Emo

For other uses, see Emo (disambiguation).

Initially, "emo" was an abbreviation for "emocore", short for "emotional hardcore", and was coined to describe the music of the mid-1980s DC scene and its associated bands. The most recognizable names of the period included Rites of Spring, Embrace, Beefeater, Grey Matter, Fire Party and slightly later, Moss Icon. The first wave of emo began to fade after the breakups of most of the involved bands in the early 1990s.

Starting in the mid-1990s, the term "emo" largely reflected the indie scene that followed the influences of Fugazi (band), which itself was an offshoot of the first wave of emo. Bands including Sunny Day Real Estate, Jimmy Eat World, and Texas Is the Reason put forth a more indie rock brand of emo, which was more melodic and less chaotic in nature than its predecessor. The so-called "indie emo" scene survived until the end of the 1990s, as many of the bands either disbanded or shifted their style to the mainstream.

As the remaining indie emo bands entered the mainstream, newer bands began to emulate the more mainstream style, creating a style of music that has now earned the moniker "emo" within popular culture. Whereas, even in the past, the term "emo" was used to identify a wide variety of bands, the breadth of bands listed under today's emo is even more vast, leaving the term "emo" as more of a loose identifier than as a specific genre of music.

In all of its forms, emo music generally shares some of the same concepts: personal, meaningful lyrics, usually of an introspective nature, and a deep connection with a band's audience.

History

The First Wave (1985-1994)

In 1985 in Washington, D.C., Ian MacKaye and Guy Picciotto, veterans of the DC hardcore music scene, decided to shift away from what they saw as the constraints of the basic style of hardcore and the escalating violence within the scene. They took their music in a more personal direction with a far greater sense of experimentation, bringing forth MacKaye's Embrace and Picciotto's Rites of Spring. The style of music developed by Embrace and Rites of Spring soon became a sound, later referred to as "emo-core". As a result of the renewed spirit of experimentation and musical innovation that developed the new scene, the summer of 1985 soon came to be known in the scene as "Revolution Summer". Within a short time, the DC emo-core sound began to influence other bands such as Moss Icon, Nation of Ulysses, Dag Nasty, Shudder To Think, Fire Party, Marginal Man, Grey Matter and largely released on MacKaye's Dischord Records. The original wave of DC emo-core finally ended in late 1992 with the collapse of Hoover.

As the DC scene expanded, other scenes began to develop with a similar sound. In San Diego in the early 1990s, Gravity Records released a number of records in the hardcore emo style. Bands of the period included Heroin, Angel Hair, Antioch Arrow, Universal Order of Armageddon, Swing Kids, and Mohinder. At the same time, in the New York/New Jersey era, bands such as Native Nod, Merel, 1.6 Band, Rye Coalition and Rorschach were feeling the same impulse. Many of these bands were involved with the ABC No Rio club scene in New York, itself a response to the violence and stagnation in the scene and with the bands that played at CBGBs, the only other small venue for hardcore in New York at the time. Much of this wave of emo, particularly the San Diego scene, began to shift towards a more chaotic and aggressive form of emo, nicknamed "screamo".

By and large, the more hardcore style of emo began to fade as many of the early era bands disbanded. Even still, a handful of modern bands continue to reflect emo's hardcore origins, including Circle Takes the Square, Hot Cross, City of Caterpillar, Funeral Diner, and A Day in Black and White.

Back in DC, following the disbanding of both Rites of Spring and Embrace, MacKaye and Picciotto decided to join forces in a new band, called Fugazi. While Fugazi itself was not categorized as emo, the music it created would soon influence the second major wave of emo.

Early Emo's Influence

In California, particularly in the Bay Area, bands like Jawbreaker and Samiam began to mix the DC influence with pop punk to come up with their own take on the classic DC emo-core sound. These bands tended to employ a lot of the rough vocal styling associated with Ian MacKaye's bands. The vocals of Blake Schwarzenbach of Jawbreaker are particularly of interest because of his gruffer crooning than gruff yelling. This development leads to a more emotional feeling of loss than the desperation and franticness of MacKaye's voice. On Jawbreaker's album Bivouac, there was an evolution from traditional Hardcore vocal sound into a more melodic crooning, regardless of whether or not the vocalist was in tune, the vocalist attempted to embody raw emotion of the music. In Southern California, Still Life had their own take on the same ideas of rough melody. In later years, NJ's Garden Variety had a similar combination of emo and rough indie pop/pop punk. This style continued to evolve up to present day in the sound of bands like Avail and Hot Water Music.

Also in the early 90s, hardcore kids in bands like Lifetime were reacting in their own way to the demise of youth crew styled straight edge hardcore and desire to seek out new directions. While their music is often classified as emo, a better description would probably be melodic hardcore. In response to the more metal direction their hardcore peers were taking, Lifetime initially decided to slow their music down and make it softer with more personal lyrics. A couple of EPs and an LP were released in this style, which was appreciated by some, but not hugely successful. The band went back to the drawing board and then really hit their stride with the Tinnitus EP in 1994, which was a blend of speed, aggression and melody which would inform and be further refined on their next two albums, Hello Bastards and Jerseys Best Dancers. These records' sound, lyrics, and style were a virtual blueprint for later bands, including Saves The Day and The Movielife.

