Emo 2010 Emo Images

Infobox Music genre

name = Emo
color = white
bgcolor = crimson
stylistic_origins = Hardcore punk, indie rock
cultural_origins = Mid-1980s Washington, D.C.
instruments = Vocals, guitars, bass guitar, drum kit
popularity = Early 2000s–present
derivatives =
subgenres = Screamo
fusiongenres =
regional_scenes = Washington, D.C. New Jersey and Long Island
local_scenes =
other_topics = List of emo artists timeline of alternative rock
Emo () is a style of rock music typically characterized by melodic musicianship and expressive, often confessional lyrics. It originated in the mid-1980s hardcore punk movement of Washington, D.C., where it was known as "emotional hardcore" or "emocore" and pioneered by bands such as Rites of Spring and Embrace. As the style was echoed by contemporary American punk rock bands, its sound and meaning shifted and changed, blending with pop punk and indie rock and encapsulated in the early 1990s by groups such as Jawbreaker and Sunny Day Real Estate. By the mid 1990s numerous emo acts emerged from the Midwestern and Central United States, and several independent record labels began to specialize in the style. Emo broke into mainstream culture in the early 2000s with the platinum-selling success of Jimmy Eat World and Dashboard Confessional and the emergence of the subgenre "screamo". In recent years the term "emo" has been applied by critics and journalists to a variety of artists, including multiplatinum acts and groups with disparate styles and sounds. In addition to music, "emo" is often used more generally to signify a particular relationship between fans and artists, and to describe related aspects of fashion, culture, and behavior.

History

Origins: 1980s

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|filename = Rites of Spring - Remainder.ogg |title = "Remainder" by Rites of Spring |description = The melodic guitars, varied rhythms, and deeply personal lyrics of Rites of Spring broke from the rigid boundaries of hardcore and helped launch the "emotional hardcore" or "emocore" style.
Emo emerged from the hardcore punk scene of early-1980s Washington, D.C., both as a reaction to the increased violence within the scene and as an extension of the personal politics espoused by Ian MacKaye of Minor Threat, who had turned the focus of the music from the community back towards the individual. Similar bands soon followed in connection with the "Revolution Summer" of 1985, a deliberate attempt by members of the Washington, D.C. scene to break from the rigid constraints of hardcore in favor of a renewed spirit of creativity. Bands such as Gray Matter, Beefeater, Fire Party, Dag Nasty, Lunchmeat, and Kingface were connected to this movement. The exact origins of the term "emo" are uncertain, but date back to at least 1985. According to Andy Greenwald, author of '''', "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." Michael Azerrad, author of ''Our Band Could Be Your Life'', also traces the word's origins to this time: "The style was soon dubbed 'emo-core,' a term everyone involved bitterly detested, although the term and the approach thrived for at least another fifteen years, spawning countless bands."

cite web|title = emo, n.| url = http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/00341633?single=1&query_type=word&queryword=emo&first=1&max_to_show=10

work = Oxford English Dictionary|publisher = Oxford University Press|accessdate = 2009-04-18
The "emocore" label quickly spread around the Washington, D.C. punk scene and became attached to many of the bands associated with MacKaye's Dischord Records label. The Washington, D.C. emo scene lasted only a few years. By 1986 most of the major bands of the movement—including Rites of Spring, Embrace, Gray Matter, and Beefeater—had broken up. According to Greenwald, the Washington, D.C. scene laid the groundwork for all subsequent incarnations of emo:

What had happened in D.C. in the mid-eighties—the shift from anger to action, from extroverted rage to internal turmoil, from an individualized mass to a mass of individuals—was in many ways a test case for the transformation of the national punk scene over the next two decades. The imagery, the power of the music, the way people responded to it, and the way the bands burned out instead of fading away—all have their origins in those first few performances by Rites of Spring. The roots of emo were laid, however unintentionally, by fifty or so people in the nation's capital. And in some ways, it was never as good and surely never as pure again. Certainly, the Washington scene was the only time "emocore" had any consensus definition as a genre.

