Emo
Emo, also called emocore, is a style of rock music characterized by an emphasis on emotional expression, sometimes through confessional lyrics. It arose as a style of post-hardcore from the hardcore punk movement in Washington, D.C. of the mid-1980s, where it was known as emotional hardcore or emocore. and pioneered bands like Rites of Spring and Embrace. In the early 1990s, emo was embraced and reinvented by alternative rock, indie rock, and pop punk bands such as Sunny Day Real Estate, Jawbreaker, Weezer, with Weezer breaking into the mainstream during this time. In the mid-1990s, bands like Braid, the Promise Ring, and the Get Up Kids emerged from the burgeoning Midwestern emo scene, and various independent record labels began specializing in the genre. Meanwhile, screamo, a more aggressive style of emo using shrieked vocals, also emerged, led by San Diego bands Heroin and Antioch Arrow.
Often seen as a subculture, emo also signifies a specific relationship between fans and artists and certain aspects of fashion, culture, and behavior. Emo fashion has long been associated with skinny jeans; tight T-shirts with band names on them; studded belts; and flat, straight, jet black hair with long bangs. Emo music fans who dress like this are known as "emo kids" or "emos". Emos are known for listening to bands like My Chemical Romance, Hawthorne Heights, The Used, and AFI. The emo subculture is stereotypically associated with emotion, sensitivity, misanthropy, shyness, introversion, and angst, as well as depression, self-harm, and suicide. Their rapid rise in popularity in the early 2000s inspired a backlash, with bands like My Chemical Romance and Panic! at the Disco, rejecting the emo label due to the social stigma and controversy surrounding it.
Emo entered mainstream culture in the early 2000s with the success of Bands like My Chemical Romance, AFI, Fall Out Boy and Red Jumpsuit Apparatus continued the popularity of the genre throughout the rest of the decade. In the early 2010s, emo's popularity waned, with some groups changing their sound and others disbanding. In the meantime, however, a primarily underground emo revival emerged, with bands like The World Is a Beautiful Place and I am No Longer Afraid to Die and Modern Baseball drawing inspiration from the sound and aesthetic of 1990s emo. 1990.
The term emo is an abbreviation of emotive hardcore or emo-core and refers to the lyrics of groups of the genre, characterized by addressing, unlike hardcore punk, more personal issues using more introspective lyrics in their compositions, thus seeking to generate the same emotions in the listener. To achieve greater expressiveness, they use rhythm changes and crescendos in their music, combining in the same song outbursts of fury inherited from hardcore, with more peaceful sounds. Depending on the style of each band, the mentioned sound can vary, adding or removing screams in favor of clean voices, being more or less chaotic, or aspiring to a more or less dark sound.
Features
Emo originated in hardcore punk and is considered a variant of post-hardcore. However, emo has also been considered a form of indie rock and pop punk. Emo uses the dynamics of guitar that uses both the softness and volume of punk rock music. Some emo use characteristics of progressive music with the use of complex guitars, unorthodox song structures, and extreme dynamic changes. Lyrics, a focus on emo music, are typically emotional and often personal or confessional, dealing with topics such as unrequited love, self-hatred, grief, insecurity, suicidal thoughts, love, and relationships. AllMusic described emo lyrics as "usually free association poetry or intimate confessions". Early emo bands were hardcore punk bands that used emotional or introspective lyrics and melodies and were less structured than hardcore punk. which made early emo bands different from the aggressive, angry, and verse structures of regular hardcore punk. According to AllMusic, most emo bands of the 1990s "borrowed from a combination of Fugazi, Sunny Day Real Estate and Weezer". The New York Times described emo as "emotional punk or post-hardcore or pop-punk. That is, punk who wears his heart on his sleeve and tries a little cuteness to help his sonic attack. If that helps, imagine Ricky Nelson singing the Sex Pistols'. Author Matt Diehl called emo a "more sensitive interpolation of punk's mission". According to Merriam-Webster, emo is "a punk rock-influenced style of rock music with introspective and emotionally charged lyrics".
History
Emo is a slang term, originally used to describe the range of attitudes and styles related to emo music, although this aspect is increasingly removed from the meaning that this word has taken in the language. As an adjective, "emo" can describe a style of behavior or a general state of unhappiness or melancholy. It is a lifestyle that people adopt; especially young people. Throughout its history, emo has gone through several stages. In the late 1980s the term emo was used to describe bands in the Washington D.C. underground music scene such as Rites of Spring and Embrace, among others. others. In the mid-1990s, the genre adopted the sound patterns created by Sunny Day Real Estate. Today, the term is mistakenly used to label bands of various styles such as pop punk, post-hardcore, and even metalcore. Although usually, emo is being associated with a new resurgence of Indie Rock bands born in the late 2000s, which follow the classic sound of emo from the 1990s in the Northeast and Central United States.
