Talk:Emo

Grunge?

I think emo was possibly influenced by grunge (or vice versa) - they both emerged from hardcore punk and they both have emotional lyrics, to name a few similarities. However, this may be inaccurate, and I fail at finding sources, so I am hesitant about adding this. Discuss? SobaNoodle^ForYou 01:17, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, without getting into too much detail, yes grunge had an influence upon emo, but not exactly in the way you're thinking of. There was a definite line of development from early-'80s hardcore to "alternative rock" and on through to grunge, encompassing musical style, lyrical themes, general aesthetics, touring routes, independent record labels, etc. There's a traceable evolutionary line from Minor Threat & Black Flag to Nirvana; in fact that's pretty much the whole thesis of Azerrad's book Our Band Could Be Your Life: tracing the lines of musical development from the end of first-wave punk to Nirvana's explosion into the mainstream. Because of that explosion, underground music was dragged into the limelight & that paved the way for the early-'90s emo bands to gain some national exposure (ie. Jawbreaker getting signed to Geffen & Sunny Day Real Estate getting their video played on MTV). Greenwald's book covers this.

However, I haven't come across anything suggesting that the 2 genres are related by lyrical themes. Yes they both have "emotional" lyrics, but on some level almost all music is "emotional" and the lyrics in grunge really aren't any more or less emotional (in an introspective sense) than those in punk or hardcore. The emotions in grunge are most often angst & anger, whereas the overriding themes in emo are the introspection (ie. "applying big questions to small scenarios"), the deeply personal suject matter, and the connection between the artist & audience on a very basic emotional level. You can see it by looking at some of the albums that were out at the same time: Superunknown, one of the definitive grunge albums, was released the same year as Diary, by the same label (Sub Pop), and both bands (Soundgarden & Sunny Day Real Estate) were from the Seattle area, but the lyrical themes are drastically different. See Superunknown#Music and lyrics...it deals a lot with substance abuse, suicide, and depression. Whereas Diary is about throwing torment to the winds & Jeremy Enigk subsuming himself in something greater. He sings about talking to angels & "losing myself in you" & "in the shadows buried in me lies a child's toy" (tellingly, this prefaces Enigk becoming a born-again Christian). In fact Greenwald's book has a really interesting bit about the members of Sunny Day being backstage at a Nirvana show & being totally bored & unimpressed. At the same time, while Pearl Jam was singing about the pressures of fame and dealing with the resulting loss of privacy (see Vitalogy#Music and lyrics), Jawbreaker was singing "Do you still hate me?" and about being "too old not to get excited about rain and roads, Egyptian ruins, our first kiss" on 24 Hour Revenge Therapy.

So yeah, grunge had an impact on emo, but mainly to the effect of making underground music mainstream. I don't think they were all that similar lyrically & I haven't come across any sources that'd make a strong case for that position. Of course the emo bands of the late '90s & early '00s, who grew up with grunge on the radio, may have drawn mroe influence from it. But I still doubt there are many lyrical similarities. I can't think of many lyrical themes from grunge bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam & Soundgarden that are terribly similar to those in emo bands like the Get Up Kids, Dashboard Confessional, Jimmy Eat World, or Taking Back Sunday. But that's just my own analysis; there may be sources that draw those connections. But if there are I haven't read them. --IllaZilla (talk) 03:48, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I second what IllaZilla said, though I'd also like to add that early emo had a notable effect on grunge acts like Nirvana (Kurt Cobain has openly cited Rites of Spring as an influence). In addition, both were primarily Seattle-based music scenes, with the first emo predating the first grunge by only a few years.(Albert Mond (talk) 05:21, 30 March 2009 (UTC))

"both were primarily Seattle-based music scenes"? The only Seattle-area emo band I've read about are Sunny Day Real Estate. Emo, or emocore, was DC-based & spread west from there. --IllaZilla (talk) 08:28, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Ah. Sorry. Guess I got my Washingtons mixed up for a moment there. Don't know what I was thinking.(Albert Mond (talk) 19:15, 30 March 2009 (UTC))

I disagree with what you have said. I see no grunge influence in any emo music that I hear. It has mostly Pop influence and Punk influence. Emo music sucks. Its so overrated --75.139.103.133 (talk) 12:53, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

In spite of the irrelevance of your last three sentences, in which you unknowingly stated that you've mistaken pop punk (or "emo pop") for emo, I'd like to repeat what I said previously, this time mostly for the sake of argument. Kurt Cobain listed Rites of Spring as the creator of one of his favourite songs. Indeed, there's a resemblance between Bleach-era material and material from Rites (particularly in vocal performance). (Albert Mond (talk) 17:07, 17 April 2009 (UTC))

More sources needed

Adding Greenwald's _Nothing_Feels_Good_ is a vast improvement of this article, but we need to include some other reliable sources by notable writers. Qu1et (talk) 00:16, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree, unfortunately Greenwald's book is the only comprehensive source I have available at this time. Can anyone recommend any other thorough sources? --IllaZilla (talk) 05:47, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

I noticed that the Bibliography mentions Our Band Could Be Your Life, but I don't see it actually cited anywhere. Is there any applicable material in there? Does Greenwald mention any other books in his bibliography? I'll keep my eyes and ears open, and let you know as soon as I come across anything! Qu1et (talk) 14:06, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

