What the heck is emo?
 

You may be wondering thatuntil I visited http://www.fourfa.com/ and read some about emo. Here's a snippet:
I hope this helps some people like me.

I hate emo music, all they sing about is how they got dumped by their girlfriends, or how bad their life is.... There is no actual message behind it .....That's what I think anyway

What are some groups that have been labeled as emo?

Blink-182, Saves the day, Taking Back Sunday, Good Charlotte, blah blah blah blah blah...........

good charlotte is not emo, and neither is blink-182 (well i guess some blink songs are)

yellowcard (good), brand new, taking back sunday, saves the day, thursday, dashboard confessional (sorry but i hate them), simple plan, something corporate....stuff like that

I think they're the definition of emo. :D I've heard them before and come to think of it they're all about emotions, etc. I never really liked them myself.

yeah....they are a 13 year old girls dream. They seem more popularized than blink-182 (but not yet good charlotte)

I happen to like emo! :bringit:

What's your favorite emo band? I like some of it, but some I'd rather have them never sing again.

Mine is probably Taking back sunday or Coheed and Cambria

I also feel that emo is more than just a type of music. Wheni see the kids with the black hair in their face that are really white with really tight shirts on with little starts on them i think to myself" hey that kid looks kinda emo"

blink-182 is definately not emo and neither is Good Charlotte... not that I'm defending good charlotte because honestly I think they are overrated but Blink-182's come back release with their "(enhanced)" album definately is a great CD and is not emo. Yes Saves the Day is definately Emo and so is Dashboard Confessional among many other sappy crying boys about their girlfriends that dumped them for sure lol or a crush they have or a girl they love or a girl they want or a girl that got killed....lol anyways yeah thats all for now

I may be wrong, but wasn't some box car was emo-ish...

Coheed isn't emo...and honestly...most bands that people say are "emo" aren't emo. As most people have said in this thread already, blink-182 and good charlotte certainly aren't emo, and half the bands that people have listed are just punk bands...Name me one genre that doesn't talk about girls and bad times in life.

Everyone OCCASIONALLY does it, but a lot of the emo I hear/heard of, that is all they sing about. But luckily for me, emo is easy to avoid listening to, so if someone likes it, it doesn't bother me if they play it.

So as I see it, emo is basically like new country music gone punkish? :crazy:

Actually, Emo has a long and twisted history. It began as an offshoot of Hardcore (The first band to be called Emo was the short-lived Rites of Spring, headed by Minor Threat and Fugazi frontman Ian McKay). Bands such as Orchid, Antioch Arrow, and Indian Summer played music that was stylisticly similar to hardcore - loud and distorted guitars, screamed vocals - but with occational melodic breakdowns and, most importantly, an lyrical focus on emotions rather than the more concrete themes of standard Hardcore. These early Emo bands would be called Screamo by most people now. Today, the music that is called Emo is divided into two catagories: music that is similar in style to run-of-the-mill Pop Punk (bands like Taking Back Sunday, The Promise Ring, and Saves the Day), and music that has a more acoustic, singer-songwriter kind of feel to it (bands like Bright Eyes, Dashboard Confessional, and Pedro the Lion). Both of these catagories, are, like the early Hardcore-derived Emo bands, focused heavily on topics of emotion, usually but not always concerning the opposite sex.

emo kicks ass, i would call it more alturntive rock/ emo but it totally kicks ass, coheed, thursday, taking back sunday, saylight run or my favs

coheed and cambria is more like a cross between like metal like guitar riffs and alternative, with maybe a little punk

Emo music is any type of rock music that tends to develop emotions in those who listen to it - good charlotte do none of that whatsoever! just because u write about being dumped by your girlfriend doesnt mean u are emo. blink 182 arent emo either, they are pop-punk. some emo bands are the get up kids, the ataris, jimmy eat world, the dashboard confessionals. Lots of people think emo just means a pop-rock band, which is bollox. and emo songs are VERY deep, not just stupid girlfriends as some of you have said. the ataris, for example, write lots of songs about girls, which have social and political meanings hidden in the lyrics. ez

I agree so much when Punk in Drublic said that good charlotte is not emo, in my mind its not even music, same with blink and of the four bands you mentioned even though all of them could and are labeled emo I only consider D/C and maybe the get up kids true emo because the other two are major sellouts

and so what if they are sellouts? if u like or dislike a band based upon whether or not they r sellouts, then u r extremely close minded and u obviously dont respect music for what it is. people who say they dislike sellouts are doing it because they want to be original - yet it is not original to slag off sellouts like EVERYONE ELSE. you are clearly just following a trend if u dislike bands which are sellouts, because it means u dislike the bands that are good - now wheres the sense in that? ur just doing it because u want to look "cool". music is there to be listened to, not to determine how "cool" u r. ez

