitaph Records...
signed a multi-million-dollar, multialbum contract with Island Def Jam on the strength of their 2001 album Full Collapse
Full Collapse
Full Collapse is Thursday's second album and their debut on Victory Records. It combines post-hardcore influences with melodic elements and personal, emotional lyrics. The album helped to establish Thursday as an immensely popular group in the indie and alternative rock music scenes...
, which reached No. 178 on the Billboard 200. Their music differed from the prominent emo bands of the time in that it was more politicized and lacked dominant pop hooks and anthems, drawing influence from more maudlin bands such as The Smiths
The Smiths
The Smiths were an English alternative rock band, formed in Manchester in 1982. Based on the song writing partnership of Morrissey and Johnny Marr , the band also included Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce...
, Joy Division
Joy Division
Joy Division were an English rock band formed in 1976 in Salford, Greater Manchester. Originally named Warsaw, the band primarily consisted of Ian Curtis , Bernard Sumner , Peter Hook and Stephen Morris .Joy Division rapidly evolved from their initial punk rock influences...
, and The Cure
The Cure
The Cure are an English rock band formed in Crawley, West Sussex in 1976. The band has experienced several line-up changes, with frontman, vocalist, guitarist and principal songwriter Robert Smith being the only constant member...
. However, the band's accessibility, openness, basement-show roots, and touring alongside bands like Saves the Day made them part of the emo movement.
Screamo
The term "screamo" was initially applied to a more aggressive offshoot of emo that developed in San Diego in 1991, which used short songs that grafted "spastic intensity to willfully experimental dissonance and dynamics." Screamo is a particularly dissonant style of emo influenced by hardcore punkHardcore punk
Hardcore punk is an underground music genre that originated in the late 1970s, following the mainstream success of punk rock. Hardcore is generally faster, thicker, and heavier than earlier punk rock. The origin of the term "hardcore punk" is uncertain. The Vancouver-based band D.O.A...
and uses typical rock instrumentation, but is noted for its brief compositions, chaotic execution, and screaming vocals
Screaming (music)
Screaming is a vocal technique that is most popular in subgenres of heavy metal, punk and hard rock, including metalcore, deathcore, post-hardcore, groove metal, black metal, and grindcore...
. The genre is "generally based in the aggressive side of the overarching punk-revival scene." The style began in 1991, in San Diego, at the Ché Café
Che Cafe
The Ché Café is a worker co-operative, social center, and live music venue located on the University of California, San Diego campus in La Jolla, California, USA.-History:Founded in 1980 by UCSD students, the Che originally began its life as a vegan cafe...
, with groups such as Heroin
Heroin (band)
Heroin was a short-lived but influential underground post-hardcore band, originating in San Diego in 1989.-History:Heroin was a forerunner of the screamo subgenre of hardcore punk. They were noted for the psychological intensity of their songs, which tended to be very short and include...
, Antioch Arrow
Antioch Arrow
Antioch Arrow, from San Diego, California, was on the seminal post-hardcore label Gravity Records, responsible for putting San Diego on the map in the mid-90's as one of the centers of the movement....
, Angel Hair, Mohinder
Mohinder (band)
Mohinder was a four-piece post-hardcore band from Cupertino, California. Despite their brief existence, they were considered an important feature of the California hardcore punk scene, and helped to define the musical genre now known as screamo. Mohinder songs tended to be short in duration, and...
, Swing Kids
Swing Kids (band)
Swing Kids were a hardcore band from San Diego California during the mid 1990s. They were closely involved with and influenced by the forerunners of the San Diego hardcore punk scene of the 1990s....
, and Portraits of Past
Portraits of Past
Portraits of Past is a post-hardcore band from the San Francisco Bay Area that existed roughly from 1994-1995. The genre of music that they helped create is often described as "screamo," though that term was not used at the time the band was active...
. These groups were influenced by Washington D.C. post-hardcore
Post-hardcore
Post-hardcore is a genre of music that developed from hardcore punk, itself an offshoot of the broader punk rock movement. Like post-punk, post-hardcore is a term for a broad constellation of groups...
