What the Heck Is Emo?

What the Heck is Emo?

Is Emo a type of animal? No, that is an emu. Oh, is it that little, red, fuzzy thing from Sesame Street? No, wait, that is Elmo. Is it a style of music that has inspired depressed youth across the nation to put on their favorite '80s t-shirts and thick, black-framed glasses and remember all the girlfriends/boyfriends who treated them like crap? Or does it even exist? To those who do think it exists, it is short for emotional, and it has brought out a whole mess of bands who say everything “sucks”. It is clear to fans that the style exists, but who exactly fits in the categories is somewhat hazy. The term “emo” has a history, categories of emo music and a curent fashion frenzy.

The term emo has a historical background. Emo started to take shape in Washington, D.C., after the band, Minor Threat, broke up in 1983. This was around the time that "D.C. hardcore punk" ended. It was after the band's separation that punk bands all over the country started searching for new styles, including "cheeze-metal," mosh and alternative. Emo's forefather was the turn toward melodic rock with punk sensibilities. In 1984, a band called Rites of Spring formed from former members of The Untouchables, Faith, and Deadline. This band had the same speed and texture of punk, but with intensely personal lyrics dripping with emotion and sweat. In the summer of 1985, a new wave of rock-tempo, melody-based bands formed from the remaining punk musicians in Washington, D.C. These bands, which included Gray Matter and Shudder to Think, did not keep the punk style created by Rites of Spring. Soon after Minor Threat's front man, Ian MacKaye, joined a band called Embrace, he said this band used lyrics that were "emotional and deeply self-questioning, but still clear and unambiguous." (www.punknews.org). He said bands like Embrace were negatively labeled as emo by critics and magazines because of their more emotional style. In 1986 more bands began to flock toward the emo style with bands like The Hated in Annapolis and Moss Icon.

Moss Icon were the true originators of emo, and later bands would borrow their styles and create their own kind of genre, which has several of its own sub-categories. The first category is emocore, which includes bands such as Fuel and Jawbreaker. The emocore style has become broader over the years. In the beginning, these bands consisted mostly of people who played in hardcore punk bands, got burned out on its limited forms and moved to a guitar-oriented, mid-tempo rock-based sound. This style has the emotional punk vocals with a couple guitars played in distortion and at the same time. The second is plain emo, which includes bands such as Indian Summer and Julia. This style has more intense vocals than emocore that start off soft and get louder and sometimes result in gut-wrenching screams