#emo-pop

Tracklist:

Breath In, Breathe Out • End In Tragedy • Ashley's Song • @Reply • Horrible Kids • I Think It's Arrogance • Third Wheel • Missing You • Chase It!

I've seen a lot of people online argue over what "real emo" is and how it's different from "mallcore" and the "is x emo" questions a lot. So I decided to make this post explaining emo genres, the waves of emo, emo culture in general and scene and scenecore stuff. (This is gonna be a long read)

Note: I am NOT claiming to be a scribe on all things emo/scene!!! This is just me trying to explain it from all the knowledge and research I've done. And my weird music autism too. I might get some stuff wrong potentially.

EMO SUBGENRES

Before we begin, I need to specify that emo as a genre has evolved a lot since its inception and varies from band to band, and subgenre to subgenre. This genre has been influenced by hardcore punk, post-hardcore, alternative rock, indie-rock, and even pop punk.

Emo (as in the blanket genre and all of its subgenres) include sincere expression of emotions (emo is literally short for emotional) musically and lyrically, melodic songwriting, and highly expressive and passionate vocals.

EMOCORE

aka Emotional Hardcore. This is the ORIGINAL emo genre. Starting all the way back in the early-ish to middish 80s in Washington D.C. as an offshoot of Post-Hardcore and is also a response to the Hardcore Punk scene growing stagnant.

Emocore toned down the aggressiveness of hardcore punk and put more melodic empathetic along, shouted vocals and fast distorted guitars on midtempos to focus on melodies and dynamics. And of course the emotional, introverted, introspective lyrics.

Bands defined as Emocore are: Rites of Spring, Moss Icon, Embrace, Dag Nasty, Etc

MIDWEST EMO

aka Indie Emo or Post-Emo Indie Rock. Starting in the mid-90s, Midwest Emo combined Seattle's indie rock/alternative rock scene with post-hardcore and emocore music from D.C. The creation of this genre is typically credited to Sunny Day Real Estate from Seattle.

Midwest Emo features alternating loud and soft dynamics, strained and off-key (almost whiny sounding) vocals, and that classic "twinkly" guitar sound. This sub-genre mostly got its name due to a shit ton of bands coming from midwest cities and just middle of bumb-fuck no where midwest eras as well.

Bands defined as Midwest Emo are: Sunny Day Real Estate, American Football, Cap'n Jazz, Jimmy Eat World, etc.

SKRAMZ/SCREAMO

Started in the early 90s in California, Screamo (also called Skramz) is an offshoot of emo that takes emo's emotional nature and melodic guitars and combines them with the speed, intensity, and aggression of hardcore punk. Skramz also took the abrasiveness of noise rock and has an unconventional structure like math rock, with frequent changes in rhythm and tempo.

There was later influence with math rock, mathcore, post-rock, sludge metal, post-metal, and powerviolence. The powerviolence got so strong it even birthed an entire sub-sub genre of emoviolence. Screamo during the 2000s slowly transitioned into being called Skramz due to several post-hardcore and melodic hardcore bands being mislabelled as Screamo.

Bands defined as Screamo/Skramz are: Orchid, February, Gospel, Celeste, etc

EMO-POP

aka Emo Pop Punk. Emo-Pop is a fusion genre of Emo and Pop Punk, and is also the most mainstream, popular, and pop friendly form of emo. Starting back in the 90s, Emo-Pop can be traced back to Midwest Emo bands like Jimmy Eat World.

With Alternative Rock as its base and possessing the hooks, verse-chorus-verse structure, fast moving energy, and clean studio production of pop punk, Emo-Pop's success in the 2000's was destined with its confessional lyrics detail love, loss, heartbreak, and angst. And although greatly separated from its Emocore roots, much of Emo-Pop had Post-Hardcore influence as well.

Several Emo-Pop bands include: Jimmy Eat World, Taking Back Sunday, Paramore, My Chemical Romance, The Used, Early Brand New, Most of pre-hiatus Fall Out Boy, Fever-era Panic! At the Disco, etc

The "waves" of emo

So as you can see, there were several very different genres of emo that had their own periods of time and that developed into the emo "waves", which there are five of. They span from 1985 to the modern day. Besides the first wave, the start and end dates for the waves are wish-y wash-y, especially considering most genres still continued chugging on during the waves while one specific one got the limelight.

1st Wave Emo

1985 to 1991-ish. This is Emocore at its peak. Washington D.C.'s own "Revolution Summer" was it was called. This era leaned more into the hardcore stuff while having the artsy poetic stuff scare away the bad people

2nd Wave Emo

1992-ish to 2001-ish. 2nd wave is the most important and influence of all the waves of emo, influencing the 3rd, 4th, and 5th waves of emo. This wave had Skramz/Screamo in its early days while Midwest Emo was the most prominent. Emocore was still going and spreading outside of D.C., causing the rest of emo history.

3rd Wave Emo

2002-ish to 2008-sh. The most well known emo wave. This was when Emo-Pop was kinda everywhere and when that "emo look" formed. The swoopy bangs, the eyeliner, the black band Ts. 2000s emo. MySpace, Warped Tour, Hot Topic was seen as the shit. Mall Emo, basically as its called now. Midwest Emo, Screamo, and Emocore were going along as well (besides Screamo now being called Skramz). Jimmy Eat World also blew the fuck up in this era as an Emo-Pop group.

