Are You Emo?

Does my shouting make me 'emo'?

Ahh, good, I must not be emo.

Which is not to say that emo as a genre is good. But there are anywhere from 3 to 100 really great emo bands out there, depending on your definition of the term.

Life does! But it doesn't make me want to scream. It makes me want to sing beautiful harmonies. I am wearing a tight green T-shirt. Is that emo?

nice dropping of an hmhb reference too

Actually, from what I remember of your photo you may be Conor Oberst.

Anyway, he's not wearing a tight white T-shirt, a backpack or black-rimmed spectacles. I think this emo thing is more complicated than you've been making out

Where exactly do the boundaries of emo lie anyway? Do Fugazi count? The Dismemberment Plan? Les Savy Fav? Drive Like Jehu? I like all four of them and am worried that they might be lumped in with The Promise Ring et al.

Erm, Nick if you did write like that you'd be the toast of Champaign/Urbana! Seriously, no offense meant, as much as I dislike the Fireside Bowl/emo bands/"scene"* I wish I had the soft femme features of C.O.

* But I do own a pair of black-rimmed glasses and tight t-shirts, live in the Midwest, listen to the Dismemberment Plan! Help!

I always think of Emo as sounding a bit like Seamonsters by The Wedding Present, but it probably doesn't.

I like the Dismemberment Plan and the Get-Up Kids don't bother me either.

And like anything, people seem more accustomed to kick against a "scene" that they see elements of themselves in but don't want to be associated with as a shortcut for describing their sensibilites, etc. Lots of us have done in this thread and others with bands we like. And I know I've cringed at the thought of being able to be described as an "indie boy" or a Belle and Sebastian fan and have the connotations of either ring true or, worse, be able to be reduced to either tag.

That said, sometimes that's a good thing to hear.

People need to stop calling any band that shows a predilection for screaming and using guitars "emo", though. Emo != indie rock (which most of the bands noted above would sorta qualify as), and "emo" is more of a nonsensical bullshit term than "indie rock" anyway. Not as bullshit as "punk rock", of course.

And guilt by association re: genres is so pointless. Otherwise, I'd be dumping my Tribe and De La and Wu-Tang CDs, thanks to Hammer and Vanilla Ice and P. Diddy and lord knows who else...

Naturally, but I wasn't talking about the music.

Actually, my original post had some comments about fashion choices made by "emo" fans and such things, but deleted them since I realized that I was (superficially) describing some of my friends. It's a sticky wicket, and I don't feel confident going off and railing against a sub-culture which might have good things to offer to those inside its walls. But, then, I just called the people that live in my state "screwed up", so I'm full of it.

I KNOW Emo sucks after hearing Jeff Buckley, Coldplay, Radiohead, Starsailor and other sensitive simpering goons - don't need to familiarise myself with their fellow travelers, thanks...

No possible definition of "emo" encompasses anything anywhere close to anything listed above. In the least. The above is like saying "I know hip-hop sucks after hearing the Dixie Chicks."

Bright Eyes aren't really emo either. They fulfill a few characteristics: (1) must be from Wisconsin, Illinois, or somewhere in the Kansas/Nebraska area, and (2) singy/screamy "I'm having a little breakdown here," but in a very "I'm not trying to imply that I could kick your ass because I am actually skinny frail and upset" kind of way. Other than that: not so emo.

If you want to get a lock on the only thing that everyone agrees is emo -- the thing that sort of spurred people to even start saying "emo" -- the thing that explains how "emo" went from meaning bands like Mineral to meaning bands like the Get Up Kids -- it's Cap'N Jazz. Buy "Analphabetapolothology." Then stop ragging on Joan of Arc.

And if you want a record that completely typifies everything that the word "emo" can safely imply, get Luck of Aleia's self-titled EP.

I'll put together a comp tonight. You just keep talking about it on NYLPM and saying that UK emo is the greatest, freshest thing to come along in decades. We can get an NME cover within the fortnight.