(particularly Fugazi and Nation of Ulysses
Nation of Ulysses
The Nation of Ulysses was an American punk rock band from Washington, D.C., formed in spring 1988 with four members. Originally known as simply "Ulysses," the first mark of the group consisted of Ian Svenonius on vocals and trumpet, Steve Kroner on guitar, Steve Gamboa on bass guitar, and James...
), straight edge
Straight edge
Straight edge is a subculture of hardcore punk whose adherents refrain from using alcohol, tobacco, and other recreational drugs. It was a direct reaction to the sexual revolution, hedonism, and excess associated with punk rock. For some, this extends to not engaging in promiscuous sex, following a...
, the Chicago group Articles of Faith
Articles of Faith (Band)
Articles of Faith were a Chicago-based hardcore punk band notable for songwriting in a class above most of their contemporaries . The band's later work, the posthumous In This Life LP in particular, either founds or foreshadows the emo sound...
, hardcore punk band Die Kreuzen
Die Kreuzen
Die Kreuzen was a rock band from Milwaukee, Wisconsin which was formed in 1981. The name is broken German for "the crosses", and was picked up by the band from a German Bible...
and post-punk
Post-punk
Post-punk is a rock music movement with its roots in the late 1970s, following on the heels of the initial punk rock explosion of the mid-1970s. The genre retains its roots in the punk movement but is more introverted, complex and experimental...
, such as Joy Division
Joy Division
Joy Division were an English rock band formed in 1976 in Salford, Greater Manchester. Originally named Warsaw, the band primarily consisted of Ian Curtis , Bernard Sumner , Peter Hook and Stephen Morris .Joy Division rapidly evolved from their initial punk rock influences...
and Bauhaus
Bauhaus (band)
Bauhaus was an English rock band formed in Northampton in 1978. The group consisted of Peter Murphy , Daniel Ash , Kevin Haskins and David J . The band was originally Bauhaus 1919 before they dropped the numerical portion within a year of formation...
.
Some bands that formed in the United States during the late 1990s and remained active throughout the 2000s, such as Thursday
Thursday (band)
Thursday were an American rock band from New Brunswick, New Jersey. Formed in 1997, the group has released six full-length albums, their most recent being No Devolución, which was released in April 2011 on Epitaph Records...
, Thrice
Thrice
Thrice is an American rock band from Irvine, California, formed in 1998. The group was founded by guitarist/vocalist Dustin Kensrue and guitarist Teppei Teranishi while they were in high school....
, and Poison the Well
Poison the Well (band)
Poison the Well was an experimental hardcore band from Miami/Ft. Lauderdale, Florida who were last signed to Ferret Music. Guitarist Ryan Primack and drummer Chris Hornbrook were the only remaining members of the band who were involved since their inception, although vocalist Jeffrey Moreira was...
made screamo much more popular. Many of these bands took influence from the likes of Refused
Refused
Refused was a Swedish hardcore punk band originating from Umeå, Sweden, formed in 1991. In total the band released five EPs and three albums, before splitting up in 1998...
and At the Drive-In
At the Drive-In
At the Drive-In was an American rock band from El Paso, Texas, considered part of the post-hardcore genre and active from 1993 to 2001. They were known for their extremely energetic stage shows which hearkened back to the 1980s hardcore scene...
. By the mid-2000s, the over-saturation of the screamo scene caused many bands to purposefully expand past the genre’s trademarks and incorporate more experimental elements. Even bands that weren’t necessarily screamo would often use the style's characteristic guttural vocal style. Derek Miller, guitarist for the post-hardcore band Poison the Well
Poison the Well (band)
Poison the Well was an experimental hardcore band from Miami/Ft. Lauderdale, Florida who were last signed to Ferret Music. Guitarist Ryan Primack and drummer Chris Hornbrook were the only remaining members of the band who were involved since their inception, although vocalist Jeffrey Moreira was...
, claimed that the term screamo "describes a thousand different genres." According to Jeff Mitchell of Iowa State Daily
Iowa State Daily
The Iowa State Daily is an independent student newspaper serving Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa, that is published in print and online. It was founded in 1890, and is largely funded by advertising revenues...
