Anyone else like emo? Options

[UrF4vL!pGl0Z...]

I love emo..... Just wondering some bands you guys like?

[william]

...no one, i've researched it and most current bands that are considered emo really aren't in the historical sense. i don't want to turn this into an arguement though; if you like a band you shouldn't care what genre it's in. i'll stop posting in this thread because i don't want to start anything, but you guys should read those websites . and sorry if i came off like an ass, but for some reason this subject pisses me off.

[*mipadi*]

...no one, i've researched it and most current bands that are considered emo really aren't in the historical sense. i don't want to turn this into an arguement though; if you like a band you shouldn't care what genre it's in. i'll stop posting in this thread because i don't want to start anything, but you guys should read those websites  . and sorry if i came off like an ass, but for some reason this subject pisses me off.

Just like any genre, emo has evolved. Look at rock music: the rock we listen to today is not the same as the Buddy Holly rock music of the 1950's, yet we still refer to it as rock, because some of the same elements are still there. It's true that emo of today doesn't all have the hardcore punk sound of the first emo bands, but it's easy to trace the elements of some of today's emo bands back to the original emo bands of the late 80s and early 90s.

Of course, there are some emo bands today that are not emo. A good example is Dashboard Confessional. I'm not saying they are bad because they are not emo, but my point is that they are often miscategorized--they have none of the elements of the first emo band. The term emo gets thrown around a lot to describe any music that is emotional; but that makes no sense, because almost all music is emotional in nature. The only kind that isn't would be the small sliver (relatively speaking) of stuff that involes political and societal issues, such as much early punk and the works of bands like Rage Against the Machine. So no, emo is not short for "emotional rock"; emo is short for "emotive hardcore" or "emotional hardcore" and originally described a type of hardcore punk that dealt with personal and emotional issues, rather than political and societal issues. The first bands, in fact, rose out of the Washington, D.C. hardcore punk scene. I point that out not to say that emo cannot evolve, and that emo of today is not emo; rather, it's important to note because it gives an idea of the type of sound involved in an emo band. The term today gets applied to entirely too many bands that people simply find "emotional". "Emotional music" does not equal "emo", although the emo genre has certainly (and legitimately) evolved from its roots in the D.C. hardcore punk scene.



(And yes, I'm aware I am quoting a post from a few months back, but I thought it might be interested in starting a discussion on music history, rather than arguing about what is emo and what isn't. Music history is truly a fascinating subject, after all--especially that of modern rock.)