Well, first I should note that I have no expertise. I'm not huge on emo -- it's just that if you're a relatively informed music listener in the midwestern U.S., you're going to come across some emo sooner or later. Second: I should say that emo is one of those genres where it's hard to come up with non-emo reference points, which I suppose is to emo's credit. There are few clear sources -- it just sort of happened, coming up from a whole slew of general trends. That said, the best reference point I can come up with, in terms of general tone, is Superchunk's "Slack M.F.," which you could probably find pretty easily on any peer-to-peer dealie. Cross that with the chorus of Fugazi's "Repeater," and you're pretty close.

As a general recipe -- and anyone who's actually into emo should feel free to tell me I'm an idiot with this -- I'd say:

Take the general structures of punk/hardcore in the Fugazi/Minor Threat D.C. sense. Take away the strong low-end solidity of that and make it a bit more tinny, hyper, and off-kilter -- common tricks here include lots of octaves sliding around guitar necks, lots of little stop-and-switch turns in songs, lots of arpeggios with "off" notes in them. Now sing, in the early-Superchunk way: i.e., try to make your voice break. Sing higher and louder than you really can, and feel free to let your voice break, strangle, and fall way off key. Common trick here involves one person singing a lead and someone else screaming behind it, but slightly off-time and off-key so that it sounds really ragged and sloppy and off. (This isn't sounding very appealing, I suppose, but don't worry -- it can be amazing when done well.) Now: get sort of slow and mournful for bits, then get all hyper freak-out bashing-on-instruments and screaming for other bits, enough so that your drummer chips away half of his sticks pounding on cymbals.

I'd say that's what's centrally emo, and it all spreads from there. Most notable is that particularly emo way of singing (which, if you haven't heard it, I can't really describe, except to say that the Connor Oberst mention does make a bit of sense) -- a lot of bands get semi-inappropriately tagged "emo" just based on having vocals of that sort. But it's all so complicated by bands like American Football and Joan of Arc and the Get Up Kids and whoever else all seeming somehow "emo" despite not necessarily resembling one another at all. I think it's safe to see emo the way the Supreme Court once saw pornography -- hard to define, but you know it when you hear it.

Sorry to be so pedantic here. Just trying to offer a semi-valid definition.

Also: most anything released on Jade Tree can be called emo at some point or another.

What is the dance subgenre equivalent of emo?

And the above breakdown of the sound is pretty spot on.

As for your conclusion, well ... it certainly sounds that way when described, but doesn't work out that way at all. It's not too aggressive, and it's very warm, and it's very poppy, in its most recent versions -- it's been bordering on "cute" lately, to be honest. Maybe here's another way around it: you know how the Television Personalities' early records were interesting in that they sounded so real and amateurish and yet convincing? Try this: what the Television Personalities are to guitar-pop, emo is to hardcore. As in, take that quality of amateurishness and shambling and sloppiness, and apply it to anthemic rock, rock, rock.

I think what puts me off it - apart from it sounding rubbish - is this limited idea of 'emotion'. It just sounds like a really ghastly weblog to be honest.

But yeah, you're staring at emo's fatal flaw, the thing that non-emo- lovers use to pick on emo-lovers: beneath all of the angularity and complexity lies the heart of an over-emotional fourteen-year-old diarist. When the music's good, this doesn't seem like such a bad thing. But when the music's sub-par, look out.

Emo is a pretty crap name for a genre, agreed. At least "screamo" is nearly so bad it's good, but all the screamo I've heard either just sounds like normal emo to me or it just sounds like nu-metal with no emo influence at all to me. And idm as electronic emo: yeah, maybe, but I'd have thought personally that the plaintive childlike melodies of Arovane, Freescha, Fizzarum were closer than Cex's fuck-shit-up Urb-model freestyling-b-boy playa persona. I mean, the man's weblog is full of shots of him posing in Gap clothes and tales of cruising and entering dancing competitions in nightclubs full of drunk teenage girls, not exactly what I'd expect Chris Leo's diary to look like. And he's called Cex, dammit...

What is the link to Cex' weblog? This sounds great!

And how could I have forgotten Sunny Day Real Estate and Jawbreaker? Very good sort-of-reference points.

"Just because you like something doesn't mean it's not emo."