, "there is no set definition of what screamo sounds like but screaming over once deafeningly loud rocking noise and suddenly quiet, melodic guitar lines is a theme commonly affiliated with the genre." Juan Gabe, vocalist for the band Comadre
Comadre (band)
Comadre is a band from Redwood City, a suburb of San Francisco, California, composed of former members of Heartcrosslove, One's Own Ruin, What Life Makes Us, and Light This City. Their sound is a shoot-off of emotive and punk, played fast and chaotic with an abundance of energy, but with a large...
, alleged that the term "has been kind of tainted in a way, especially in the States."
Emo pop
"Emo pop," also called "emo pop punk," emerged as an offshoot from emo that also embraces pop musicPop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
influences, such as more concise songs and hook
Hook (music)
A hook is a musical idea, often a short riff, passage, or phrase, that is used in popular music to make a song appealing and to "catch the ear of the listener". The term generally applies to popular music, especially rock music, hip hop, dance music, and pop. In these genres, the hook is often...
filled chorus
Refrain
A refrain is the line or lines that are repeated in music or in verse; the "chorus" of a song...
es. Allmusic describes the style as blending "youthful angst
Angst
Angst is an English, German, Danish, Norwegian and Dutch word for fear or anxiety . It is used in English to describe an intense feeling of apprehension, anxiety or inner turmoil...
" with "slick production" and mainstream appeal, using "high-pitched melodie
Melody
A melody , also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones which is perceived as a single entity...
s, rhythm
Rhythm
Rhythm may be generally defined as a "movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions." This general meaning of regular recurrence or pattern in time may be applied to a wide variety of cyclical natural phenomena having a periodicity or...
ic guitars, and lyrics concerning adolescence
Adolescence
Adolescence is a transitional stage of physical and mental human development generally occurring between puberty and legal adulthood , but largely characterized as beginning and ending with the teenage stage...
, relationships, and heartbreak." Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
's The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
described the style as a cross between "saccharine boy-band pop" and emo. Modern emo pop bands have toned down extremities in loud/soft variations to provide a more widespread appeal.
As emo became more successful in the mid-1990s due to the rise of grunge
Grunge
Grunge is a subgenre of alternative rock that emerged during the mid-1980s in the American state of Washington, particularly in the Seattle area. Inspired by hardcore punk, heavy metal, and indie rock, grunge is generally characterized by heavily distorted electric guitars, contrasting song...
, emo pop was developed by bands such as The Wrens
The Wrens
The Wrens are an indie rock band that formed in the late 1980s in New Jersey. The group consists of Charles Bissell, Greg Whelan, Kevin Whelan, and Jerry MacDonald. Their debut album Silver was released in 1994...
, which pioneered a form of emo-pop on 1996's Secaucus, and Weezer
Weezer
Weezer is an American alternative rock band. The band currently consists of Rivers Cuomo , Patrick Wilson , Brian Bell , and Scott Shriner . The band has changed lineups three times since its formation in 1992...
, which in 1996 released the definitive emo pop album Pinkerton
Pinkerton (album)
Pinkerton is the second studio album by American alternative rock band Weezer, released on September 24, 1996. After finishing tours in promotion of their 1994 album Weezer, the band originally planned to record a space-themed rock opera entitled Songs from the Black Hole...
. Other bands which put out emo pop releases in the 90s included Sense Field
Sense Field
Sense Field was an American indie rock band from California, formed in 1991 out of the ashes of hardcore punk band, Reason to Believe.Sense Field has been largely credited with bringing their sound from emo circles to a more mainstream audience alongside contemporaries like Sunny Day Real Estate,...
, Jejune
Jejune
Jejune is the name of a band which formed in the mid-90s at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. The band has been commonly identified with the emo genre, particularly the late-90s "indie emo" scene. The three founding members, Arabella Harrison , Joe Guevara and Chris Vanacore ,...