The most popular bands usually classified within this musical style are Dashboard Confessional, American Football, MineralThe Academy Is..., Penfold, Texas Is The Reason, Senses Fail, among others. Brave Bird, Dowsing, Free Throw, Empire! Empire! (I Was a Lonely Estate), Joie de Vivre, Football, Etc., Annabel, Snowing and Into It. Over It., among others.
As a consequence of the substantial change and the little relationship between the sound of the bands of the emo-core scene of the 1980s and early 1990s with that of the bands currently labeled within the genre, two aspects have been generated in the use of the term "emo". While some claim that the genre disappeared in the late 1990s (along with Jimmy Eat World's album Clarity), others accept its use to catalog the style of various bands on the popular scene.
1984-1991: origins
Emo, which began as a post-hardcore subgenre, was part of the 1980s hardcore punk scene in Washington, D.C. as something different from the violent part of the Washington, D.C. hardcore scene. Minor Threat fan Guy Picciotto formed Rites of Spring in 1984, using the musical style of hardcore punk and combining the musical style with melodic guitars, varied rhythms and personal, emotional lyrics. Many of the band's themes, including nostalgia, romantic bitterness, and poetic despair, became familiar tropes of later emo music. Their performances were public, emotional purges where members of the audience sometimes wept. Ian MacKaye of Minor Threat became a fan of Rites of Spring (recording their only album and being their roadie) and formed the emo band Embrace, which explored similar themes of self -emotional search and release. Similar bands followed in connection with the "Summer Revolution" from 1985, an attempt by members of the Washington scene to break away from the usual characteristics of hardcore punk into a hardcore punk style with different characteristics. Bands such as Gray Matter, Beefeater, Fire Party, Dag Nasty, Soulside and Kingface were associated with with movement.
Although the origins of the word "emo" are uncertain, the evidence shows that the word "emo" was coined in the mid-1980s, specifically 1985. According to Andy Greenwald, author of Nothing Feels Good: Punk Rock, Teenagers, and Emo, "the origins of the term ' emo' are shrouded in mystery...but first came into common practice in 1985. If Minor Threat was hardcore, then Rites of Spring, with its altered approach, was emotional hardcore or emocore". Michael Azerrad, author of Our Band Could Be Your Life, also traces the word's origins back to the mid-'80s: "the style was soon dubbed 'emo-core,' a term everyone those involved hated bitterly'. MacKaye dates it back to 1985, attributing it to an article in Thrasher magazine referring to Embrace and other Washington, D.C. bands. as "emo-core" (which he called "the stupidest thing Ive ever heard"). Other accounts attribute the word to an audience member at an Embrace show, who yelled as an insult that the band was "emocore". Others have said that MacKaye coined the word when he used it derisively in a magazine, or that it originated with Rites of Spring. The tag "emocore" it spread rapidly through the DC punk scene, becoming associated with many bands associated with Ian MacKaye's Dischord Records. Although many of the bands rejected the term, it stuck. Jenny Toomey recalled: 'the only people who used it at first were the ones who were jealous of how big and fanatical the scene was. [Rites of Spring] existed long before the term and they hated it. But there was that weird moment, like when people started calling music 'grunge,' when you used the term even though you hated it.' The emo scene in Washington, D.C. it lasted only a few years, and by 1986, most of the major emo bands (including Rites of Spring, Embrace, Gray Matter, and Beefeater) had broken up. However, their ideas and aesthetic quickly spread throughout the world. country through a network of home magazines, vinyl records, and rumors. According to Greenwald, the Washington, D.C. created the foundation for the following incarnations of emo:
What happened in D.C. in the mid-1980s—the shift from anger to action, from anger to internal agitation, from an individualized mass to a mass of individuals—was in many ways a test case for the transformation of the national punk scene over the next two decades. The images, the power of the music, the way people responded and the way the bands went off instead of fading away, all originated in the first performances of Rites of Spring. The roots of the emo were established, although involuntarily, by fifty or more people in the capital of the nation. And somehow, it was never so good and probably never more pure. Certainly, the Washington scene was the only time the "emocore" had a definition of consensus as a genre.