The Second Wave (1994-2000)

As Fugazi and the Dischord Records scene became more and more popular in the indie underground of the early 1990s, new bands began to spring up. Combining Fugazi with the post-punk influences of Mission of Burma and Hüsker Dü, a new genre of emo emerged.

Perhaps the key moment was the release of the album Diary by Sunny Day Real Estate in 1994. Given Sub Pop's then-recent success with Nirvana and Soundgarden, the label was able to bring much wider attention to the release than the typical indie release, including major advertisements in Rolling Stone. The heavier label support allowed the band to secure performances on TV shows, including The Jon Stewart Show. As a result, the album received widespread national attention.

As more and more people learned about the band, particularly via the fledgling Internet, the band was given the tag "emo". Even where Fugazi had not been considered emo in the past, the new generation of fans shifted the tag from the earlier hardcore style to this more indie rock style of emo. It wasn't uncommon for Sunny Day and its peers to be labelled with the full "emo-core". However, when pressed to explain "emo", many fans split the genre into two brands: the "hardcore emo" practiced in the early days and the newer "indie emo".

In the years that followed, several major regions of "indie emo" emerged. The most significant appeared in the Midwest in the mid-90s. Many of the bands were influenced by the same sources, but with an even more tempered sound. These bands included Boy's Life, Christie Front Drive, and Cap'n Jazz. This brand of emo was often referred to as "Midwestern emo" given the geographic location of the bands. In ensuing years, bands such as The Promise Ring, Braid, Elliott, and The Get Up Kids emerged from the same scene and eventually gained national attention.

The area around Phoenix, Arizona became another major scene for emo. Inspired by Fugazi and Sunny Day Real Estate, former punk rockers Jimmy Eat World began stirring in emo influences into their music, eventually releasing the album Static Prevails in 1996. The album was arguably the first emo record released by a major label, as the band had signed with Capitol Records in 1995.

Other bands that followed the Sunny Day Real Estate model of emo included New York's Texas Is the Reason, California's Knapsack and Sense Field, Austin's Mineral, and Boston's Piebald and Jejune.

Strangely, as "indie emo" became more widespread, a number of acts who otherwise would not have been considered part of the "indie emo" scene had their albums referred to as "emo" because of their similarity to the sound. The hallmark example was Weezer's 1996 album Pinkerton, which, in later years, was considered one of the defining "emo" records of the 90s.

As the wide range of emo bands began to attract notoriety on a national scale, a number of indie labels attempted to document the scene. Many emo bands of the late 90s signed to indie labels including Jade Tree Records, Saddle Creek, and Big Wheel Recreation. California's Crank Records released what many considered the defining compilation of 90s emo in 1997, titled (Don't Forget to) Breathe, which featured tracks by The Promise Ring, Christie Front Drive, Mineral, Knapsack, and Arizona's Seven Storey Mountain. In 1998, Deep Elm Records released the first in a series of compilations called Emo Diaries, which featured tracks from Jimmy Eat World, Samiam, and Jejune. In 1999, famed 70s compilation label K-Tel even released an emo compilation titled Nowcore: The Punk Rock Evolution, which, regardless of its source, was surprisingly comprehensive. (Nowcore included tracks by Texas Is the Reason, Mineral, The Promise Ring, Knapsack, Braid, At the Drive-In, and Jawbox, among others.)

With the late-90s emo scene being more national than regional, major labels began to turn their attention toward signing emo bands with the hopes of capitalizing on the genre's popularity. Many bands resisted the lure, citing their loyality to the independent mentality of the scene. Several bands cited what they saw as mistreatment of bands such as Jawbox and Jawbreaker while they were signed to majors as a reason to stay away. The conflict felt within many of the courted emo bands resulted in their break-ups, including Texas Is the Reason and Mineral.

By the end of the decade, the word "emo" cropped up in mainstream circles. In the summer of 1998, Teen People magazine ran an article declaring "emo" the newest "hip" style of music, with The Promise Ring a band worth paying attention to. The independent nature of the emo scene recoiled at mainstream attention, and many emo bands shifted their sound in an attempt to isolate themselves from the genre. In the years that followed, Sunny Day Real Estate opted to shift to a more prog-rock direction, Jejune aimed for happy pop-rock, and The Get Up Kids and The Promise Ring released lite-rock albums.

While "indie emo" almost completely ceased to exist by the end of the decade, many bands still subscribe to the Fugazi / Hüsker Dü model, including Thursday, The Juliana Theory, and Sparta.

The Third Wave (2000-Present)

At the end of the 1990s, the underground emo scene had almost entirely disappeared. However, the term "emo" was still being bandied about in mainstream media, almost always attached to the few remaining 90s emo acts, including Jimmy Eat World.

