What is Emo?
If I had a dollar for every time I’ve been asked "what is emo?" -- in this past month alone, I’d have at least two brand-new Clandestine Industries hoodies. I like to get all Buddha-like and say, "emo… emo is nothing, but emo is everything." Unfortunately, that just frustrates people and sometimes makes them beat me up. As such, I am forced to come up with a better way to explain what emo is. Unfortunately, there’s not one easy definition, considering emo is:
- A music scene, made up of emo bands [and people will debate endlessly does or doesn’t make a band emo]
- A style of music [that is also debated endlessly]
- A fashion style [thankfully, emo fashion is more easily defined than emo music]
- A culture in and of itself.
As you can see, there are many different facets to emo. Seeing as emo is both a type of music/general music movement [considered part of the punk scene], as well as a culture and scene in and of itself, it can be confusing. Emo bands and music aren’t always the same as emo culture and the scene at large.
In general, though:
- Emo, which is short for "emotional," tends to deal with strong emotions, feelings, and the open expression of them. As Depeche Mode said, "people are people." As such, many find themselves seeking outlets for their sadness, anger, and angst. What better than music that reflects those feelings? Many emo bands – whether they self define as such or have had the label put on them – have extremely emotional lyrics that the fans tend to relate to.
- Further, the saying "misery loves company" can sometimes apply when it comes to emo music and/or the emo scene. I’m not saying all emo people are miserable, mind you. But if you’re feeling upset, angry, ostracized, left out, confused, depressed, or any other perfectly normal emotions that people tend to think are negative things? It definitely helps to know there are other people out there feeling the same way.
- In our society, people look for familiar things. I can spot a Skeleton Crew hoodie a mile away. I notice if someone has tattoos and cool hair, or a Nightmare Before Christmas bag. Why? Because these are things that a lot of emo people have, and some markers of emo fashion. As such, like-minded people are able to find each other, and the emo community blooms.
- Despite what I said above, emo people are not atypically depressed. I will address this once, and once only: "cutting" is not an emo thing. Do emo people cut themselves? Yes, some do. But then again, people of all ages and walks of life cut themselves – including pop music fans, country fans, rap fans, or people who don’t listen to any music at all The only thing that can be said of all cutters is they cut themselves. It’s generally related to mental illnesses [usually Borderline Personality Disorder or Bipolar Disorder], not music culture. Please remember this, especially if you are a scared parent or an overzealous news reporter who has found this article.
Most of all, emo is fun. It’s an outlet for people to express themselves, be it through joining a band, playing music, writing poetry, or using their bodies as a canvas by changing their hair, wearing different clothes, or playing with music. The emo scene is somewhere that people who feel different may find a home, and emo bands provide the soundtrack to our lives.
Emo Bands
So, what makes a band emo?
You could easily ask 100 people that question, and ask for a list of five emo bands. You’d easily end up with a list of about 5,000 different emo bands, and 100 people arguing about each other’s choices. And you could make yourself even more insane by asking the bands on the list you amassed if they thought they were an emo band, and a good amount of them would say "no." That’s the nature of the beast. However, I’m a slight masochist, so I’m going to do my best to identify some emo bands and give you a brief guide to emo music.
Emo music, over the years, has evolved from its original roots, which are usually traced back to Washington, DC’s hardcore scene. Some of the bands in the 1980s started performing more emotional type hardcore, and hence, emo was born. Simply put, emo is an abbreviation for "emotional."
The bands usually cited as some of the earlier emo bands include Rites of Spring, Husker Du, Nation of Ulysses, Shudder to Think, and Hoover. Many of these bands were released on seminal hardcore label Dischord Records, owned by Ian MacKaye of Minor Threat and Fugazi.
After these bands made their marks, the idea of emo music, or emotional hardcore, began to spread to different scenes. East Coast bands such as Rye Coalition, Quicksand, and Embrace were joined by West Coast bands such as Heroin, Antioch Arrow, and Universal Order of Armageddon. This is somewhat considered a transitional period for emo music, as the next wave was far more prominent – and is quite a bit more like today’s emo music.
In the early to mid-1990s, emo bands such as Lifetime, Jawbreaker, Samiam, Jawbox, Jimmy Eat World, The Promise Ring, Cursive, and Texas is the Reason all emerged, taking things is a far more emotional direction. By the late 1990s/early 2000s, bands with a more hardcore – screamo, if you will – edge began to emerge, with band like Thursday at the forefront, while quieter, acoustic emo music, such as that of Dashboard Confessional, was on the rise at the same time.
Some bands that currently qualify as emo – despite certain fans and band members complaining about the tag – include:
My Chemical Romance [Much to singer Gerard Way’s dismay], AFI, Hawthorne Heights. Silverstein, Panic! At the Disco, Fall Out Boy, Paramore, From First To Last, Escape The Fate, Funeral For a Friend, Aiden, Drop Dead, Gorgeous, The Used, Thursday, Taking Back Sunday, Thrice, Coheed and Cambria, Glassjaw, Schoolyard Heroes, and Sirens Sister... amongst others.
The emo music genre is immense. The bands listed above are just a few of the vast ground that emo covers. There are emo bands that sound more punk, emo bands that sound more hardcore, and emo bands that even have a synthpop/dance aspect to them.
And let’s not forget that a lot of people who like emo music also isten to punk rock, pop-punk, hardcore, metal… and some other guilty pleasures that I won’t dare mention here, lest I lose emo points.
Oh, and for the record? I have about 98,076 emo points. I completely made this up, mind you, as emo points, despite popular media’s insistence that they are real, do not exist.
-shoutmouth
emo community //_+
