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What does "emo" really mean?

What does "emo" really mean?

Public Opinion
August 16, 2024

A Note from Jack

If I were to choose one genre that I’d be terrible at on Track Star it would be emo. I don’t really know what emo is. I know that the term is short for emotional. The image of dudes wearing eyeliner and noserings comes to mind for some reason, but that’s basically the extent of my knowledge. When my friend Colin came on the show, I tried to make it emo but got roasted in comments for being completely off the mark. When Matthew suggested writing something about the history of emo it felt like a good opportunity for me to finally understand what the genre’s all about…

Surfing the Waves of “Emo”

By Matthew Ismael Ruiz

Few words can trigger vociferous reactions in music quite like “emo.” For some fans, it’s a boon, a way to talk about the punk and hardcore music that eschews aggression and violence in favor of depth and vulnerability; for some bands, it’s a bane, either from its commercial associations, or from the very notion that punk or hardcore bands that fall outside of its tag aren’t emotional. But regardless of whether you love or hate it, it’s important to know that it’s more than the goth-tinged pop-punk that permeated the mainstream in the late aughts—emo is sound that’s evolved over several decades and multiple “waves,” typically only identifiable in the rearview.

Emo first emerged from the Washington, D.C. hardcore scene, which by the mid 1980s had become increasingly violent, aggressive, and sexist. But in 1985, D.C. experienced what would later be called the "Revolution Summer," where young people shared feminist and anti-fascist ideals via zines and political activism, led by a handful of bands on the local hardcore label Dischord. Two bands, in particular—Rites of Spring and Embrace—made music that matched the energy and passion of hardcore but traded the machismo for melody, the violence for vulnerability. With other bands like Moss Icon, Gray Matter, they formed a schism in the hardcore scene, yet by 1986 many had broken up or moved on; Rites of Spring’s Guy Picciotto and Brendan Canty and Embrace’s Ian MacKaye would go on to found Fugazi. The moment was short-lived, but would prove massively influential.

In the early 90s, a second wave emerged on two fronts. In California, bands like Heroin, Antioch Arrow, and Indian Summer expanded on the post-hardcore sound with even more intensity, dissonance, and noise. It wasn’t unheard of for emo from this subgenre—later dubbed “screamo”—to end with the band’s gear thrashed and a singer writhing on the ground, weeping. In the Midwest, another style emerged, characterized by twinkling guitars and odd time signatures. Bands like Cap'n Jazz, Braid, and the Promise Ring took the post-hardcore sound even further from its roots, leaning into big hooks and melodies as they plumbed their own emotional depths. “Midwest emo” would quickly prove to be a misnomer, however, as many bands sonically aligned with each other hailed from across the country: Sunny Day Real Estate (Seattle), Jimmy Eat World (Phoenix), Mineral (Austin), and Texas is the Reason (New York City) shared DNA despite emerging from different local scenes.

Emo’s third wave would prove to be its most accessible and commercially successful, with bands receiving regular airplay on radio and MTV and headlining massive national tours. But the line between the third and second waves is somewhat blurred, as several bands straddled both, and their evolution from post-hardcore into folk, pop-punk, and indie rock took them to places quite different from where they started. Compare Saves the Day’s Can’t Slow Down to In Reverie, the Get Up Kids’ Four Minute Mile to On a Wire, or Bright Eyes’ Fevers & Mirrors to I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning for evidence. Scenes in New Jersey (Saves the Day, Thursday), Long Island (Brand New, Taking Back Sunday), Omaha (Cursive, Bright Eyes), all had their own distinctive characteristics and local flavor.

After the inevitable backlash to emo’s pop moment in the mid aughts, emo never went away, it merely returned to the fringes. Bands that grew up idolizing second wave acts started to explore new ways to incorporate the twinkling guitars, introspective lyrics, and pained vocals into their own take on “Midwest Emo.” Algernon Cadwallader, Snowing, and later, the Hotelier and Modern Baseball made records that were seen as a “revival” of sorts, a course-correction that was more math rock than mall rock.

It’s worth noting that many of the bands mentioned—especially its earliest pioneers—absolutely hated the “emo” tag. They had good reason, as it was typically used to flatten a diverse collection of sounds and influences with little nuance. And while posterity has grouped these bands into these “waves” with hindsight, it’s probably more helpful to imagine emo’s post-hardcore evolution as branches of a tree, a collection of artists that share common ancestors but ended up in very different places.

Asking Winnetka Bowling League’s Matthew Koma about Emo

This interview was pulled from an upcoming episode of Track Star Presents…

Jack: Do you know what emo is?

Matt: Yeah…

Jack: What is it?

Matt: It stands for “emotional.” So like music that’s emotional. Typically, talking about feelings. Like love feelings, or heart feelings. With a certain amount of desperation in the delivery, or lack thereof maybe? I don’t think that’s a really helpful description…

Jack: I have an image in my head of hair across the forehead

Matt: Correct. Blink 182 and those bands were more pop-punk-adjacent, in that world. Whereas like the Taking Back Sundays or the Juliana Theory or Dashboard Confessional, that was… you know? Does that make any sense?

Jack: Yes.

Matt: Why do you ask me that question? Is it cause of my haircut?

Jack: I was thinking about when you were in highschool and first started playing in a band, you were talking about pop-punk…

Matt: Ya, emo, pop-punk, it was all happening at the same time

Jack: I was thinking in that territory. And you reference Brand New in one of your songs…

Matt: Ya, they were Long Island, Taking Back Sundays, Long Island…

Jack: Yeah, that’s why I ask. Not because of your hair. Your hair now looks great.

Matt: I was just fishing for compliments

Jack: You look very handsome.