, Alkaline Trio
Alkaline Trio
Alkaline Trio is an American punk rock band that formed in McHenry, Illinois, in 1996. The band's line-up consists of Matt Skiba , Dan Andriano , and Derek Grant...
, and The Get Up Kids
The Get Up Kids
The Get Up Kids are an American alternative rock band from Kansas City, Missouri. Formed in 1995, the band was a major player in the mid-90's emo scene, otherwise known as the "second wave" of emo music...
. As emo became commercially successful in the early 2000s, the emo pop movement was birthed by Jimmy Eat World
Jimmy Eat World
Jimmy Eat World is an American alternative rock band from Mesa, Arizona, that formed in 1993. The band is composed of lead vocalist and guitarist Jim Adkins, guitarist and backing vocalist Tom Linton, bassist Rick Burch and drummer Zach Lind....
's 2001 release Bleed American
Bleed American
-Personnel:Jimmy Eat World*Jim Adkins – vocals, guitar, percussion, bass guitar on "Your House", piano, organ on "My Sundown", bells, art direction*Rick Burch – bass guitar, vocals*Zach Lind – drums, percussion on "Your House" and "My Sundown"...
and the success of that album's single "The Middle". Genre pioneers Weezer and The Wrens both saw great success in this new movement, the former with its release The Green Album and the latter with Meadowlands, which "reinvented punk-pop for the new generation". As the genre coalesced, the record label Fueled by Ramen
Fueled by Ramen
Fueled by Ramen is an American record label which operates as a subsidiary of Warner Music Group, and is distributed by Atlantic Records. The label, founded in Gainesville, Florida, is based in New York City...
became a center of the movement, releasing platinum
RIAA certification
In the United States, the Recording Industry Association of America awards certification based on the number of albums and singles sold through retail and other ancillary markets. Other countries have similar awards...
selling albums from bands like Fall Out Boy
Fall Out Boy
Fall Out Boy is an American rock band from Wilmette, Illinois, formed in 2001. The band consists of vocalist, guitarist and composer Patrick Stump, bassist and lyricist Pete Wentz, guitarist Joe Trohman, and drummer Andy Hurley. The band released five studio albums from 2003–2008...
, Panic! at the Disco
Panic! at the Disco
Panic! at the Disco is an American alternative rock duo, formed in Las Vegas, Nevada in 2005. Since its split, the band's line-up includes Brendon Urie and Spencer Smith . Former members Ryan Ross and Jon Walker left the group in 2009...
, and Paramore
Paramore
Paramore is an American rock band from Franklin, Tennessee, formed in 2004. The band consists of lead vocalist Hayley Williams, bassist Jeremy Davis, and guitarist Taylor York...
. Two main regional scenes developed; in Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
the scene was created by the label Fueled by Ramen and the band Dashboard Confessional
Dashboard Confessional
Dashboard Confessional is an American rock band from Boca Raton, Florida, led by singer-songwriter Chris Carrabba. The name of the band is derived from the song "The Sharp Hint of New Tears" from the debut album The Swiss Army Romance....
, and in the Midwest
Midwestern United States
The Midwestern United States is one of the four U.S. geographic regions defined by the United States Census Bureau, providing an official definition of the American Midwest....
emo-pop was promoted by Pete Wentz, whose band Fall Out Boy rose to the front of the style in the mid-2000s. In 2008, the band Cash Cash
Cash Cash
Cash Cash is an American band from Roseland, New Jersey.Cash Cash consists of Jean Paul Makhlouf, Alexander Luke Makhlouf, Sam Frisch, and Anthony Villacari.-History:...
released Take It to the Floor
Take It to the Floor
-Reception:The LP has received mixed reviews. AbsolutePunk gave the album a 68%, calling it a "classic case of the recycled trends discussion." AllMusic gave a rating of 3.5 stars, saying that "if you want a quick and most likely short-lived blast of pop nonsense, the album is pretty brilliant."...
