Emo Through the Ages

An ever-evolving genre.

Welcome! Today I’m going to talk a little bit about the history of the emo genre. I hope you enjoy!

The 1980s Emocore

The emo genre almost certainly was born from Washington D.C.’s 1980s hardcore/punk scene.

Bands like Minor Threat featured fast beats and spiteful lyrics (for an example see Minor Threat’s “Sob Story”). Minor Threat’s frontman, Ian MacKaye, shifted from hardcore punk to post-hardcore, forming the band Fugazi, which sported a more musically diverse catalog, drawing from hardcore, post-punk, and reggae. Also recruited to Fugazi, were Guy Picciotto and Brendan Canty of the band Rites of Spring, which, arguably, has had one of the greatest influences on the emo genre to date.

Rites of Spring has been called the first emo band (though this is hotly debated) because of their introspective lyrics rather than the traditional societal frustration heard in punk.

Minor Threat’s guitarist, Brian Baker left to create Dag Nasty, another strong influence on the genre. Their 1984 album, Can I Say displays a clear connection to modern-day emo, with witty, lovesick lyrics, heavy and quick bass lines, and frantic drums.

One theme with these early influential bands was that they were short-lived. Minor Threat, Rites of Spring, and Dag Nasty all broke up, with members leaving to create new bands and sounds (although Dag Nasty got back together multiple times). Another would be that these bands vehemently did not want to be called emo, or at the time, “emocore.”

Revolution Summer

Many hardcore groups in the 80s had a sexist, violent tone. Women were scarcely seen at shows, and men consistently beat each other up under the guise of moshing.

Amy Pickering, an employee at Dischord Records, had had enough of the hardcore obsession with staying the same and began urging bands to evolve and return to their ‘punk’ roots: protesting injustice and confidently breaking music stereotypes. Emocore bands like Beefeater and Rites of Spring took her words to heart and began producing what we now call the roots of emo. The Revolution Summer bands sought to incorporate anti-establishment values such as vegetarianism and peace.

The 1980s hardcore punk scene saw a huge shift from unspecified rage and violence to a more self-reflective, nostalgic lyricism. Emocore bands formed and fizzled out quickly yet left a lasting impact on the genre.

Other bands to listen to: Gray Matter, Beefeater, Soulside, Embrace, Split Lip

The 1990s Midwest Emo/Second Wave

“Killed by an angel

Lost inside amazing colors

It’s never how you feel

It comes in a bottle” “Killed By An Angel” - Sunny Day Real Estate

Leaving D.C., emo influences gained traction across the US but found a particularly strong foothold in the Midwest.

The music scene as a whole was evolving, with underground bands seeing more popularity. As a result, local bands like Sunny Day Real Estate, Cap’n Jazz, Promise Ring, and Joan of Arc gained cult followings and further refined the genre.

The music itself was also becoming a little less messy. Cap’n Jazz’s album Analphabetapolothology took emo lyricism and vocals and combined them with a musical style that was less hardcore, more indie rock, debatably making the genre more appealing to a broad audience. What stands out here is the rawness behind the vocals and the bands’ emotional impact on audiences. Singers did not shy away from the voice cracks and focused instead on the passion behind the words. It was not uncommon to see people sobbing, both on the stage and off.

When emo spread out of D.C. the music became a little more ductile, open to stylistic influence from mainly indie and math rock.

American Football is a great example of this. The band formed in Illinois with lead singer Mike Kinsella (of Cap’n Jazz). Unlike the frenetic hardcore 80’s emo, American Football incorporated slowed-down melodies and drawling trumpet solos, crafting a more sensitive tone and inciting deeper emotional connections. This is further emphasized through lyrics like

“If you’re still prone to accidents

And misunderstandings, you won't

Understand me

Or my motivation

For being alone” - “I’ll See You When We’re Both Not So Emotional”

American Football’s album American Football is aggressively midwestern, with themes of hometown loneliness, teenage romance, and nostalgia. This emphasis on reminiscence can be traced through many emo bands following American Football, and, while they certainly were not the first to sing on the topic, the band’s sentimental or even tumultuous lyricism had an unmatched sincerity that many have sought to emulate.

Sunny Day Real Estate

My favorite from this time period has to be Sunny Day Real Estate, a witty, dramatic, experimental band whose history is as complex as their music. The band broke up and switched members often, but produced what Rolling Stone considers the greatest emo album of all time, Diary. Jeremy Enigk’s almost mythic falsetto was the soul of the band’s music, creating a juxtaposition of grunge and tenderness. Their impact on the emo genre can be seen in a persisting adherence to shifting time signatures, desperately pleading vocals, and disregard for style, blending indie, grunge, and hardcore into intriguing and ever-changing rhythms. Sunny Day Real Estate is truly a touchstone for emo history, taking influence from their hardcore predecessors and creating something a little more earnest and contemplative.

Other bands to listen to: Braid, Lifetime, Thursday, Jawbreaker

The 2000s Mall Emo and Eyeliner

Bands associated with third-wave emo are often more well-known and subscribe to an easily recognizable image of “emo.”