Re Bright Eyes: "The Calendar Hung Itself" = classic, because you think he's Morrisseyishly partly taking the piss out of how soppy and fucked-up and devoted and bitter he can be rather than *actually meaning every word at the time*, and you can think, "Sheesh, I get like that too sometimes. Poor guy, heh." The rest of "Fever and Mirrors" is pretty dud, especially the awkward interview track where he keeps going on about how he's really fucked up and had a really tough life and then when the interviewer asks about it he just goes, "Ha ha! No, I'm fine... or AM I? Ha!" I mean, yeah, I'm sure some bands I worship have some interviews that read the same, but they didn't stick them on their albums where they'd be seen as some kind of statement of intent and as what Mr Oberst thought was one of his finest interviews. And maybe that was a fake, maybe it's all just a big self-effacing joke, but I'm annoyed now, OK?

And don't call Feeder emo! Dammit, I may not be a proper emo kid, but I'm sure I like Real Emo infinitely more than I like Feeder. In fact, Feeder are the only band mentioned on this thread that I really hate, and I like all of the others except Bright Eyes quite a bit from what little I've heard. I'm going to put on the handful of emo cds and 7"s and mp3s I have and look really pained and sulky now. Bah.

(Have I passed the entrance test yet, or do I have to buy some horn- rimmed glasses? I'd really rather not, but my eyesight is a bit crap and I'm hoping to learn to drive soon, so maybe I ought to.)

Rainer also the recording name of dead slide/blues guitarist virtuoso Rainer Ptacek, who once recorded w/ kings of Emo ZZ Top.

This post has got a bit out of hand, so my point is that I don't think we do have much of an emo scene here, or at least if we do then you have to live in a big city and know where to look to find it.

I Sez: Nope. Just Emo. Period. : ) The plague has spread to the Empire...

Oh, wait, Tom said that UK emo should be better than US emo, so, er, perhaps not.

However, I heard them doing a session on Good Old Radio One a few weeks back which was extremely good - and very emotional. But shorely emotion in songs is a very wide ranging uh, thing - sad emotion, happy emotion, giggling emotion, lonely emotion, hurt emotion and therefore a display of emotion being called EMO is just rather well, pants?

Lots of emo kids found here: the makeout club. Some of them are nice eye candy. Some mingXoR.

Are Dexy's emo?

That explains a lot. ;)

Inasmuch as the Make-Up would kill to be them, sure.

P.S. i think if you wear suspenders you are emo.

But since it has I will say that Bright Eyes still mostly make me want to smack Conor Oberst (I had the opposite opinion of the CTCL reviewer in that I too have only heard the last two albums but I found the new one a lot LESS annoyingly whiney than the last one and thought it nearly had some good tunes and then never wanted to hear it again after it left "brand new cd" rotation anyway) but I think the Desaparecidos album is pretty good and What's New For Fall is absolutely great.

Still, apart from that, the emo I have any time for is mainly the wide-eyed jangly stuff that was called emo on the pavelist three years ago rather than the current definition(not trying to pull the "preferred the earlier stuff" cliche because I know that to proper headz that's, like, hopelessly 25th-wave not-earlier-stuff wannabe nonsense and that I mostly haven't even heard the real deal and it's possibly also the least ILX-approved stuff, just saying).

Why am I posting on here again when I was hoping nobody would ever read my previous posts? Errrr. I should go and listen to the Emo Diaries 5 I got from a local quid bin, stick the GODAWFUL Cast Aside on repeat, and then I'll be ready to agree with Mr Allen. Now that IS yer stereotypical out-of-tune MEWLING about OH GOD i'm fifteen and my parents are well actually they're kinda ok but like they don't like me staying up all night and they like totally don't get that i'm so deep and meaningful and have to wear black all the time WAAAAH UNGH GRUNT GRROWRR stuff, DISMAL, OH the RAGE. Can't you PRETEND to be angry about something other than "why do [my parents] always leave the bathroom door open"?

Oh, every review online (googling to check name) says it's the best track on a great compilation so now I feel bad for it being the track that made me want to throw things on a compilation I thought was fairly blah. Am I too old, or from too nice a family? Or is it just that I know I should be too old and I actually seem to have regressed and I'm deeply embarrassed about it? No... no, don't answer that. I can work it out.

