What Even is "Emo" Anymore?

When Rites of Spring (along with their forgotten sister-band One Last Wish), Embrace and Moss Icon burst on to the hardcore scene, the definition of the term of simple: it was emotional hardcore punk, heavily influenced by post-hardcore. And that's how it would be until the next decade, when “emo” became synonymous with a style of indie rock originating in the mid-west of the United States, with bands like Braid, The Promise Ring and American Football and the subsequent melancholic pop punk bands like Jimmy Eat World, The Ataris and Matchbook Romance. Even Jawbreaker's Green Day-esque take on hardcore punk and punk rock, Sunny Day Real Estate's almost shoegaze-y style of Nirvana-influenced post-hardcore and Alexisonfire's heavier take on

skramz-influenced alternative metalcore, have been frequently dubbed the ambiguous term.

So... what even is “emo” anymore?

If you ask any “connoisseur” of the '80s Washington DC hardcore scene what emo means, they'll give you one of the two answers, either: “The style that Rites of Spring created” or the old Ian MacKaye quote “Emocore must be the stupidest fucking thing I've heard in my entire life... emotonal hardcore? As if hardcore weren't emotional to begin with”.

“Emotional hardcore” (or “emocore” for short) being the (most aptly used term but also) what people referred to it as during the genre's insurgence.

At some point and for some reason, once emocore started being referred to as simply emo, the term also became tagged upon indie rock bands, starting with Chicago's Cap'n Jazz.

But how on Earth did this connection happen? How did a term used to described hardcore punk bands began being used for indie rock bands?

My best guess, is that once emocore was shortened to simply “emo”, it only ended up meaning emotional, and these indie bands had emotional lyrics. But also Sunny Day Real Estate could have played a part in this, as they are grouped into this indie-style (often referred to as “Midwest emo”, due to many of the bands being from the Midwest of the United States), despite their style being much closer to post-hardcore, which emocore is closely related to.

From the Midwest emo style, came bands like Saves the Day, the Get Up Kids and (most importantly) Jimmy Eat World. While Saves the Day, the Get Up Kids and even The Promise Ring were merging the Midwest style with pop punk, Jimmy Eat World (an ex-skate punk band) were making melancholic pop punk. These style was both pretty similar, however the difference was big in that Jimmy Eat World went on to influence subsequent “emo pop” bands, while the bands closer to indie were expanding the definition of Midwest emo and emo pop (allowing later bands like Modern Baseball to ride the line between the two genres).

When somebody refers to “emo” it's most likely they're referring to emo pop bands, as My Chemical Romance, Panic! At the Disco and Fall Out Boy were some of the biggest bands around in the 2000s, along with The Ataris, Matchbook Romance, Alkaline Trio and Taking Back Sunday all garnering massive amounts of radio play.

Emo pop is probably the most “varied” of the emo genre due to not only it's influence on alternative metalcore but also the different ways in which bands inflect emotion into pop punk: My Chemical Romance, Mayday Parade and Fearless Vampire Killers all introduce theatrics into the genre; Panic! At the Disco, the Used, Get Scared and Matchbook Romance (on their second album) incorporate occasional nontraditional instrumentation for the genre, such as double basses, harpsichords, glockenspiels and organs; Jimmy Eat World, The Ataris, Alkaline Trio, Boston Manor and Amber Pacific inflect melancholia into pop punk and Saves the Day, the Promise Ring, the Get up Kids and Modern Baseball mix the style with Midwest emo.