1991-1994: reinvention
As the emo movement in Washington, D.C. spread across the United States, local bands began to emulate their style. Emo combined the fatalism, theatricality, and isolation of The Smiths with the uncompromising, dramatic worldview of hardcore punk. bands and variety of venues, the aesthetic of emocore of the late 1980s remained much the same: "outlandish lyrics about sentiments tied to dramatic but decidedly punk music". For the first half of the In the 1990s, several new bands reinvented emo, causing it to become a subgenre of genres such as indie and punk pop. Chief among these were Jawbreaker and Sunny Day Real Estate, who inspired a cult following, redefined emo, and they brought it a little closer to the mainstream. In the wake of the 1991 hit of Nirvana's Nevermind, underground music and subcultures were widely noticed in the United States. New distribution networks sprang up, tourist routes were codified, and regional and independent acts gained access on the national scene. Young people across the country became fans of independent music, and punk culture became mainstream i>.
Having emerged from the late 1980s and early 1990s San Francisco punk rock scene and forming in New York City, Jawbreaker blended pop punk with emotional and personal lyrics. singer and guitarist Blake Schwarzenbach focused his lyrics on immediate personal themes, often taken from his diary. Often dark and cloaked in metaphor, his relationship to Schwarzenbach's concerns gave his words a bitterness and frustration that made them universal and appealing. for the public. Schwarzenbach became the first emo idol, as listeners related to the singer even more than his songs. Jawbreaker's 1994 album 24 Hour Revenge Therapy, was popular with fans and is a touchstone of mid-1990s emo. Although Jawbreaker was signed to Geffen Records and toured with mainstream bands Nirvana and Green Day, the jawbreaker album 1 995, Dear You, did not achieve the expected commercial success. Jawbreaker broke up soon after, with Schwarzenbach forming the band Jets to Brazil.
Sunny Day Real Estate was formed in Seattle in the grunge heyday of the early 1990s. The music video for "Seven," the lead track from the band's debut album, Diary (1994), appeared on MTV, bringing more attention to the band. Another emo band that emerged at the same time was Weezer in California, who also released their self-titled debut album in 1994. Also known as Blue Album, Weezer's self-titled album was certified two times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on August 8, 1995 and was certified triple platinum by the RIAA on November 13, 1998. As of August 2009, Weezer's self-titled album has sold at least 3.3 million copies in the United States. According to NME, Weezer's debut album "pretty much invented the melodic wing of emo". Jimmy Eat World, an emo band from Arizona, also emerged at this time. Influenced by pop punk bands such as the Mr. T Experience and Horace Pinker, Jimmy Eat World released their self-titled debut album in 1994.
1994-1997: popularity "underground"
The American punk and indie rock movements, which had remained largely underground since the early 1980s, became part of mainstream culture in the mid-1980s. of the 1990s. With the success of Nirvana, major record labels capitalized on the popularity of alternative rock and other underground music by signing and promoting independent bands. In 1994, the same year that Jawbreaker's i>24 Hour Revenge Therapy and Sunny Day Real Estate's Diary were released, punk rock bands Green Day and The Offspring broke into the mainstream with the diamond album Dookie and the six-time platinum Smash, respectively. After underground music fell out of the mainstream stream, emo withdrew and reshaped itself as a national subculture in the following years. Inspired by Jawbreaker, Drive Like Jehu and Fugazi, the new emo was a mixture of the passion of hardcore punk and the intelligence of indie-rock, with the power of punk rock and the do-it-yourself ethic but softer songs., more careless melodies and yearning voices.
Many new emo bands, such as Cap'n Jazz, Braid, Christie Front Drive, Mineral, Jimmy Eat World, the Get Up Kids, and the Promise Ring, originated in the Midwest. bands had a distinct vocal style and guitar melodies, which was later called midwestern emo. According to Andy Greenwald, "this was the period when emo gained many, if not all, of the stereotypes that have endured to this day: guitarist-driven, overly sensitive, overly intelligent, kid-driven college music'. Emo band Texas Is the Reason bridged the gap between indie rock and emo in their three-year lifespan in the East Coast, fusing the tunes of Sunny Day Real Estate and punk musicianship and singing directly to the listener. In New Jersey, the band Lifetime played in fans' basements. Lifetime's 1995 album, Hello Bastards on Jade Tree Records, fused hardcore punk with emo and ev cynicism and irony were used in favor of love songs. The album sold tens of thousands of copies, and Lifetime paved the way for New Jersey and Long Island emo bands Brand New, Glassjaw, Midtown, The Movielife, My Chemical Romance, Saves the Day, Senses Fail, Taking Back Sunday and Thursday.