But before the eyeliner and skinny jeans came pop punk-esque groups like Jimmy Eat World, an ever-persisting group from Arizona. The band formed in the early 90s, but did not see mainstream success until the 2000s with their album Bleed American and wildly popular song “The Middle.” Like the 90s, emo bands clung to the same lyrical tropes but blended more pop-punk and catchy choruses.

While many were embracing a softer style, some musicians dug their heels into the 80s post-hardcore, incorporating screaming into their songs. Screamo-emo bands like Thursday had all the nostalgic beauty of the 90s mixed with a hardcore attitude. The screamo subgenre can be linked back to Portraits of Past, a post-hardcore and short-lived group from San Francisco.

Dashboard Confessional is another emo band that made the jump into the mainstream. When their album, MTV Unplugged, a collection of live recordings on MTV Unplugged, became certified Platinum, the popularity (and financial incentive) of emo music became crystal clear, paving the way for more emo bands to be signable in the eyes of record labels.

At the start of the 2000s, emo bands began seeing more commercial success but remained loyal to a certain sound: intricate meters, chugging bass lines, and pleading vocals.

Emo Pop

The mid-2000s saw a huge spike in the popularity of emo pop, a subgenre of emo that took influences from the 80s - early 2000s but incorporated pop elements like catchy hooks, high production sets, and an embracement of emo fashion.

In 2004, My Chemical Romance released Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, a wildly popular pop-punk album followed by the even more famous The Black Parade, which contains what many modern-day emos consider the ‘emo anthem,’ “Welcome to the Black Parade,” a song whose legacy is so entrenched in music culture that most emo fans recognize it by its first note. Their punching, dramatic style in Three Cheers feels like a bit of a throwback to 90s emo with a bit more “self-help” and community focus. Like many emo pop groups, My Chemical Romance’s lyrics focused on fostering hope and building a community for outcast teenagers.

Equally as popular was Fall Out Boy, a midwestern emo-pop group. Fall Out Boy blends a sense of emo with soul, utilizing lead singer Patrick Stump’s powerful soul voice to fill out and complicate what was, at first, aggressively teenage lyrics. Take This to Your Grave, the group’s first (recognized) album, gained them massive success, leading to a performance at Warped Tour. Fall Out Boy’s satirically smart lyrics have inspired many bands over the years, including Bring Me The Horizon and Panic! At The Disco. Bassist Pete Wentz began his music career in the metal scene, similar to drummer Andy Hurley, who played in many hardcore groups before Fall Out Boy. The members’ background in the hardcore/metal scene can be heard in Take This to Your Grave tracks like “The Pros and Cons of Breathing” or “Saturday” which are a bit heavier and darker than the rest of the group’s discography. While the band’s following albums shift more toward pop rock, there is a persistent influence of midwestern emo on their lyrics.

Emo as a Culture

The popularization of the internet, along with websites like LimeWire and MySpace, propelled basement bands to stardom. Many emo bands found fans through these sites, but what’s more interesting is the emo culture that was pushed by the internet. Fans of the music began donning a uniform: fringe, tight black clothes, heavy makeup, and piercings, to name a few facets.

Emo has been and still is a reaction to modern culture. So it is no surprise that this new image of emo was heavily criticized. News stations warned that the culture was extremely dangerous and promoted self-harm. Unsurprisingly, most of the “evidence” of this was parody taken out of context. Like most new phenomena, parents feared their children’s association with the culture. This disdain popularized hate against ‘emos,’ which escalated so much that the UK declared attacks on members of the culture as a hate crime.

Other bands to listen to: Paramore, Hawthorne Heights, Taking Back Sunday

Today’s Emo

Despite what many would say, emo is not dead. In fact, there seems to be a resurgence in the genre’s popularity, at least for the 2000s bands. “Emo Night” has become a profitable way for bars and clubs to attract attention. The deeply personal and emotional relationship many listeners had with emo bands makes nostalgia an even more powerful tool.

There are also many upcoming emo bands gaining popularity. Drawing from their emo predecessors and covering the difficult landscape that is today’s society, modern emo groups continue to challenge reality and connect with listeners on an unprecedented sincere level.

Recently, I was fortunate enough to talk with the band Maewyn, an emo rock band from Kentucky, whose insanely complex music both honors 80s post-hardcore emo and Midwest lyricism. I asked them “What is emo to you?” and here’s what they had to say:

“We have felt a connection to emo music and the emo culture since long before our beginning as a band. Growing up, emo, hardcore, and punk bands were massively formative to us. But also, being emo just means letting our songs speak to how we really feel and the struggles we experience, whether that’s battles with seasonal depression, grief, or self-deprecation. We try to always be honest with our music, no matter what.”

Maewyn just released “February 6th,” from their upcoming EP When You Get to Heaven. If you’ve been looking for a new emo band to listen to, I promise Maewyn will not disappoint.

You can find them on Instagram @maewynband or check out their new single below.

For more information on the history of emo, check out these sources:

• https://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/emo-wave-guide-evolution-2302802

• https://web.archive.org/web/20160304101910/http://www.wonderingsound.com/list-hub/nothing-feels-good-an-album-by-album-emo-timeline/

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emo

• https://riotfest.org/2022/07/06/sunny-day-real-estate-defined-emo-forever-with-diary/

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