EMO


So, it's my turn to do the topic of the week. And I figured I'd address 'EMO'.


^{cap'n jazz 1994}

First, the term emo. No one knows exactly where it came from. However, "members of Rites of Spring mentioned in a 1985 interview in Flipside Magazine that some of their fans had started using the term to describe their music." Emo, depending on where you look, stands for either a) emotional hardcore or b) emotive hardcore. Emocore is another term that, again, depending on where you look, is either synonymous with Emo or references the first wave of emo. So there.

The genre Emo is, as mentioned before, emotional hardcore. Basically, Emo took the original "angry" hardcore punk rock and took it in the direction of melody and emotion. This is extremely evidenct in 'first wave' Emo groups, which I will address next. The Emo genre was also founded on the DIY ethics of the genre's it borrows from. Basically, Emo has deep, deep hardcore roots.

Basically, there are three 'waves' of Emo.
-First Wave (Mid 80's to Mid 90's)

• Rites Of Spring, The Hated, Indian Summer, Samiam, Still Life, Julia, Hoover, Lincoln, Embrace etc. (as far as im concerned, fugazi is not emo guys)

-Second Wave (Early 90's to Late 90's)

• Sunny Day Real Estate, Jimmy Eat World, Texas Is The Reason, Braid, Cap'n Jazz, The Appleseed Cast, etc.

-Third Wave

• I have no idea. Apparently any band fits in this category. I guess Brand New?

But, sometimes it's not best to look at FIRST WAVE EMO, SECOND WAVE EMO, etc. Maybe it's better to just break the genre down even more. So lets do that.

-Emocore (Emo, Emotive Hardcore, etc.)

• Rites Of Spring, The Hated, Julia, Indian Summer, Baby Harp Seal, and even more recent stuff like The Pine, Raein, Wow, and La Quite.

-Chaotic Emo (Hardcore Emo)

• Swing Kids, Saetia, Portraits Of Past

-Screamo

• Orchid, Jerome's Dream, Reversal Of Man, and then later City Of Caterpillar, Pg.99, I Would Set Myself On Fire For You, and Circle Takes The Square

-"Indie Emo"/Midwest Emo

• Cap'n Jazz, Braid, The Promise Ring, Sunny Day Real Estate, Jimmy Eat World, The Appleseed Cast, and recent bands like Algernon Cadwallader, Ryerose, Street Smart Cyclist, and Make Me.

Today, on this edition of TOTW, I'll be focusing on the "Indie Emo", sometimes refered to as Second Wave, or even (ugh) "Post-Emo". I think I'll work backwards through Emo music, eventually, going back to the origins (in a later topic).

So. Indie Emo. Most of my favorite 'Indie Emo' groups I would actually categorize as Midwest Emo, which originated (mostly) from *gasp* the midwest! I started typing a huge paragraph talking about important CD's and releases and stuff, but instead I think I'll just do some ARTIST PROFILES. Artists that I think are important or totally awesome.

• -Sunny Day Real Estate
  One of THE Emo bands. Released "Diary" in 1993, which was a huge influence on almost every band mentioned hereafter. Pretty much required listening.
  
  
• -Christie Front Drive
  An infamous Midwest Emo group hailing from Colorado (holla). Again, required listening.
  
  
• -Jimmy Eat World
  asdpfo9;u2hn <3
  
  
• -Braid
  Almost ALWAYS listed with Christie Front Drive, and visa versa.
  
  
• -Cap'n Jazz
  One of my favorite groups. I keep writing sentences and then deleting them, trying to describe this band. They're hard for me to categorize. Listen to them immediately, though, particularly Disc 1 of their Analphabetapolothology. Listen to "The Sands Have Turned Purple" (I love that song). Kinsella's ftw?
  
  
• -American Football
  A mellower, softer spoken emo group. Kinsella's ftw?
  
  
• -Boys Life
  Boys Life IS Midwest Emo.
  

Now, all those groups are fairly well known, as far as Emo groups go. You could find their CD's pretty easily, and I highly recommend you look them up. There are SO many Emo groups, however, that fly under the radar, and they deserve some recognition. Lets start.