The music of The Promise Ring took a slower, softer, pop punk approach to riffing, mixing them with singer Davey von Bohlen's imagista lyrics and playing in the basements and living rooms of the Veterans of Foreign Wars organization. Jade Tree released their debut album, 30° Everywhere, in 1996; it sold tens of thousands of copies and was successful by independent standards. Greenwald describes the album as "like getting hit over the head with cotton candy". Other bands, such as Karate, the Van Pelt, Joan of Arc and Shyness Clinic, played emo music with post-rock and noise rock influences. Their common lyrical thread was "applying big questions to small settings". One of the cornerstones of mid-decade emo of 1990 was Weezer's 1996 album, Pinkerton. Following the mainstream success of Weezer's self-titled debut album, Pinkerton displayed a darker, more abrasive style. Their frontman Rivers Cuomo's songs focused on messy, manipulative sex and his insecurity about dealing with celebrities. A critical and commercial disappointment, Rolling Stone called it the second worst album of the year. year. Cuomo withdrew from the media center, later referring to the album as "awful" and "an enormously painful mistake." However, Pinkerton found an enduring attraction among young people discovering alternative rock and identifying with its confessional lyrics and theme of rejection. Sales grew steadily due to word of mouth, online message boards, and Napster. "Even though no one was paying attention," Greenwald writes, "perhaps because no one was paying attention, Pinkerton became the biggest emo album of the decade". In 2004, MTV's James Montgomery described Weezer as "the biggest band of the last 10 years". The success of Pinkerton grew very gradually, being certified by the RIAA in July 2001 and finally certified by the RIAA in September 2016.
In the mid-1990s, emo was embodied by Mineral, whose The Power of Failing (1997) and EndSerenading (1998) encapsulated emo tropes: music somber, accompanied by a shy narrator who sang seriously about mundane problems. Greenwald called "If I Could" the pinnacle of mid-90s emo. she's beautiful, I'm weak and dumb and shy, I'm lonely but surprisingly poetic when I forget about everything emo's fans admire and their detractors loathe'. Another major band was Braid, whose 1998 album Frame and Canvas and the B-song "Forever Got Shorter", blurred the line between band and listener; the group mirrored their audience in passion and sentiment, and sang in the voice of their fans.
Although by the mid-1990s emo had thousands of young fans, it did not enter the national consciousness. Some bands were offered major-label deals, but most broke up before they could capitalize on the opportunity. Jimmy Eat World signed with Capitol Records in 1995 and developed a following with his album, Static Prevails, but had yet to break into the mainstream stream. The Promise Ring was the most commercially successful emo band of the era, with sales of their 1997 album Nothing Feels Good reaching tens of thousands of copies shipped. Greenwald called the album "the pinnacle of their emo generation: a convergence of pop and punk, of resignation and celebration, of girlfriend lure and friend lure, bandmates and the road"; mid-1990s emo era &# 34;the last subculture made of vinyl and paper instead of plastic and megabytes".
1997-2002: Rising Popularity
Emo's popularity grew during the 1990s, laying the foundation for mainstream success. Deep Elm Records released a series of eleven compilation albums, The Emo Diaries, from 1997 to 2007. Emphasizing previously unreleased music from many bands, the series included bands such as Jimmy Eat World, Further Seems Forever, Samiam and The Movielife. Jimmy Eat World's 1999 album Clarity was a milestone for later emo bands. In 2003, Andy Greenwald described Clarity as & #34;one of the rock 'n' most fiercely loved roll of the last decade". Despite a warm critical reception and promotion of "Lucky Denver Mint" in the Drew Barrymore comedy Never Been Kissed, Clarity was not immediately commercially successful. However, the album enjoyed steady word-of-mouth popularity, eventually selling more than 70,000 copies. Jimmy Eat World self-financed his next album, Bleed American (2001), before signing with Dreamworks Records. The album sold 30,000 copies in its first week, went gold soon after, and went platinum in 2002, putting emo se on the mainstream scene.
Drive-Thru Records (founded in 1996) developed a roster of primarily pop punk bands with emo features, including Midtown, The Starting Line, The Movielife, and Something Corporate. Drive-Thru's association with MCA Records allowed their emo-influenced pop brand to reach a broader audience. The label's biggest early success was New Found Glory, whose 2000 self-titled album reached number 107 on the Billboard 200 chart and the single "Hit or Miss" it reached number 15 on the Alternative Songs chart. Drive-Thru's capitalist approach to music, unabashedly populist, allowed its bands' albums and merchandise to be sold at stores such as Hot Topic.