, which Allmusic stated could be "the definitive statement of airheaded, glittery, and content-free emo-pop. Allmusic further stated that with this release "the transformation of emo from the expression of intensely felt, ripped-from-the-throat feelings played by bands directly influenced by post-punk and hardcore to mall-friendly Day-Glo pop played by kids who look about as authentic as the "punks" on an old episode of Quincy
Quincy, M.E.
Quincy, M.E., also called Quincy, is a United States television series from Universal Studios that aired from October 3, 1976, to September 5, 1983, on NBC...
did back in the '70s was made pretty much complete with the release of Cash Cash's Take It to the Floor album."
Fashion and stereotype
Today emo is commonly tied to both music and fashion as well as the emo subculture. Usually among teens, the term "emo" is stereotyped with wearing slim-fit jeans, sometimes in bright colors, and tight t-shirtT-shirt
A T-shirt is a style of shirt. A T-shirt is buttonless and collarless, with short sleeves and frequently a round neck line....
s (usually short-sleeved) which often bear the names of emo bands. Studded belts
Belt (clothing)
A belt is a flexible band or strap, typically made of leather or heavy cloth, and worn around the waist. A belt supports trousers or other articles of clothing.-History:...
and black wristbands are common accessories in emo fashion. Some males also wear thick, black horn-rimmed glasses
Horn-rimmed glasses
Horn-rimmed glasses are a type of eyeglasses. Originally made out of either horn or tortoise shell, for most of their history they have actually been constructed out of thick plastics designed to imitate those materials...
.
The emo fashion is also recognized for its hairstyles. Popular looks include long side-swept bangs
Fringe (hair)
Fringe are a shaped cutting of the front part of the hair so that it is combed forward and hangs or curls over the forehead. A classic fringe is cut fairly straight at or above the eyebrows, but fringes can also be ragged or ruffled, spiked up with hair gel, swept to one side or the other, and...
, sometimes covering one or both eyes. Also popular is hair that is straightened and dyed black. Bright colors, such as blue, pink, red, or bleached blond, are also typical as highlights in emo hairstyles. Short, choppy layers of hair are also common. This fashion has at times been characterized as a fad. In the early 2000s, emo fashion was associated with a clean cut look, but as the style spread to younger teenagers, the style has become darker, with long bangs and emphasis on the color black replacing sweater vests.
Emo has been associated with a stereotype that includes being particularly emotional, sensitive, shy, introverted, or angst
Angst
Angst is an English, German, Danish, Norwegian and Dutch word for fear or anxiety . It is used in English to describe an intense feeling of apprehension, anxiety or inner turmoil...
-ridden. It has also been associated with depression
Depression (mood)
Depression is a state of low mood and aversion to activity that can affect a person's thoughts, behaviour, feelings and physical well-being. Depressed people may feel sad, anxious, empty, hopeless, helpless, worthless, guilty, irritable, or restless...
, self-injury, and suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
.
Gender bias
Emo has been criticized for its androcentrismAndrocentrism
Androcentrism is the practice, conscious or otherwise, of placing male human beings or the masculine point of view at the center of one's view of the world and its culture and history...
. Andy Greenwald
Andy Greenwald
Andy Greenwald is a writer of social commentary, specifically about popular music. He is currently a senior contributing writer at Spin Magazine, and has also written for such publications as The Washington Post, Blender, Entertainment Weekly, The Village Voice, MTV Magazine, Complex, and Magnet...
notes that there are very few women in emo bands, and that even those few do not typically have an active voice in the songs' subject matter: "Though emo—and to a certain degree, punk—has always been a typically male province, the monotony of the labels' gender perspective can be overwhelming." The triumph of the "lonely boy's aesthetic" in emo, coupled with the style's popularity, has led to a litany of one-sided songs in which males vent their fury at the women who have wronged them: Some emo bands' lyrics disguise violent anti-women sentiments in a veneer of pop music. However, despite emo's frequent portrayal of women as powerless victims, fans of the style are from both genders, and some acts have even greater popularity with women than with men. One explanation for this is that the unifying appeal of emo, its expression of emotional devastation, can be appreciated equally by both sexes regardless of the songs' specific subjects.
