4 Emos

[Emerenciana Mcgreal]

Emoˈiːmoʊ/ is a music genre characterized by emotional, often confessional lyrics. It emerged as a style of hardcore punk and post-hardcore from the mid-1980s Washington, D.C. hardcore scene, where it was known as emotional hardcore or emocore. The bands Rites of Spring and Embrace, among others, pioneered the genre. In the early-to-mid 1990s, emo was adopted and reinvented by alternative rock, indie rock, punk rock, and pop-punk bands, including Sunny Day Real Estate, Jawbreaker, Cap'n Jazz, and Jimmy Eat World. By the mid-1990s, Braid, the Promise Ring, and the Get Up Kids emerged from Midwest emo, and several independent record labels began to specialize in the genre. Meanwhile, screamo, a more aggressive style of emo using screamed vocals, also emerged, pioneered by the San Diego bands Heroin and Antioch Arrow. Screamo achieved mainstream success in the 2000s with bands like Hawthorne Heights, Silverstein, Story of the Year, Thursday, the Used, and Underoath.

Often seen as a subculture, emo also signifies a specific relationship between fans and artists and certain aspects of fashion, culture, and behavior. Emo fashion includes skinny jeans, black eyeliner, tight t-shirts with band names, studded belts, and flat, straight, jet-black hair with long bangs. Since the early-to-mid 2000s, fans of emo music who dress like this are referred to as "emo kids" or "emos". The emo subculture was stereotypically associated with social alienation, sensitivity, misanthropy, introversion, and angst. Purported links to depression, self-harm, and suicide, combined with its rise in popularity in the early 2000s, inspired a backlash against emo, with some bands, including My Chemical Romance and Panic! at the Disco, rejecting the emo label because of the social stigma and controversy surrounding it.

Emo and its subgenre emo pop entered mainstream culture in the early 2000s with the success of Jimmy Eat World and Dashboard Confessional, and many artists signed contracts with major record labels. Bands such as My Chemical Romance, AFI, Fall Out Boy, and The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus continued the genre's popularity during the rest of the decade. By the early 2010s, emo's popularity had declined, with some emo bands changing their sound and others disbanding. Meanwhile, however, a mainly underground emo revival emerged, with bands such as the World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die and Modern Baseball, some drawing on the sound and aesthetic of 1990s emo. During the late 2010s, a fusion genre called emo rap became mainstream; its most famous artists included Lil Peep, XXXTentacion, and Juice Wrld.

Emo originated in hardcore punk[1][2] and is considered a form of post-hardcore.[3] Nonetheless, emo has also been considered a genre of alternative rock,[4] indie rock,[5] punk rock,[6] and pop punk.[7][8] Emo uses the guitar dynamics that use both the softness and loudness of punk rock music.[9] Some emo leans uses characteristics of progressive music with the genre's use of complex guitar work, unorthodox song structures, and extreme dynamic shifts.[1]

Lyrics, a focus in emo music, are typically emotional and often personal or confessional,[9] dealing with topics such as failed romance,[10] self-loathing, pain, insecurity, suicidal thoughts, love, and relationships.[9] AllMusic[unreliable source?] described emo lyrics as "usually either free-associative poetry or intimate confessionals".[1] Early emo bands were hardcore punk bands that used melody and emotional or introspective lyrics and that were less structured than regular hardcore punk, making early emo bands different from the aggression, anger, and verse-chorus-verse structures of regular hardcore punk.[11]

According to AllMusic, most 1990s emo bands "borrowed from some combination of Fugazi, Sunny Day Real Estate, and Weezer".[1] The New York Times described emo as "emotional punk or post-hardcore or pop-punk. That is, punk that wears its heart on its sleeve and tries a little tenderness to leaven its sonic attack. If it helps, imagine Ricky Nelson singing in the Sex Pistols."[12] Author Matt Diehl called emo a "more sensitive interpolation of punk's mission".[10] According to Merriam-Webster, emo is "a style of rock music influenced by punk rock and featuring introspective and emotionally fraught lyrics".[13]

Pet Sounds, the Beach Boys' 1966 album, is sometimes considered the first emo album. According to music writer Luke Britton, such assertions are perhaps stated "wryly", and wrote that "it's generally accepted that the genre's pioneers" came later in the 1980s.[14] During the decade, many hardcore punk and post-hardcore bands formed in Washington, D.C. Post-hardcore, an experimental offshoot of hardcore punk, was inspired by post-punk.[15] Hardcore punk bands and post-hardcore bands who influenced early emo bands include Minor Threat,[16] Black Flag and Hsker D.[17]