Indie label Vagrant Records signed several successful emo bands of the late '90s and early '00s. The Get Up Kids had sold over 15,000 copies of their debut album, Four Minute Mile (1997), before signing with Vagrant. The label promoted them aggressively, sending them on tours for Green Day and Weezer. Their 1999 album, Something to Write Home About, reached number 31 on Billboard's Top Heatseekers chart. . Vagrant signed and recorded a number of other emo-related bands over the next two years, including The Anniversary, Reggie and the Full Effect, The New Amsterdams, Alkaline Trio, Saves the Day, Dashboard Confessional, Hey Mercedes and Hot Rod Circuit. Saves the Day had developed a substantial following on the East Coast and sold nearly 50,000 copies of their second album, Through Being Cool (1999), before signing with Vagrant and release Stay What You Are (2001). Stay What You Are sold 15,000 copies in its first week, peaked at number 100 on the Billboard 200, and sold at least 120,000 copies in the United States. The blink-182 band's song "Adam's Song" it is considered an emo song. The song, which comes from blink-182's 1999 five-time platinum album Enema of the State, peaked at number two on the Alternative Songs chart on April 29. from 2000.
Vagrant organized a national tour with each band on his label, sponsored by corporations such as Microsoft and Coca-Cola, during the summer of 2001. His populist approach and use of the Internet as a marketing tool made him one of the record labels most successful events in the country and helped popularize the word "emo". According to Greenwald, "more than any other event, it was Vagrant America that defined emo to the masses, primarily because it had the urge to get out hit the road and take 'em with him". Weezer returned in the early 2000s with a pop-influenced sound. Cuomo refused to play Pinkerton songs, calling them "ugly" and "embarazosas". Weezer released their "green album" in 2001. The Green Album was described as emo pop by AllMusic and the album was certified platinum by the RIAA on September 13, 2001. As of August 2009, Weezer's "Green Album" has sold 1.6 million copies.
2002-2010: commercial success
Emo broke into the media during the summer of 2002. During this time, many fans of emo music had an appearance of short, dyed black hair with bangs cut in the forehead, thick-rimmed glasses, and blacks and clothes from thrift stores. This fad became a large part of the emo identity. The American album Jimmy Eat World Bleed American went platinum on the strength of "The Middle", which led the Billboard Alternative Songs chart. The mainstream success achieved by Jimmy Eat World paved the way for the emo pop music that would appear throughout the rest of the 2000s, with emo pop becoming a very common style of emo music during the 2000s. After releasing their Green Album in 2001, Weezer released another album in 2002 called Maladroit. Maladroit was certified gold by the RIAA 31 days after its release. The band Dashboard Confessional rose to commercial success, fueled by guitarist and lead vocalist Chris Carrabba, who is also known for creating some acoustic songs. Dashboard Confessional was originally a side project and Carrabba was also a member of the emo band Further Seems Forever. Carrabba was also a member of Vacant Andys, a punk rock band that Carraba helped found in 1995. Dashboard's Confessional album The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most peaked at number 5 on the chart. independent albums chart. Dashboard Confessional was the first non-platinum artist to record an episode of MTV Unplugged. The MTV Unplugged 2.0 (2002) was certified platinum by the RIAA on May 22, 2002. 2003, he topped the Independent Albums Chart and, as of October 19, 2007, had sold 316,000 copies. With the mainstream success of Dashboard Confessional, Carrabba was featured on the cover of Spin magazine. and according to Jim DeRog atis, "has become the 'face of emo' in which Moby was considered the main exponent of techno or Kurt Cobain became the crown prince of grunge". Three of Dashboard Confessional's studio albums, The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most (2001), A Mark, a Mission, a Brand, a Scar (2003), and Dusk and Summer (2006), all of which were certified by the RIAA in the mid-2000s. As of October 19, 2007, The Places You Have Come to Fear The Most has sold 599,000 copies. As of October 19, 2007, Dusk and Summer and A Mark, a Mission, a Brand, a Scar have sold 512,000 copies and 901,000 copies in the United States, respectively. As of October 19, 2007, the Dashboard Confessional's debut album The Swiss Army Romance (2000) sold 338,000 copies. Dashboard Confessional's songs "Stolen" and "Do Not Wait" they reached number 44 on the Billboard Hot 100 on May 19, 2007 and number 80 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2006, respectively. New Found Glory's album, Sticks and Stones , debuted at number four on the Billboard 200 chart. The Get Up Kids' album On the Wire, reached number 57 on the chart. Billboard 200 and number three on the Top Independent Albums chart. Their 2004 album, Guilt Show, peaked at number 58 on the Billboard 200. On August 10, 2003, The New York Times reported how, "from the three-chord wails of the Alkaline Trio to the folky screams of Bright Eyes, to the pop-punk scholar of Brand New, to the entropic anthems of Thursday, much of the most exciting rock music appeared in the emo genre".