MacKaye and Piccioto, along with Rites of Spring drummer Brendan Canty, went on to form the highly influential Fugazi who, despite sometimes being connected with the term "emo", are not commonly recognized as an emo band.

Reinvention: early 1990s

As the ideals of the Washington, D.C. emo movement spread across the United States, many bands in numerous local scenes began to emulate the sound as a way to marry the intensity of hardcore with the complex emotions associated with growing older. Chief among these were Jawbreaker and Sunny Day Real Estate, both of whom fostered cult followings, recontextualized the word "emo", and brought it a step closer to the mainstream. According to Andy Greenwald:

Sunny Day Real Estate was emo's head and Jawbreaker its busted gut—the two overlapped in the heart, then broke up before they made it big. Each had a lasting impact on the world of independent music. The bands shared little else but fans, and yet somehow the combination of the two lays down a fairly effective blueprint for everything that was labeled emo for the next decade.

In the wake of the 1991 success of Nirvana's ''Nevermind'', underground music and subcultures in the United States became big business. New distribution networks emerged, touring routes were codified, and regional and independent acts were able to access the national stage.

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|filename = Jawbreaker - Kiss the Bottle.ogg |title = "Kiss the Bottle" by Jawbreaker |description = Kiss the Bottle,' more than any other song, captures the sensitive boy machismo that drew (and continues to draw) male listeners to the altar of Schwarzenbach."
Jawbreaker has been referred to as "the Rosetta Stone of contemporary emo".

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|filename = Sunny Day Real Estate - Seven.ogg |title = "Seven" by Sunny Day Real Estate |description = Sunny Day Real Estate's epic sound challenged other bands to reach further with their own music. "Seven" helped bring emo towards the mainstream when it received airplay on MTV.
Sunny Day Real Estate formed in Seattle during the height of the early-1990s grunge boom.

Underground popularity: mid 1990s

In the mid-1990s the American punk and indie rock movements, which had been largely underground since the early 1980s, became part of mainstream culture. After Nirvana's success, major record labels capitalized on the popularity of alternative rock and other underground music by signing numerous independent bands and spending large amounts of capital promoting them. 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."

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|filename = Texas Is the Reason - If It's Here When We Get Back It's Ours.ogg |title = "If It's Here When We Get Back It's Ours" by Texas Is the Reason |description = Texas Is the Reason bridged indie rock and emo by blending melody with punk musicianship and singing directly to the listener. |filename2 = Lifetime - Knives, Bats, New Tats.ogg |title2 = "Knives, Bats, New Tats" by Lifetime |description2 = Lifetime's brand of melodic hardcore with introspective lyrics inspired numerous later New Jersey and Long Island emo bands.
On the east coast, New York City-based Texas Is the Reason bridged the gap between indie rock and emo in their brief three-year lifespan by melding the melodies of Sunny Day Real Estate to churning punk musicianship and singing directly to the listener. The Promise Ring were one of the premier bands of the new emo style. Their music took a slower, smoother, pop punk approach to hardcore riffs, blending them with singer Davey von Bohlen's goofy, picturesque lyrics delivered with a froggy croon and pronounced lisp, and they played shows in basements and VFW halls The common lyrical thread between these bands was "applying big questions to small scenarios."

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|filename = Weezer - El Scorcho.ogg |title = "El Scorcho" by Weezer |description = ''Pinkerton'''s abrasive sound and confessional lyrics led to critical and commercial failure in the short term, but in retrospect it is regarded as the most important emo album of the 1990s.
A cornerstone of mid-1990s emo was Weezer's 1996 album ''Pinkerton''.