Backlash
The genre emo inspired a backlash movement in response to its rapid growth. Several bands considered to be "emo" rejected the label for the social stigma and controversy surrounding it. Warped TourWarped Tour
The Warped Tour is a touring music and extreme sports festival. The tour is held in venues such as parking lots or fields upon which the stages and other structures are erected. The BMX/skateboarding shoe manufacturer Vans, among others, has sponsored the tour every year since 1995, and it is...
founder Kevin Lyman
Kevin Lyman
Kevin Lyman is creator of a touring music and extreme sports festival called the Warped Tour, the Taste of Chaos, and the Mayhem tours. He also is a partner at SideOneDummy Records. He owns 4FINI which annually produces the above-mentioned tours as well as produced past tours such as the Down From...
stated that there was a "real backlash" among bands on the tour towards emo groups, but he dismissed the hostility as "juvenile" in nature. The movement grew with intensity over time. Time reported in 2008 that "anti-emo" groups attacked teenagers in Mexico City, Querétaro
Santiago de Querétaro
Santiago de Querétaro is the capital and largest city of the state of Querétaro, located in central Mexico. It is located 213 km northwest of Mexico City, 96 km southeast of San Miguel de Allende and 200 km south of San Luis Potosí...
, and Tijuana
Tijuana
Tijuana is the largest city on the Baja California Peninsula and center of the Tijuana metropolitan area, part of the international San Diego–Tijuana metropolitan area. An industrial and financial center of Mexico, Tijuana exerts a strong influence on economics, education, culture, art, and politics...
. In Russia, a law was presented at the Duma
Duma
A Duma is any of various representative assemblies in modern Russia and Russian history. The State Duma in the Russian Empire and Russian Federation corresponds to the lower house of the parliament. Simply it is a form of Russian governmental institution, that was formed during the reign of the...
to regulate emo websites and forbid emo style at schools and government buildings, for fears of emo being a "dangerous teen trend" promoting anti-social behaviour, depression, social withdrawal and even suicide. In May 2010 in Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , commonly known in British English as Saudi Arabia and in Arabic as as-Sa‘ūdiyyah , is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab World...
, the religious police in the city of Dammam
Dammam
Dammam is the capital of the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, the most oil-rich region in the world. The judicial and administrative bodies of the province and several government departments are located in the city. Dammam is the largest city in the Eastern Province and third largest in Saudi...
arrested 10 emo girls for allegedly offensive un-Islamic behaviour and dress.
Suicide
Emo music has been blamed for the suicide by hangingHanging
Hanging is the lethal suspension of a person by a ligature. The Oxford English Dictionary states that hanging in this sense is "specifically to put to death by suspension by the neck", though it formerly also referred to crucifixion and death by impalement in which the body would remain...
of teenager Hannah Bond by both the coroner
Coroner
A coroner is a government official who* Investigates human deaths* Determines cause of death* Issues death certificates* Maintains death records* Responds to deaths in mass disasters* Identifies unknown dead* Other functions depending on local laws...
at the inquest into her death and her mother, Heather Bond, after it was claimed that emo music glamorized suicide and her apparent obsession with My Chemical Romance
My Chemical Romance
My Chemical Romance is an American alternative rock band from New Jersey, formed in 2001. The band consists of lead vocalist Gerard Way, guitarists Ray Toro and Frank Iero, and bassist Mikey Way and have a diverse sound incorporating elements of punk, emo, glam metal, and progressive rock...
was said to be linked to her suicide. The inquest heard that she was part of an Internet "emo cult" and her Bebo
Bebo
Bebo is a social networking website launched in July 2005. It is currently owned and operated by Criterion Capital Partners after taking over from AOL in June 2010....
page contained an image of an 'emo girl' with bloody wrists. It also heard that she had discussed the "glamour" of hanging online and had explained to her parents that her self harming was an "emo initiation ceremony". Heather Bond criticised emo fashion, saying: "There are 'emo' websites that show pink teddies hanging themselves." After the verdict was reported in NME
NME
The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...
, fans of emo music contacted the magazine to defend against accusations that it promotes self harm and suicide.