Saves the Day toured with Green Day, blink-182 and Weezer, playing big venues like Madison Square Garden. Saves the Day performed on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, was on the cover of Alternative Press and had music videos for "At Your Funeral" and "Freakish" on MTV2. Taking Back Sunday released their debut album, Tell All Your Friends, through Victory Records in 2002. The album gave the band a taste of success in the emo scene with singles like & #34;Cute Without the 'E' (Cut from the Team)" and "You're So Last Summer". Initially at number 183 on the Billboard 200, Tell All Your Friends was eventually certified gold by the RIAA in 2005 and is considered one of emo's most influential albums. As of May 8, 2009, Tell All Your Friends has sold 790,000 copies. Articles about Vagrant Records appeared in Time and Newsweek, and the word "emo" it became a catch-all term for unconventional pop music.
In the wake of this success, many emo bands signed to major labels and the genre became commercial. According to Dreamworks Records senior A&R representative Luke Wood, "The industry really sees to emo like the new rap rock, or the new grunge. I don't think anyone is listening to the music that's being made, they're thinking about how they're going to take advantage of the popularity of the sound in retail'. The apolitical nature of emo, catchy music and accessible themes had wide appeal for a young and mainstream audience. The emo bands that emerged in the mainstream during this time were shunned by many fans of early emo music. As emo continued to be mainstream, it became quite common that emo bands had black hair and wore eyeliner. Taking Back Sunday had continued success in the following years, with their 2004 album Where You Want To Be peaking at number three on the Billboard 200 and being certified by the RIAA in July 2005. The album, as of February 17, 2006, has sold over 700,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan. The second single from Where You Want To Be, "This Photograph is Proof (I Know You Know)", was featured on the Spider-Man 2 soundtrack. The band's 2006 album, Louder Now, reached number two on the Billboard 200, was certified gold by the RIAA just under two months after its release. release date, and, as of May 8, 2009, it has sold 674,000 copies. All-American Rejects' self-titled album was certified platinum by the RIAA; "Swing, Swing", a song from the album, reached number 60 on the Billboard Hot 100. Their album Move Along was certified double platinum by the RIAA; their single, "Dirty Little Secret," peaked at number nine on the Billboard Hot 100 and was certified platinum by the RIAA. Canadian punk pop band Simple Plan's 2002 album No Pads, No Helmets... Just Balls was certified double platinum by the RIAA and Music Canada; their 2004 album, Still Not Getting Any..., was certified platinum by the RIAA and quadruple platinum by Music Canada. Hawthorne Heights' album, The Silence in Black and White, sold 929,000 copies in the United States and the album's song, "Ohio Is for Lovers", has been described as "the emo anthem". Hawthorne Heights 2006 album If Only You Were Lonely sold 114,000 copies in its first week of release. of Hawthorne Heights Casey Calvert died at the age of 25.