This is the number one reason emo is great!

Emo = music for teenage girls/"sensitive" teenage boys, who want to fuck those girls.

As if you couldn't say this about every genre ever.

Ernie did rubber duckie and he FUCKING ROCKS!!

i don't seem to have mentioned all emo = the wedding present on this thread yet, so there you are :)

god damn it i am emo right now.

will no-one heal these scars

i can't shuffle my feet and gaze at them at the same time, it's a rhythym thing.

Anti-Emo Riots Oh No!

http://blog.wired.com/underwire/2008/03/anti-emo-riots.html

They were just talking about that story on the news here, it was painful to hear. They kept referring to them as "the emos".

Emo kids vs Scene kids in Australia

http://www.wikihow.com/Be-a-Scene-Kid

this is even funnier:

http://www.wikihow.com/Start-a-Black-Metal-Band

From my previous link, I have to say I really like the cassette necklace on the far right chick. That is, erm, stellar.

haven't teenage girls always looked like that?

(not the tape necklace specifically obv)

Yes, I mean they don't look so different do they? I think teenage girls even looked like that when I was 15. But none of them were wearing cassette necklaces. I look forward to seeing 7" vinyl earrings next. Bring back the old technology!!

http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/Movies/04/09/film.bond.ap/index.html

WTF

wow, I can't believe that word has become so massive in today's speak. if i'm not crazy, (and i'm awaiting my oed royalties on this one) i think the initial widespread usage originated with or at least was sparked in part by an article in the back of Thrasher magazine about R.O.S. and other stuff that was going on in DC at the time.

by this late date it's taken on the status of a pejorative that no one would ever knowingly self-apply (see also: h**ster)

(see also: h**ster)

"hooster", obv.

Please tell me this is as funny as I think it is:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7425450.stm#clothes

"Listening to a band like My Chemical Romance is a cathartic thing"

Kate Ashford, emo, 17

No meta revives! Oh, carry on.

This is being covered here:
Rock Cult or Nice Kids Who Do Their Homework?

Take up the scene writing style.

* Use scene lingo like "rad", "Ace", "stellar" and "niggz."

kids think everything is emo these days. Any kind-of non buzz-cut hair=emo. Being skinny = emo. Straight leg pants = emo. Being pasty white = emo.

I was wearing some boring straight leg Levis/polo shirt combo, and my little cousin was like, "that's so emo!" and I was like, "That's like ... Saves the Day, right?"

Screw that, I'm not gonna stop using the occasional 'rad' or 'ace'. Farmer tan, protect me!

Kate Ashford, emo, 17

the emo scene specialises in the kind of morbid lyrics that make Leonard Cohen sound like Sinitta.

the emo scene specialises in the kind of morbid lyrics that make Leonard Cohen sound like Sinitta.

the emo scene specialises in the kind of morbid lyrics that make Leonard Cohen sound like Sinitta.

the emo scene specialises in the kind of morbid lyrics that make Leonard Cohen sound like Sinitta.

the emo scene specialises in the kind of morbid lyrics that make Leonard Cohen sound like Sinitta.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

At what point did emo go from geeks in corduroy and gas station jackets to this neo-goth thing? It still doesn't make any sense that they were called the same thing.

corduroy and gas station jackets

How is this emo to begin with??

It's the shit I saw when I'd be at mid-late 90s Get Up Kids/Saves the Day billings at the local firehouse. I'm not talking about that 80s hardcore stuff.

I'm talking about Vulcan haircuts and sunglasses at night and white belts in 1998. Maybe that was the urban face of emo, though.

I'll back Stanton up here on the gas-station jackets. I didn't start seeing white belts until this decade.

I've never actually been an emo, whatever the dress code.

I'm talking about Vulcan haircuts and sunglasses at night and white belts in 1998. Maybe that was the urban face of emo, though.

-- Laurel, Thursday, May 29, 2008 3:02 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

the make-up were emo?

A huge chunk of those emo bands came from where I'm talking about. I remember white belts being considered the ... fashionista scenester kinda thing, like mall hardcore or something.