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|filename = Mineral - If I Could.ogg |title = "If I Could" by Mineral |description = Andy Greenwald calls "If I Could" "the ultimate expression of mid-nineties emo."
The emo aesthetic of the mid-1990s was embodied in Mineral, whose albums ''The Power of Failing'' (1997) and ''EndSerenading'' (1998) encapsulated the emo tropes of somber music accompanied by a shy narrator singing seriously about mundane problems.

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|filename = The Promise Ring - Why Did We Ever Meet.ogg |title = "Why Did Ever We Meet" by The Promise Ring |description = The Promise Ring's ''Nothing Feels Good'' was the most commercially successful emo album of the mid-1990s due to its effective blend of pop and punk.
Though the emo style of the mid-1990s had thousands of young fans, it never broke into the national consciousness.

Independent success: late 1990s and early 2000s

Beginning in the late 1990s emo had a surge of popularity in the realm of independent music, as a number of notable acts and record labels experienced successes that would lay the foundation for the style's later mainstream breakthrough. As emo gained a larger fanbase the music business began see its marketing potential, and as big business entered the picture many of the acts previously associated with the term intentionally distanced themselves from it:

As the '90s wore to a close, the music that was being labeled emo was making a connection with a larger and larger group of people. the aspects of it that were the most contagious—the sensitivity, hooks, and average-guy appeal—were also the easiest to latch onto, replicate, and mass market. As with any phenomenon—exactly like what happened with Sunny Day [Real Estate]—when business enters into a high-stakes, highly personal sphere, things tend to go awry very quickly [...] As fans threatened to storm the emo bandwagon, the groups couldn't jump off of it fast enough. The popularity and bankability of the word—if not the music—transformed an affiliation with the mid-nineties version of emo into an albatross.

In 1997 Deep Elm Records launched a series of compilation albums entitled ''The Emo Diaries'', which continued until 2007 with eleven installments. Featuring mostly unreleased music from unsigned bands, the series included acts such as Jimmy Eat World, Further Seems Forever, Samiam, and The Movielife. The diversity of bands and musical styles made the case for emo as more of a shared aesthetic than a genre, and the series helped to codify the term "emo" and spread it throughout the community of underground music.

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|filename = Jimmy Eat World - Lucky Denver Mint.ogg |title = "Lucky Denver Mint" by Jimmy Eat World |description = ''Clarity'' was an underground hit for Jimmy Eat World even though it was not a commercial success, despite the promotion of "Lucky Denver Mint".
Jimmy Eat World's 1999 album ''Clarity'' was one of the most significant emo albums of the late 1990s and became a touchstone for later emo bands. Drive-Thru Records, founded in 1996, steadily built up a roster of primarily pop punk bands with emo characteristics such as Midtown, The Starting Line, The Movielife, and Something Corporate.

In a world where cars are advertised as punk, Green Day members are platinum rock stars, and getting pierced and tatted up is as natural as a sweet-sixteen party, everyone is free to come up with their own definition of punk—and everyone is ready to embrace it. Emo had always connected with young people—it had just never aggressively marketed itself to them.

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|filename = The Get Up Kids - Action & Action.ogg |title = "Action & Action" by The Get Up Kids |description = The Get Up Kids' ''Something to Write Home About'' helped Vagrant Records expand into a much larger label and sign numerous other emo acts.
Independent label Vagrant Records was behind several successful emo acts of the late 1990s and early 2000s. The Get Up Kids had sold over 15,000 copies of their debut album ''Four Minute Mile'' (1997) before signing to Vagrant, who promoted the band aggressively and put them on tours opening for big-name acts like Green Day and Weezer. According Greenwald, "More than any other event, it was Vagrant America that defined emo to masses—mainly because it had the gumption to hit the road and bring it to ''them''."