Other emo bands that achieved mainstream success during the 2000s included My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy, AFI, Relient K, Plain White T, The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, Boys Like Girls, Panic! at the Disco and Paramore. My Chemical Romance hit the mainstream with their 2004 album Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge. My Chemical Romance is known for its gothic-influenced emo look and the creation of concept albums and rock operas. Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge was certified platinum by the RIAA in 2005. The band continued with their third album, The Black Parade, which sold 240,000 copies in its first week of release and was certified platinum by the RIAA in less than a year. Fall Out Boy's album, From Under the Cork Tree, sold 2.7 million copies in the United States. The band's album, Infinity on High, topped the Billboard 200, sold 260,000 copies in its first week of release, and sold 1.4 million copies in the United States. "Sugar, We're Goin' Down" peaked at number eight on the Billboard Hot 100, and "Dance, Dance" peaked at number nine on the chart. Additionally, Fall Out Boy's song "Thnks fr th Mmrs" peaked at number 11 on the Billboard Hot 100. The Panic! at the Disco, A Fever You Can't Sweat Out, was certified double platinum by the RIAA; their single, "I Write Sins Not Tragedies," peaked at number seven on the Billboard Hot 100 and was certified quadruple platinum by the RIAA. Panic! at the Disco are known for combining emotion with electronica and their album A Fever You Can't Sweat Out is an emo album with elements of dance-punk and baroque pop. Boys Like's singles Girls "Hero / Heroine", "The Great Escape" and "Thunder" they were certified gold or platinum by the RIAA. "Face Down" by Red Jumpsuit Apparatus peaked at number 24 on the Billboard Hot 100, and their album, Don't You Fake It, sold 852,000 copies in the United States. AFI's albums Sing the Sorrow and Decemberunderground were certified platinum by the RIAA, and Decemberunderground peaked at number one on Billboard 200. The AFI song "Miss Murder" peaked at number 24 on the Billboard Hot 100 on June 24, 2006. AFI's song "Love Like Winter" peaked at number 68 on the Billboard Hot 100 on January 13, 2007. Relient K's songs "Who I Am Odies Who I've Been" and "Be My Escape" they peaked at number 58 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2006 and number 82 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2005, respectively. "Who I Am Hates Who I've Been" and "Be My Escape" were certified gold by the RIAA in February 2006 and October 2005, respectively. Relient K's album Mmhmm was certified by the RIAA on July 15, 2005. Relient K, Two Lefts Don't Make a Right...but Three Do was certified by the RIAA on March 21, 2005. Relient K's 2001 album The Anatomy of the Tongue in Cheek was certified gold by the RIAA on June 26, 2006. Plain White T broke through with his 2006 album Every Second Counts. Released on September 12, 2006, Every Second Counts was certified gold by the RIAA on July 3, 2007. Four songs by Plain White T charted on the Billboard Hot 100 throughout the 2000s, including the song "Hey There Delilah," which peaked at 1 on the chart on July 28, 2007. Paramore's album, Riot! , was certified double platinum by the RIAA; His song, "Misery Business," peaked at number 26 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was certified triple platinum by the RIAA.
A darker, more aggressive style of emo was also becoming popular. New Jersey-based Thursday signed a multi-million dollar, multi-album deal with Island Def Jam after their 2001 album, Full Collapse, peaked at number 178 on the Billboard chart. i> 200. Their music was more political and lacked pop twists and anthems, influenced by The Smiths, Joy Division and The Cure. However, the band's accessibility, basement show roots, and touring with Saves the Day made them part of the emo movement. Thursday's 2003 album, War All the Time, reached number seven on the Billboard 200. Hawthorne Heights, Story of the Year, Underoath and Alexisonfire, four bands that frequently appear on MTV, have popularized screamo. Other screamo bands include Silverstein Senses Fail and Vendetta Red. Underoath's albums They're Only Chasing Safety (2004) and Define the Great Line (2006) were certified gold by the RIAA. The Used's self-titled album (2002) was certified gold by the RIAA on July 21, 2003. The Used's self-titled album, as of August 22, 2009, has sold 841,000 copies. The album In Love and Death (2004) by The Used was certified by the RIAA on March 21, 2005. In Love and Death, as of January 2, 2007, sold 689,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan. The Used's album Lies for the Liars (2007) sold 322,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan. The song "The Bird and the Worm& #3. 4; by The Used peaked at number 7 on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 chart on June 23, 2007. On July 7, 2007, "The Bird and the Worm" it reached number 9 on the Alternative Songs chart. Four Alexisonfire albums were certified gold or platinum in Canada.
2010: Underground decline and resurgence
During the 2010s, the popularity of emo began to wane. Some bands broke up or moved away from their emo roots; My Chemical Romance's album Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys has a traditional pop punk style. Paramore and Fall Out Boy abandoned the emo genre with their 2013 albums Paramore and Save Rock and Roll, respectively. Fall Out Boy moved into a style of pop music and Paramore moved to a new wave-influenced style. Panic! at the Disco moved away from their emo pop roots to a synth-pop style on Too Weird to Live, Too Rare to Die!. Many bands (including My Chemical Romance, Alexisonfire, and Thursday) broke up, raising concerns about the viability of the genre.
Meanwhile, in the 2010s, a primarily underground emo revival emerged, drawing on the sound and aesthetic of 1990s emo. movement include Modern Baseball, The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die, A Great Big Pile of Leaves, Pianos Become the Teeth, Empire! Empire! (I Was a Lonely Estate), Touché Amoré, Into It. Over It., and the Hotelier. While many 2010 emo bands draw on the sound and aesthetic of emo from the decade From the 1990s, hardcore punk elements are used consistently in 2010s emo bands such as Title Fight and Small Brown Bike.