However, towards the end of the 1990s, Jimmy Eat World had begun to shift in a more mainstream direction. Where Jimmy Eat World had played emocore-style music early in their career, by the time of the release of their 2001 album Bleed American, the band had almost completely removed its emo influences. As the public had become aware of the word "emo" and knew that Jimmy Eat World was associated with it, the band continued to be referred to as an "emo" band. Newer bands that sounded like Jimmy Eat World (and, in some cases, like the more melodic emo bands of the late 90s) were soon included in the genre.

2003 saw the success of Chris Carrabba and Dashboard Confessional. Carrabba's music featured lyrics founded in deep diary-like outpourings of emotion. Where earlier emo had featured lyrics of a more dark and painful direction, Carrabba's featured a greater focus on love won and lost and the inability to cope. While certainly emotional, the new "emo" had a far greater appeal amongst teenagers experiencing love for the first time, who found solace in Carrabba's words and music.

With Dashboard and Jimmy Eat World's success, major labels began seeking out similar sounding bands. Whereas Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and the other Seattle scene bands of the early 1990s were unwillingly lumped into the genre "grunge", the labels wanted to be able to market a new sound under the word "emo". Which sound that was didn't particularly matter.

In turn, the term "emo" shifted to describe a form of music entirely different from its forebearers. And, in an even more expanded way than in the 90s, the term came to encompass an extremely wide variety of bands, many of whom had very little in common. Today, "emo" is often used to describe such wide-ranging bands as Coheed and Cambria, Taking Back Sunday, The Starting Line, Brand New, Something Corporate, The Used, A Static Lullaby, From First To Last, Finch, Silverstein, From Autumn To Ashes, Underoath, and Alexisonfire.

The epicenter of this third wave shifted, as well. Where its major origins were once California and Arizona, the new movement had (and has) changed coasts completely. As members, fans, critics, and disapprovers can attest, the new mecca of emo is the outlying areas bordering New York City and the Tri-State Area, such as New Jersey, Long Island, and other locales of that ilk. Many of the current crop of bands (and, subsequently, their early fanbases) originated in this region of the country and progressed outward.

In many cases, "new emo" bands are simply trying to pursue their own version of the "emo" that came before on their own terms. However, the backlash stemming from the success of a few seemingly "less emo" (and more popular in the mainstream) bands, including Dashboard and The Used, has brought an increasingly substantial pool of detractors of the genre.

In a strange twist, screamo, a sub-genre of the new emo, has found greater popularly in recent years through bands such as Thrice and Glassjaw. The term "screamo", however, was used to describe an entirely different genre in the early 1990s, and the bands themselves more resemble the emocore of the early 1990s. (As a reference, see Jim DeRogatis' November 2002 article about Screamo.)

As a result of the continuing shift of "emo" over the years, a serious schism has emerged between those who ascribe to particular eras of "emo". Those who were closely attached to the hardcore origins recoil when another type of music is called "emo". Many involved in the independent nature of both 80s and 90s emo are upset at the perceived hijacking of the word "emo" to sell a new generation of major label music. Regardless, popular culture has embraced the terms of "emo" far beyond their original intentions, out of the control of the independent-minded.

Backlash

As the chorus of detractors increased, emo came more and more a focus of derision. Like the Goth scene, people who focus on emo music tend to share a uniquely dark and emotional psyche that often sets them apart from "normal" people. They tend to thrive on the emotional ups and downs that are brought out in the music. Detractors often joke for emo fans to "lighten up".

In the early years of the "third wave", the derision was relatively light-hearted and self-effacing. In September of 2002, web developer Jason Oda put forth Emogame. In the game, the characters of the tv show Friends were attempting to spread mass homogeneity throughout the world, and players could assume the identities of several popular emo singers (including Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes) to fight the Friends off. The game referened numerous emo stereotypes, but also included pop culture references such as R2-D2 from Star Wars. The game was well-received by both fans and critics of emo alike, eventually spawning multiple sequels.

In recent years, the derision has increased dramatically. Male fans of emo are often hit with homosexual slurs, largely a reflection of the "nerd" style of dress popular within the emo scene and the fact that in many cultures, males are expected to be stalwart and strong, not overly emotional; emotions are "weak" and "feminine". That mentality, however, hasn't stopped people from enjoying the style and music of the emo scene.

"Emo" continues to develop and expand in unpredictable ways. As with punk rock, the term "emo" may persist for years to come and evolve into even more styles and sounds. As the old proverb says, "History is written by the victors," and it remains to be seen which version of the genre will be accepted as the popular consciousness of "emo".

Emo groups

Main articles: List of early Emo groups and List of Emo groups

See also

• Art rock
• Criticism of Emo
• Emo fashion
• Emo Violence
• Epaphroditus Champion
• Hardcore Emo
• Illinois Station
• Math rock
• Pop hardcore
• Scene kids
• Screamo
• Shuttlecraft
• Straight edge (sXe)
• Uptick rule
• Youth crew

Sources

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External links

• Emo-ology — an attempt to create an Emo discography