• -Edaline
  
  A short lived group, released two CD's, and a 10", I think. One of my favorite Emo groups of all time. The band just worked together REALLY well. I would have killed to see this band live. Go get their CD, "I Wrote This Last Chapter For You" immediately. SO underrated.  http://www.myspace.com/edaline
  
  
• -Sideshow
  Sideshow was the band of Caulfield founder Bernie McGinn. Caulfield RECORDS, which is a huge record label for this particular genre of music. Christie Front Drive, Mineral, Giant's Chair, and Kolya all released records under Caulfield. Anyways, Sideshow is a fantastic Midwest Emo group that, I think, really bridges the gap between Emocore and Midwest Emo. Listen to the album "Eggplants And Sunspots" (1993).
  
  
• -Empire State Games
  
  Man, I love this band. It shows the fun side of Emo, I suppose. It's just as influeced by Pop Punk as it is the roots of Emo- Hardcore Punk. Grab their Discography from Elkion Records.
  
  
• -Street Smart Cyclist
  
  A more recent group that just disbanded a few months back, only released two 7 inch's. And they made quite an impact. Listen to "Hood's Up" from their first 7". I really enjoy the math rock and hardcore influence. Basically Cap'n Jazz for the 2000s lol!!1. http://www.myspace.com/streetsmartcyclist 
  
  
• -Algernon Cadwallader
  
  Also, from the same area, Algernon Cadwallader is still running strong, with heavy Cap'n Jazz influences aswell. Pick up their debut, "Some Kind Of Cadwallader".  http://www.myspace.com/algernoncadwallader
  
  
• -Rockets And Blue Lights
  
  Another more recent band, from Albany. Wish they would have stuck around longer, they had an incredible sound. You can still get their 10", "A Smashed City With Flames and Music in the Air", from the record label that released it(too lazy to go upstairs and grab it). It's fantastic. Also, if you enjoy this band, listen to Bells On Trike. Pretty similar sound. http://www.myspace.com/rocketscats
  
  
• -The Appleseed Cast
  
  One of my favorite groups of all time. The Appleseed Cast began with heavy Sunny Day Real Estate influences, PERFECTING the sound (better than SDRE imo), and then using that background to move into the Post-Rock and experimental genre's. Listen to "Mare Vitalis". You should ALL be familiar with this band.
  
  
• -The Casket Lottery
  
  The drummer for this band, Nathan "Junior" Richardson, drummed for The Appleseed Cast for a while. He's probably my favorite drummer ever, he's incredibly creative and hard working. The Casket Lottery was formed when a dude from Coalesce decided to play more indie hardcore stuff. Oh, and it's fantastic. Listen to "Choose Bronze".  http://www.myspace.com/thecasketlottery
  
  
• -I Hate Myself
  This band is fantastic. This isn't so much Indie Emo as it is just Emotive Hardcore, but this is a must have. There is some speculation as to whether or not they were a "joke" band or not. Some of the lyrics are laughable while others could not possibly be taken as a joke. Either way, this band played the genre very well. Check out their current band, Die Hoffnung.  http://www.myspace.com/noidearecords 

Other groups to look into, that deserve mentioning:
Knapsack, Jawbreaker, The Get Up Kids, The Anniversary, Excitebike, Elliott, Cross My Heart, Chamberlain, Boy Problems, Make Me, Texas Is The Reason, The Stella Brass, Ryerose, Mineral, Malegoat, The Kossabone Red, Kid Brother Collective, Katzenstreik, The Little Explorer, Camber, The Player Piano, Empire! Empire! (I Was A Lonely Estate), Evergreen, Fireside, Jawbox, Lync, Juno, Owls, Seam, September, and countless others.

This genre has a lot to offer. And I'm probably not the best one to be describing it, or introducing it, but I have a passion for this music. The soft/loud dynamics of Indian Summer. The raw emotion of the vocals from I Hate Myself. The beauty of American Football's songs. Heck, the beauty of Indian Summer songs. The energy of Edaline, Cap'n Jazz, Empire State Games, Street Smart Cyclist. I dunno. It's just something I've grown to love. You should look into it.