Subgenres
Screamo
The term "screamo" was initially applied to an aggressive branch of emo that developed in San Diego in 1991 and used short songs that graft "spastic intensity onto deliberately dissonant and experimental dynamics". Screamo is a dissonant form of emo-influenced hardcore punk, featuring typical rock instruments and noted for short songs, chaotic playing, and screaming vocals.
The genre is "generally based on the aggressive side of the mainstream punk-revival scene". He started at the Ché Café with groups like Heroin, Antioch Arrow, Angel Hair, Mohinder, Swing Kids and Portraits of Past. They were influenced by the Washington, D.C. post-hardcore scene. (particularly Fugazi and Nation of Ulysses), the straight edge, the Chicago group Articles of Faith, the hardcore-punk band Die Kreuzen, and post-punk and gothic rock bands such as Bauhaus. I Hate Myself is a band described as "a cornerstone of the 'screamo'" by author Matt Walker: "Musically, I Hate Myself relied on being very slow and deliberate, with sharp contrasts between hushed, almost meditative segments that tear loudly and heavy portions propelled by Jim Marburger's tidal scream& #34;.
The Used, Thursday, Thrice and Poison the Well, who formed in the United States in the late 1990s and early 2000s and remained active throughout the 2000s, helped popularize screamo. Post-hardcore bands such as Refused and At the Drive-In paved the way for these bands. Canadian emo scene screamo bands such as Silverstein and Alexisonfire also emerged at this time. In the mid-2000s, the saturation of the screamo scene caused many bands to expand beyond the genre and incorporate more experimental elements. Non-screamo bands used the genre's characteristic guttural vocal style.
Jeff Mitchell of the Iowa State Daily wrote: "There's no set definition of what screamo sounds like, but yelling once, a loud, deafening sound, and then all of a sudden, calm, melodic guitar lines is a theme commonly associated with the genre".
Emo pop
Emo pop is a subgenre of emo that draws influences from pop music and primarily from pop punk. AllMusic describes emo pop as a mix of "boyish angst" with "slick production" and commanding attraction, using "high-pitched melodies, rhythmic guitars and lyrics dealing with adolescence, relationships and heartbreak". The Guardian described emo pop as a mix between " 34;boy-band pop with saccharin" and emo.
Emo pop developed during the 1990s. Bands like Jawbreaker and Samiam are known for formulating the emo pop punk style. According to Nicole Keiper of CMJ New Music Monthly, the album Building (1996) pushed the band "into the emo-pop camp with the likes of the Get Up Kids and Jejune". In the 2000s, emo pop became popular with Jimmy Eat World's 2001 album Bleed American and the success of its single "The Middle". Jimmy Eat World, the Get Up Kids and the Promise Ring are also early emo pop bands. The emo pop style of Jimmy Eat World's album, Clarity influenced later emo. The emo band Braid's 1998 album Frame & Canvas has been described as emo pop by AllMusic's Blake Butler, who gave the album four stars out of five and wrote that Frame & Canvas "is one of Braids best efforts". Emo pop became a hit in the late 1990s, with its popularity increasing in the early 2000s. Up Kids sold more than 15,000 copies of their debut album, Four Minute Mile (1997), before signing with Vagrant Records. The label promoted them, sending them on tours to support Green Day and Weezer. Their 1999 album, Something to Write Home About, reached number 31 on Billboard's Top Heatseekers chart. . As of May 2, 2002, Something to Write Home About had sold 134,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
As emo pop coalesced, the label Fueled by Ramen became the center of the movement, signing Fall Out Boy, Panic! at the Disco and Paramore (all of which were successful). Two regional scenes developed: the Florida scene was created by Fueled by Ramen; Midwestern emo-pop was pioneered by Pete Wentz, whose Fall Out Boy came to the forefront of the style in the mid-2000s. Cash Cash released Take It to the Floor (2008); according to AllMusic, it could be "the definitive statement of emo-pop, dazzling and content-free... The transformation of emo into the expression of intensely felt sensations, ripped from the throat, played by bands influenced directly from the post -punk and hardcore to mall-friendly Day-Glo pop performed by kids who look as authentic as the "punks" in an old episode of Quincy in the 1970s it became quite complete". You Me at Six released their debut album in 2008, Take Off Your Colors, described by Jon O'Brien of AllMusic as "follow the manual 'emo-pop for dummies' word for word". The album was certified gold in the UK.