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Everyone’s idea of emo depends on when they were born and what their scene is I think. In the early 2000’s emo was the all black, hair in the face, band tee wearing weird kids. That is still valid in today's time but styles evolve, especially with the emergence of social media. The definition of emo and the representation of its style and music have changed. Many like to nitpick, “that's not emo, this is” when in reality times have just changed. Let’s take a look at where it really started and how it evolved.
Emo came from emocore, coined by a writer at Thrasher to describe a debut album in 1985. This “emocore” is not the emo you think of. It’s hardcore, that’s what it stands for “emo hardcore”. It was the hardcore punk scene but with lyrics that were a little more emotional. The hardcore scene was less emotional, being emo was seen as weak and the harcore scene was all about being tough and not being able to be fucked with. Bands like Fugazi, Rights of Spring and Embrace were some of the big emocore bands at the time!
Genres like screamo, midwest emo, emo rock came about through the years 1992-2002. Midwest emo at the time consisted of bands like Braid, Captain Jazz, The Promise Ring and Jets to Brazil. Emo rock bands at the time consisted of bands like senses fail, texas is the reason and game face. While also bringing a little more emotion into the scene, the start of emocore was also almost like the key to introducing more women to the scene.
Mall Screamo Years 2002-2008:
This is the most memorable and known emo style. Dashboard confessional had a song on the spiderman soundtrack. Pete Wentz (Fall Out Boy) was on the cover of J-14. This was showing how mainstream emo was becoming and how the popularity was increasing. Fall out boy, MCR, Taking Back Sunday, Panic at the disco, Paramore all became popular. Mall emo became a big thing because of the attitudes of the band's frontman. Everyone knows I write sins not tragedies and welcome to the black parade, if you don’t, press below and now you do.
They also became as popular as they were because they had major labels supporting them. Fall Out Boy went on hiatus in 2010. MCR broke up in 2013. Paramour changed styles. A lot of the classic emo bands had begun to evolve and change styles. As their main audience was growing older, so were they. They could not keep their teenage style music for their 30 year old fans. Emo was one of those styles that stayed for people's teenage years, unlike Goth and Punk styles, you really could not be visibly emo for the rest of your life. Older emo, metalheads, really anyone who was involved in alternative rock like styles kind of have the same style now, still emo just tame. Tons of people still listen to Emo music, you may see emo nights at certain clubs where people will go to live out their teenage emo years once again.
Music
Heroes
Master List
Profile Song: Dear Maria, Count Me In - All Time Low
Name: xXxBreeBreexXx
Age: 16
Birthday: 07/19
New age emo: The emo that's still going
We have bands like the front bottoms, mom jeans, basement, title fight, citizen and modern color (just to mention some of my favorites). I would consider those to be in the midwest emo genre. Midwest emo has more of a chill vibe. There is the occasional scream but its not as hardcore as other emo songs its more of a truly painful crying scream. Not all emo music has to be sad to be considered emo, I'd like to point that out.
Emo rap: Lil peep (“i really truly think that he was on the verge of bringing emo back to mainstream and it’s incredibly sad that we lost him so young”), lil lotus, nothing, nowhere, convolk, gucci highwaters. “I really think we’ll never know how big the genre could have been, simply because we lost the three biggest stars (lil peep, xxxtentacion, Juice wrld + hella sketchy) before they ever really hit their prime'' - The Punk Rock MBA
Festivals planned like, When We Were Young Fest will bring a large crowd of all ages to see bands like My Chemical Romance, Sleeping With Sirens, Mayday Parade, Carseat Headrest and some stars who even started on tiktok like jxdn and Nessa Barret.
Cultural Traditions. Significant Contributions/Events
Through the emo of the 2000s, many subcultures branched out from that. scene teens were basically colorful emos if you were to ask me. They were/are the quirky emos. They had music genres like crunkcore and many others. Myspace was very popular amongst scene teens. Scene queens were early internet celebrities and at the time, platforms like myspace had 100 million users per month by 2005! Gyaru also heavily influenced the scene style.
WARPED TOUR: 1995-2019
Warped tour was a huge festival that drew in over half a million people. It was hosted by Vans and had all of the popular emo and pop punk bands.
Alternative Press (Created by Mike Shea in 1985) Mike Shea was frustrated that the local media was not covering the bands that he wanted to see. First national cover stories on bands like Nine Inch Nails, Nirvana, Radiohead, My Bloody Valentine and Foo Fighters. It went from Grunge/alt rock to nu-metal to mall screamo (where lots of people started to pay attention to the publication) to Scene (their peak years). They had a 100 bands you should know, it kept people in the alternative scene in the know. In 2007, they had an AP tour that ran for about 5 years. “...this meant that they weren't just documenting the scene, they were actively helping to create it by putting these tours together.” Alternative Press music awards.
Emo has brought awareness to mental health. People like to make jokes or assume that emo music will lead to suicide, I get how people could feel like that from an outside perspective but a lot of artists have helped people find a community and some sense of feeling less alone. Many artists even speak out on mental health and how they get help or they tell their fans that things do get better and things like suicide arent the option. Before the emo scene exploded the way it did, mental health was more of a hush hush topic, it still is sometimes but now, at least emo kids are sometimes more open about it. The topic is discussed more even if meant as a joke. We would see a kid looking sad and just laugh it off “lol emo ass” I’d hear kids say to people but now people will ask if others are okay and I feel like this is because of our big emo rap stars that everyone knew about.
Spirituality/Beliefs
Many people see alternative music and styles and kind of automatically think of devil worship. I believe that they get this from genres like Death metal or really any hardcore metal and maybe even rock of the 80’s. This is not true. There are emos of all religions and spiritual views, there are even christian pop punk/rock bands. It really is sometimes just a style of music that some people enjoy and connect to without being into it because it’s “the devil's music”.