(decided to throw pictures in here to make it look nicer but it doesn't look nicer so you'll have to just deal with it looking like 1995 geocities)
(i dont know what else to put was this a good topic yes/no)

I predict 95% responses to this topic will be of a negative nature. time to get off to a flying start

this is pretty much a musically worthless genre. there is nothing groundbreaking being done by anyone in the emo genre, which as far as I have seen (and thanks to who I hung around with in high school (people that were cool but still listened to shitmusic) its quite a bit) and I find it mostly to be a tiresome vamp of really boring musical themes and ideas that were maybe new in the 80s but are certainly now quite played out and other than for nostalgia's sake I cannot see why anyone would want to be into this underground style of music.

What does any one of these bands bring to the table that anyone over the age of 18 could appreciate? I'm not really sure there is anything honestly. The genre is rife with poor musicianship, which to me is very important, and I realize that its not important to everyone (I too many people that would argue that Leonard Cohen was great at either guitar or at singing but his heart was in the right place and damnit he could write a tune) but still. Theres no substance to the music, theres no substance to much of the lyrical content, there seems to not be much of a purpose for most of these bands other than "lets make our music as bland, saccharine, sappy and as uninspiring as possible"

that said within every genre there are dedicated musicians who have their shit together and make worthwhile music, but I think the percentage of the whole is especially low for so called 'emo' music, and thus the genre reallllllly carries no weight in my opinion. It also seems like much of the fanbase of underground emo music (not the commercialized shit thats on MTV now) seems to have the same sort of obsession that metalheads do about their obscure shit and listening to weird/bad music on purpose for the sake of one upping their cool level in an environment where people are talking about music. I find this to be fairly despicable, and most if not all of the people I know that are really into this shit are like that.

also a lot of this shit seems very put on if not affected in my opinion which is pretty despicable. sorry for my lack of coherence but damn I feel strongly about this

i dont get it is this saying other punk music is devoid of emotion??? its weird to me you would name a genre based on something most worthwhile music has

I predict 95% responses to this topic will be of a negative nature. time to get off to a flying start

this is pretty much a musically worthless genre. there is nothing groundbreaking being done by anyone in the emo genre, which as far as I have seen (and thanks to who I hung around with in high school (people that were cool but still listened to shitmusic) its quite a bit) and I find it mostly to be a tiresome vamp of really boring musical themes and ideas that were maybe new in the 80s but are certainly now quite played out and other than for nostalgia's sake I cannot see why anyone would want to be into this underground style of music.

What does any one of these bands bring to the table that anyone over the age of 18 could appreciate? I'm not really sure there is anything honestly. The genre is rife with poor musicianship, which to me is very important, and I realize that its not important to everyone (I too many people that would argue that Leonard Cohen was great at either guitar or at singing but his heart was in the right place and damnit he could write a tune) but still. Theres no substance to the music, theres no substance to much of the lyrical content, there seems to not be much of a purpose for most of these bands other than "lets make our music as bland, saccharine, sappy and as uninspiring as possible"

that said within every genre there are dedicated musicians who have their shit together and make worthwhile music, but I think the percentage of the whole is especially low for so called 'emo' music, and thus the genre reallllllly carries no weight in my opinion. It also seems like much of the fanbase of underground emo music (not the commercialized shit thats on MTV now) seems to have the same sort of obsession that metalheads do about their obscure shit and listening to weird/bad music on purpose for the sake of one upping their cool level in an environment where people are talking about music. I find this to be fairly despicable, and most if not all of the people I know that are really into this shit are like that.

also a lot of this shit seems very put on if not affected in my opinion which is pretty despicable. sorry for my lack of coherence but damn I feel strongly about this

Huh.

I don't even know what to say. You win? I guess that's what you're looking for. And you're right. There hasn't been anything groundbreaking done by anyone in the emo genre. Or the jazz genre. Or the electronica genre. The classical genre. Metal. Bluegrass. Country. Rap. Indie. Punk. Pop Punk. Math Rock. Noise Rock. Hip Hop. Post Rock. It's all been done before, dude.

I dunno. Just about everything you said is just kind of silly.

Theres no substance to the music, theres no substance to much of the lyrical content, there seems to not be much of a purpose for most of these bands other than "lets make our music as bland, saccharine, sappy and as uninspiring as possible"

You could say this about ANY genre. No substance to the music of [insert ][/insert], no substance to the lyrics of [insert ][/insert]. And I actually am inspired by a lot of emo groups.