4th Wave Emo

2009-ish to 2018-ish. Most of the aesthetic "mall emo" choices of 3rd were dropped. A Midwest Emo revival is probably the most notable part of this, Emo-Pop was still going but had heavy Midwest Emo influences. And if there were any Midwest Emo influences, your emo albums had heavy Indie and Alternative rock influences.

5th Wave Emo

2018-ish to now. Very similar to 4th, but separates itselfs due to lacking the heavy Midwest Emo influence. It still has a lot of the Indie Rock and Alternative Rock influence, but now has a lot of Slacker Rock and Noise Pop stuff too. 5th Wave is also noted for being more diverse, featuring many more people of color, openly queer people, and a lot more women as well.

Mall Emo & Mallcore

As stated previously, Mall Emo are the emos from the 3rd wave of emo, it's just the emo kids. Mallcore is typically referred to as the bands that all 3rd wave emos liked, including those that weren't emo-pop. It's just 2000s emo kid music. BandS with merch in Hot Topic and Spencers basically.

A lot of these bands were usually Pop Punk, Power Pop, Post-Hardcore, Alternative Rock, some Alt Metal, and probably even more. A lot of those bands are Evanescence, Green Day, Pierce the Veil, Bring Me The Horizon, 30 Seconds To Mars, etc

It should be noted that while Mall Emo and Mallcore are used to differentiate 2000s emo from the other variants, i've seen some trying to using negatively like an insult towards 2000s emos/anything related to third wave emo. Typically used by people in the Emocore, Skramz/Screamo, Midwest Emo, and even 4th Wave Emo scene that really DIDN'T/ currently DON'T like the 3rd wave kids and didn't want to be associated with them. It's basically just the Trad Goth v Mall Goth of the 1990s but for emos in the 2000s to the present. Just a lot of emo elitism/emo purism for some reason over not liking 3rd wave emo (and not considering a lot of mall emos did/do actually listen to 1st, 2nd, and 4th wave emo and skramz).

EMO CULTURE/FASHION

This is gonna be short. Emo culture through the different eras isn't as differnt as people from each wave want to believe tbh. The mosh pits, the expressing yourself via lyrics, its all in every era tbh.

And when it comes to emo fashion its.....interesting. Everyone knows the third wave emo fashion; dyed black hair, swooped bangs, black band ts, skinny jeans (usually ripped), studded belts, eyeliner. The whole doodah y'know.

But there WAS fashion trends for 90s emos. A lot of it was very laid back casual stuff, they all kinda looked like poor college students or 90s skater kids or even the stereotypical 90s geek. Striped shirts, small sweaters, sneakers, some had baggy pants, etc.

BUT the studded belts, braclets, and even the dyed black hair was there in the 90s too, even the tight jeans and tight shirt also later showed up in the 90s before 2nd wave emo "ended". Even the teased stereotypical emo boy haircut started in the skramz scene in the 90s as well.

Honestly, as much as people want to say that "real emo" and "mall emo" are different, they very much have stuff in common. if not in which genre of emo, then at least in some parts of fashion and culture. 3rd wave literally just took the tight shirts, tight pants, dyed hair, studded belts and bracelets of the 2nd wave and took some small make-up influence from 90s mall goths along with their love of Hot Topic.

SCENE

The "tye-dye emos" as I've heard someone call them. Scene is an offshoot of the 3rd wave emo subculture, which is why some scene kids called themselves emo back in the 2000s. Its kinda a requirement honestly. Their name comes from the fact scene kids were heavily involved in the music and rave scene (Warped Tour, mosh pits, you name it).

The music scene kids typical listened to leaned more electronic. Genres such as crunkcore (a fusion of the nightclub base hip hop genre Crunk, dance music, electronic music, and pop), electronicore, and a lot more club music and pop oriented music (like electropop). Along with more punk/metal stuff like metalcore, alt metal, deathcore, post-hardcore, neon pop punk, and some happy hardcore.

Due how varying a lot of the music scene kids listened to, a lot of scene kids sound VERY different. Though a common theme they had in some type electronic dance music combining with hardcore or pop punk.

Scene bands include: Metro Station, Breathe Carolina, Millionaires, Cobra Starship, Never Shout Never, and many, MANY more.

It also be noted that for scene fashion, there's a BIG difference between pre-2007 and post-2007 scene. Pre-2007 was more closer to 2000s emo, all dark while posr-2007 is more recognizable bright leon colors, shit ton of accessories, and raccoon eye make-up scene.

SCENECORE

Scenecore is both an aesthetic based off of scene fashion and also a genre of music. It seems to mostly be more about the aesthetics in both scenecore fashion and scenecore music.

A lot of genres of scenecore music are hyperpop, dance-pop, electropop, and happy hardcore. Scenecore has become so prevelant in hyperpop that a sub-genre of hyperpop was formed named after the scenecore aesthetic.

What is your favorite album?!