I determine if I like a band depending on two things in this order if they are a good band musically and lyric wise and secondly if they are more concerned with pleasing their fans whether than just making an easy buck they are plenty of bands that are underground that are ten times better than the "popular" bands out there they just dont want to be overtaken by money which is just ultimatley greed is it not. Secondly dont ever call me a poseur i dont give a care if other people are copying us true emo/punk people that were here in the first place, why should i change just because a bunch of preps decide that they want to try and be emo/punk for a semester huh? so i really dont want to get in an arguement about this I am not denying that a great little few of the sellout bands have talent I am just saying thats my opinion which counts just as much as the next guys and please dont ever call me a poseur

when in hell has good charlotte recently been emo? they are the crappiest sell outs on the face of the earth. second comes simple plan.

Good Charlotte isn't emo. Although their first cd was straight up pop punk goodness, and it even had a beautiful emo song, seasons, on it.

FINALLY I HAVE TALKED TO SOMEONE THAT THINKS THAT YELLOWCARD IS GOOD! THANK U SO MUCH!! AND ALSO THANK U FOR THINKING THAT SO CO IS GOOD! I HAVE LOVED THEM FOR EVER!!

:rolleyes:

parker what is that face supose to mean you dotn really like them

Do you two know each other? Fight somewhere else.

Liking or disliking a band due to their "selling out" is not a very good idea. I can see disliking them because, like good charlotte, they completely changed their sound to get famous though.

Uhh...so whats the current topic in here?
I listen to quite a bit of emo. My favorites are Taking Back Sunday and Rufio.

I must say im very happy about some ppl in this post who know more about meo than others, Good charlotte and simple plan shouldnt have even be mentioned anywhere near emo topics.
thnk you, u know who u are

Plus im surprised, i havnt looked through the topics much but i havnt saw anyone mention Glassjaw or finch. as many other bands i cant be bothered mentioning coz its in another new post.

I've always tried to describe emo in the shortest way.
Emo- a emotional punk band who sing with unique mostly poetic emotional lyrics about strong emotions, plus not jus singin but putting emotion into there voice. examples : Thursday and taking back sunday

Screamo- the same only they will tend to sing more dark, heavier songs with more top of lung screaming, very emotional
examples: Finch, glassjaw, my chemical romance

Hope im right, Pls tell me i just explained emo and screamo in a short detail.
cause im also hating all this " whats emo " " wtf is emo" i see on the net,
cheers!!

Oh and please forgive my spellin mistakes i was in a hurry lol i noticed on the top meo ( emo)

oh my god, how can you people listen to pre-pubescent boys screaming about their lost loves(emo)? They have no talent and just use simple power chords. I don't know how you can listen to them it hurts my ears!

turn the caps off you idiot, yellow card sucks, they have a violinist in their band, cmon. Pre-pubescent boys screaming about their lost love, it hurts my ears. The only good music wasn't created recently


If you havent heard of Led Zeppelin, go kill yourself, do us all a favor

Im going to agree

Emo is just a word. That's all it is. It is a word that is so overused and in so many ridiculous contexts that it makes me want to headbutt my keyboard.

It seems to be a word used by people who enjoy doing nothing more than categorizing every band to have ever existed and pigeon hole them into outdated and unimportant genres.

I agree, it is similar to the word goth, but generally music that is labeled emo sucks.

im not a fan of present day emo really. theres a few bands that are fairly awsome, but in the main, im not a fan, things like dashboard and yellowcard. make me shudder. finch, glassjaw and the like have a similar effect. the word is thrown around but get over it. its jiust a word that people use as a basis of opinion. theres been about ten million threads on this allready as well, so why cant people just refer to them?
someone said earlier that the ataris have deep and meaningful lyrics. i found that hilarious. the singers, what like 40 now? he has a wife and a kid for fck sake. most of the bands married arent they? yet they still write about getting dumped, how awsome their last girlfriend was, how they miss her and still love her and all that ****. so i found that post most humorous

Depends really. I've heard bands like Hundred Reasons, Far, Glassjaw, Taking Back Sunday, Thrice, Funeral for a Friend, Reuben and even Fugazi labelled as emo, and they're all pretty damn good. Emo was blatantly made up by a lazy journalist man years ago, and obviously it just stuck.

lol, wow.. i am sick and tired of going to different threads when they talk about what is emo.. and all that stuff.. okay there's always gonna be different opinions on what it is... if you like it u like it.. if you don't you don't... i personally am a huge fan of different bands.. and they are emo.. but still i'm not gonna go to a ska thread and talk about how much i don't like it. seriously just get over it.. stop complaining it's driving me crazy!!