Also, Wash Cycle. Do you not enjoy Punk or Hardcore music? Cause if so, then that makes sense.


Also, not gonna lie, a lot of Emo groups are very pretentious. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But you get that in every genre.


And yeah, headphonics got it right. It's just a name that was given to a sub-genre of Hardcore Punk.

I thought emo died

why are you trying to dig it out of its grave. just....let it die.................

just wanna reiterate that this qualifies as one of the top 5 most completely inaccurate things jojoface has ever said.  this is quite the feat!!!  lets talk about how jojoface thinks jazz, blues, electronica, and classical are no more groundbreaking than emo.

damnit you got to this first

also btw I do like some punk music, but its basically limited to anything that jello biafra is in, rockabilly and most cow-punk and some scattered british bands here and there. As a whole I do not enjoy punk music much or the whole message/attitude associated with it. I have a lot of respect for certain groups of punk musicians but like I said, on the whole its something I'm not too interested in.

but yeah it sounds to me jojo like you havent really been exposed to a lot of good music, because I cant really see why you have held onto this stuff for so long heh

I don't think emo is 100% worthless-- I actually like Jimmy Eat World (bleed american anyway, i think its a p original sounding album).

The whole comment about nothing new being done in any genre though is outrageously stupid.

this is pretty much a musically worthless genre. there is nothing groundbreaking being done by anyone in the emo genre, which as far as I have seen (and thanks to who I hung around with in high school (people that were cool but still listened to shitmusic) its quite a bit)

I half agree with this statement; majority of emo music is samey and very tiresome of the same formula.
Untill I heard some emo bands that really impressed me, namely, Gospel (emo with progressive, psychedellic and eastern influences in their music, often having many instrumental sections in their music). Just to point out (before YOU notice it) the vocals are quite terrible, but are only a small portion of the music.
http://www.myspace.com/gospel

After that, the band in the emo genre that really began to appeal to me was Envy (japanese band that can make beautiful use of harmonising guitars and often switch between clean and distorted parts). While not as progressive (or as good imo) it's worth checking out if you like any of the bands posted in the first post.
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=1000414234

So, my opinion on emo music: there are some gems in a pile of hay, you just got to find them.

P.S. And yeah, JoJo's comment on all genres not being groundbreaking in anyway is ridiculous, but so is Wash Cycle's comment on emo not being groundbreaking in any way. Somewhere in every genre, some people are tyring to innovate, whether you have heard it or not is a different matter.

The only emo bands I like at the moment are Jimmy eat world (clarity) and Death Cab for Cutie. The main thing I dislike about emo music is the adolescent whiny voice a lot of them do :/ 

i dont get it is this saying other punk music is devoid of emotion???

first wave of punk, the original punk from the late 70s, y'know, of the likes of Sex Pistols, yeah they were devoid of emotions. It revolved on the "vacant, bored, no future" slogan.
But ever since, yeah punk is pretty emotionally packed, it is just that there are different readings of what is emotion.

Black Flag, is emotional, but you could read it as lacking emotion (it is a perspective thing). Rites of Spring took that hardcore from Black Flag and Minor Threat and gave it more cathartic vocals and lyrics. So there lies the difference.

Regardless, Emo as a whole is a very inmature way of categorizing music, But it appeals to teenagers because it pretends to maximize emotions which is what teens experiment at that phase of their lives, a phase that is pretty irrational and inconsistent.
If you know how to handle your emotions and have high self esteem, you'd be probably over that.
Emo is teenager music.

probably not conducive to a big emo discussion but: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvvJ9G26u88 whenever I hear songs like this I am like HEY THIS SOUNDS LIKE IF TALK TALK WASNT ONLY ABOUT JESUS AND PLAYED SLIGHTLY HARDER.

am I off or what?

Anyone mind showing me something GROUNDBREAKING being done musically? It's ALL been done before. Maybe I'm just blind.

theres a noise topic. all this globalization of music has started to combine 12 tone theory with all this maqam shit from the middle east blah blah modern composers I LISTEN TO XENAKIS *gets killed outside of Sydney Opera House*

but more importantly you're taking his words at face value instead of at meaning and hands are a little achey so reread and maybe post again?