I laff now to think there was a time when we called them the white-belt crowd and eventually people started saying "emo" and it was like finally putting a name to a face.

I dunno, labs, but it was a Mooney Suzuki show! Hahaha.

fashionista scenester kinda thing

Yeah, that's what I meant by being the urban face.

the mooney suzuki were definitely not emo and neither were the delta 72

I'm talking about the urban face here-Northeast NJ/NYC. Are you talking about Boston or something?

i definitely have a strong association of vulcan haircuts and boston

No, NYC here. I didn't know any hardcore people/bands at the time, we needed something to call the not-quite-mod revival that had glammed everything up and added studded belts.

And white headbands.

i have worn white belts in nyc in 1998
i have also worn all white with a black belt

in 2001 a shiny silver member's only jacket was worn by me in nyc

kekekekeekeke

it was around 2000 that i embraced kneesocks and sweater vests
god save us from nyu students

The Almighty Wikipedia sez:

Emo is also often associated with a certain fashion. The term "emo" is sometimes stereotyped with tight jeans on males and females alike, long fringe (bangs) brushed to one side of the face or over one or both eyes, dyed black, straight hair, tight t-shirts (sometimes short sleeved) which often bear the names of rock bands (or other designer shirts), studded belts, belt buckles, canvas sneakers or skate shoes or other black shoes (often old and beaten up) and thick, black horn-rimmed glasses. Emo fashion has changed with time. Early trends included straight, unparted hair, tightly fitting sweaters, button-down shirts, and work jackets.

Last sentence is what Burt's talking about and definitely what I associated with emo (along with threadbare thrift-store tees and nerdy glasses) ca. 1997-2000.

I'll back Stanton up here on the gas-station jackets.

Me too esp when talking about the bands/time frame referenced.

Jaymc otm.

Seventeen magazine, August 2002:

http://bieniosek.com/gallery/albums/album36/emo.sized.gif

Discman!

Hot Water Music vs. My Chemical Romance

Yeah, the CDs on that girl's Discman are indicative that this was around the time that "emo" had attracted enough mainstream attention to land Dashboard Confessional on the cover of SPIN but before it had turned into some nu-goth thing.

Does anyone remember seeing screamo whitebelt hipsters sporting sweatbands at all? I only saw it like three times and was like "oh no, worst new trend", but then I just never saw it again. Every instance was at a show booked by $t3ve from 1n1t R3kords, though I can't remember what bands. Late '90s / early '00s hardcore shite before it went all Isis.

Just kinda wondered if these were some weird isolated incidents.

http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c287/expatrica/promisering.jpg

Promise Ring GIS yields lots of creepy Christian crap these days.

I feel like the dudes out of Blood Brothers were the sweatband types.

That makes sense in my head, too, though I can think of no actual sightings.

People who wear sweat bands are gamers who have like 1-up & triforce tats & c.

Or, evidently, they're in a band called Wipe Your Eyes And Face The Day or something.

the current definition of emo (neogoth bullshit) makes more sense than any of the earlier trends

Is that the new definition? What neogoth bullshit exactly? I live in a vacuum and don't notice um...most things.

Don't laugh but I think I might have written something abt it in '96 when emo was still "emotional punk".

I assume someone has used the headline "Punk and Emotional" at some point in the last 10 years? (This will make more sense if you're British)

... actually that makes no sense whatever your nationality <---- tired and unemotional

Last night I read that Spin article about the anti-emo attacks (wtf) in Mexico and still have no idea what the hell was going on there.

when i was going to shows in new brunswick during high school anyone wearing the current emo uniform would have been laughed at. in retrospect i think the new emos are much better dressed than we ever were!

New Brunswick

I think the kids are just adorable.

At least they have some distinctive style. When I was in highschool in the late 90s everything was pretty much bleeeeeeech.

For real!

Yeah, grunge has a lot to answer for.

the late 90s was a cross section of horrors.

emu

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2112960/90-students-Iraq-stoned-death-having-Emo-hair-tight-clothes.html?ICO=most_read_module

well, are you?

In temperament if not in fashion yes

:( at the last revive.