Mainstream popularity: 2000s

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|filename = Dashboard Confessional - Screaming Infidelities.ogg |title = "Screaming Infidelities" by Dashboard Confessional |description = "Screaming Infidelities" helped Dashboard Confessional reach #5 on the Independent Albums chart in 2002. |filename2 = Jimmy Eat World - The Middle.ogg |title2 = "The Middle" by Jimmy Eat World |description2 = "The Middle" reached #1 on ''Billboard''Emo broke into the mainstream media in the summer of 2002 with a number of notable events: Andy Greenwald attributes emo's sudden explosion into the mainstream to media outlets looking for the "next big thing" in the wake of the September 11 attacks:

The media business, so desperate for its self-obsessed, post-9/11 predictions of a return to austerity and the death of irony to come true, had found its next big thing. But it was barely a "thing," because no one had heard of it, and those who had couldn't define it. Despite the fact that the hedonistic, materialistic hip-hop of Nelly was still dominating the charts, magazine readers in the summer of '02 were informed that the nation was deep in an introverted healing process, and the way it was healing was by wearing thick black glasses and vintage striped shirts. Emo, we were told, would heal us all through fashion.

In the wake of this success, many emo bands were signed to major record labels and the style became a marketable product. At the same time, a darker, more aggressive offshoot of emo gained popularity. New Jersey–based Thursday signed a multi-million-dollar, multialbum contract with Island Def Jam on the strength of their 2001 album ''Full Collapse'', which reached #178 on the ''Billboard'' 200.

Fashion and stereotype

Today emo is commonly tied to both music and fashion as well as the emo subculture. The emo fashion is also recognized for its hairstyles. Popular looks include long side-swept bangs, sometimes covering one or both eyes. Also popular is hair that is straightened and dyed black. Bright colors, such as blue, pink, red, or bleached blond, are also typical as highlights in emo hairstyles. Short, choppy layers of hair are also common. This fashion has at times been characterized as a fad. but as the style spread to younger teenagers, the style has become darker, with long bangs and emphasis on the color black replacing sweater vests. Emo has been associated with a stereotype that includes being particularly emotional, sensitive, shy, introverted, or angst-ridden.

Criticism and controversy

Gender bias

Emo has been criticized for its androcentrism.

Backlash

The genre emo inspired a backlash movement in response to its rapid growth. Several bands considered to be "emo" rejected the label for the social stigma and controversy surrounding it.

cite web

url=http://www.nme.com/news/nme/24758
title=Panic! At The Disco declare emo "Bullshit!" The band reject "weak" stereotype
publisher=NME |date=2006-10-18 |accessdate=2008-08-10

cite web

url=http://media.www.mainecampus.com/media/storage/paper322/news/2007/09/20/Style/My.Chemical.Romance.Talks.To.The.campus-2979744.shtml|title=My Chemical Romance talks to The 'Campus
author=Brett Sowerby |publisher="The Maine Campus"|date=2007-09-20 |accessdate=2008-08-10

Suicide

Emo music has been blamed for the suicide by hanging of teenager Hannah Bond by both the coroner at the inquest into her death and her mother, Heather Bond, after it was claimed that emo music glamorized suicide and her apparent obsession with My Chemical Romance was said to be linked to her suicide. The inquest heard that she was part of an Internet "emo cult" and her Bebo page contained an image of an 'emo girl' with bloody wrists. It also heard that she had discussed the "glamour" of hanging online

cite web

| url= http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article1138968.ece | publisher= The Sun | title= Suicide of Hannah, the secret 'emo' | date= 2008-05-08 | author= Clench, James
and had explained to her parents that her self harming was an "emo initiation ceremony".

cite web

| url= http://www.nme.com/news/various-artists/36468 | publisher= NME | date= 2008-05-08 | title= Emo music attacked over teen suicide
Heather Bond criticised emo fashion, saying: "There are 'emo' websites that show pink teddies hanging themselves." After the verdict was reported in ''NME'', fans of emo music contacted the magazine to defend against accusations that it promotes self harm and suicide.

cite web

| url= http://www.nme.com/news/my-chemical-romance/36480 | publisher= NME | date= 2008-05-08 | title= Emo fans defend their music against suicide claims

References

Further reading

External links

Emo