Although the origins of the word "emo" are uncertain, evidence shows that the word "emo" was coined in the mid-1980s, specifically 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."[22] Michael Azerrad, author of Our Band Could Be Your Life, also traces the word's origins to the mid-1980s: "The style was soon dubbed 'emo-core,' a term everyone involved bitterly detested".[23] MacKaye 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").[24] Other accounts attribute the word to an audience member at an Embrace show, who shouted as an insult that the band was "emocore".[25][26] Others have said that MacKaye coined the word when he used it self-mockingly in a magazine, or that it originated with Rites of Spring.[26] The "emocore" label quickly spread through the DC punk scene, and was associated with many bands associated with Ian MacKaye's Dischord Records.[25] Although many of the bands rejected the term, it stayed. Jenny Toomey recalled, "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."[27] The Washington, D.C. emo scene lasted only a few years, and by 1986, most of emo's major bands (including Rites of Spring, Embrace, Gray Matter and Beefeater) had broken up.[28] However, its ideas and aesthetics spread quickly across the country through a network of homemade zines, vinyl records and hearsay.[29] According to Greenwald, the Washington, D.C. scene laid the groundwork for emo's subsequent incarnations:

Emerging from the late 1980s and early 1990s San Francisco punk rock scene and forming in New York City, Jawbreaker combined pop punk with emotional and personal lyrics.[34][35][36] Singer-guitarist Blake Schwarzenbach focused his lyrics on personal, immediate topics often taken from his journal.[34] Often obscure and cloaked in metaphors, their relationship to Schwarzenbach's concerns gave his words a bitterness and frustration which made them universal and attractive to audiences.[37] Schwarzenbach became emo's first idol, as listeners related to the singer even more than to his songs.[37] Jawbreaker's 1994 album, 24 Hour Revenge Therapy, was popular with fans and is a touchstone of mid-1990s emo.[38] Although Jawbreaker signed with Geffen Records and toured with mainstream bands Nirvana and Green Day, Jawbreaker's 1995 album Dear You did not achieve mainstream success. Jawbreaker broke up soon afterwards, with Schwarzenbach forming emo band Jets to Brazil.[39]

Sunny Day Real Estate formed in Seattle at the height of the early 1990s grunge boom.[40] The music video for "Seven", lead track of the band's debut album Diary (1994), was played on MTV, giving the band more attention.[41] Another band often considered to be emo which emerged at the same time was California's Weezer.[42] Nonetheless, it is debated whether Weezer is emo. For example, Alternative Press argues that the emo label has been misapplied to the band,[43] and author Andy Greenwald also states that the band is not emo.[44] Jimmy Eat World, an Arizona emo band, also emerged at this time. Influenced by pop punk bands such as the Mr. T Experience and Horace Pinker,[45] Jimmy Eat World released its self-titled debut album in 1994.[46]

The American punk and indie rock movements, which had been largely underground since the early 1980s, became part of mainstream culture during the mid-1990s. With Nirvana's success, major record labels capitalized on the popularity of alternative rock and other underground music by signing and promoting independent bands.[47] In 1994, the same year that Jawbreaker's 24 Hour Revenge Therapy and Sunny Day Real Estate's Diary were released, punk rock bands Green Day and the Offspring broke into the mainstream with diamond album Dookie[48] and multi-platinum album Smash,[49] respectively. After underground music went mainstream, emo retreated and reformed as a national subculture over the next few years.[47] Inspired by Jawbreaker, Drive Like Jehu and Fugazi, 1990s emo abandoned the elements of hardcore punk and used elements of indie rock, with punk rock's do-it-yourself work ethic but smoother songs and emotional vocals.[50]

Many 1990s emo bands, such as Cap'n Jazz, Braid, Christie Front Drive, Mineral, Jimmy Eat World, the Get Up Kids and the Promise Ring, originated in the central U.S.[51] Many of the bands had a distinct vocal style and guitar melodies, which was later called Midwest emo.[52] 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."[50] Emo band Texas Is the Reason bridged the gap between indie rock and emo in their three-year lifespan on the East Coast, melding Sunny Day Real Estate's melodies and punk musicianship and singing directly to the listener.[53] In New Jersey, the band Lifetime played shows in fans' basements.[54] Lifetime's 1995 album, Hello Bastards on Jade Tree Records, fused hardcore punk with emo and eschewed cynicism and irony in favor of love songs.[54] The album sold tens of thousands of copies,[55] and Lifetime paved the way for New Jersey and Long Island emo bands Brand New, Midtown,[56] The Movielife, My Chemical Romance,[56] Saves the Day,[56][57] Senses Fail,[56] Taking Back Sunday[55][56] and Thursday.[56][58]

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