There is the book POST - A Look at the Influence of Post-Hardcore 1985-2007. I haven't read it yet (and I really want to), but hopefully if someone were to find this book it could fill in some of the other spaces in the article. Most likely it would have information pertinent to Post-hardcore as well. TheLetterM (talk) 15:36, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm going to add some stuff from Our Band Could Be Your Life once I finish adding from Greenwald, but with regard to emo it only covers the '80s DC stuff ie. Rites of Spring. It doesn't cover the later history. --IllaZilla (talk) 17:45, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Oxford English Dictionary

The OED is a reliable source. If you don't have a subscription, go to your local library; if they don't have a subscription (unlikely), they'll probably have the print version in their reference stacks. Also, it doesn't really contradict the other quotation at all. That source refers to when certain people remember *hearing* the term first used; the OED is only concerned with when a word first appears *in print* (even electronically).

If you can find earlier evidence of the term appearing in print, that can be reliably dated, feel free to cite it! I think lots of people (myself included) would be very interested in that video evidence you mentioned as well. Meanwhile, I can see no reason not to cite the OED in this article.

Respectfully yours,

Webbbbbbber (talk) 15:01, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

According to this the term does not appear in any form in the OED (that link was provided to me by User:Neon white), so I'm confused. In any case I think I'm going to reword it because where you put it it interrupts Greenwald's analysis of the term's origins. As for the video evidence, here is a clip of Embrace from 1986 in which Ian MacKaye talks about "emocore" and "emotional hardcore". He claims to have read the term in reference to his band in an issue of Thrasher. Unfortunately I don't think that's citeable, since it's on Youtube and we don't know the original source of the video, but some digging might be able to find a print interview w/ MacKaye from that period, or possible the Thrasher article he refers to. --IllaZilla (talk) 18:42, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Cool beans on the video find! Hopefully we can find a citeable copy somewhere. In regard to to not being able to find the term on askoxford.com, I went to that website and discovered that it searches the compact OED. You'll need to search the full-on OED to find the entries I found. Your local library should have access--if not, you might need to find a college student somewhere.  :-) You can also find it on the Merriam–Webster website here, but it doesn't provide any information on where they found it.

Hey, let me know if you unearth that Thrasher article! I'll bet the OED editors would be interested! Webbbbbbber (talk) 21:31, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm a grad student, so I'll see if I can check my university's access, or better yet a physical copy. I'd be interested to see that '93 NME article that they say is the first print appearance. Thrasher does have scans online of some of their old issues [1], unfortunately not the ones from '85/'86 which is where I imagine I'd find the article in question. However, here is an article, vetted by MacKaye, which supports the claim that Thrasher first called Embrace "emo-core" and cites the Youtube video as a source. Michael Azerrad also traces use of the term back to '85 in Our Band Could Be Your Life (p. 380), saying that "the term and the approach thrived for at least another fifteen years". He doesn't give an account of where it first appeared in print, but it's clear from these sources (Azzerad, Greenwald, MacKaye) that it was in use as far back as '85 (and had been in use for up to 7 years before the first print usages the OED is giving). --IllaZilla (talk) 22:05, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

I've rewritten/rearranged the paragraph, with additional citations to Azerrad & the MacKaye source. With all respect to the OED and Merriam-Webster, they appear to be incorrect in dating the terms to '92/'93. It's a term that's only come into popular usage in the last 8 or 9 years, so it's not hard to see how there could be confusion about its origins. However a number of primary and secondary sources date it to the mid-1980s. Some of the misconception on the OED end may be from the fact that for at least its first decade of existence the "emo" style was confined to the American underground music scene (at least according to every source I've read...they all place it squarely in the American underground and never mention the UK), so it probably would not have made print usage in the UK until later (Thrasher and other 'zines of the time being produced in limited quantites and now long out of print). Without access to these print media, it's easy to see how they could think its first use was in NME in '95. NME just happened to be a decade late to the game with that particular slang term. --IllaZilla (talk) 23:33, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for all your work! I'm actively hunting down that ellusive Thrasher article, but as you say, it's difficult to find issues from that time period. Webbbbbbber (talk) 03:24, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Hardcore Emo needs mentioning

The early to mid 90's mostly West Coast Hardcore Emo of Heroin, Antioch Arrow, Mohinder, See Saw (westcoast), Honeywell, Swing Kids, and others needs mentioning. Here's a quote from a website that seems to have a logical inclusion of the sub-genre (fourfa.com):

"Heroin, Antioch Arrow, Mohinder, Honeywell, Reach Out, early Portaits of Past, Assfactor 4, Second Story Window, End of the Line, Angel Hair, Swing Kids, Three Studies for a Crucifixion, John Henry West, Guyver-1, Palatka, Coleman, Iconoclast, some Merel, some Clikatat Ikatowi, etc.

-Hinted at in New Jersey in 1990 (Merel, Iconoclast). Starts for real in San Diego in 1991 with Heroin, comes to SF Bay in 1992 (Reach Out, Mohinder, Honeywell, Portraits of Past, John Henry West), hits Philly, Florida, New York, and the rest of the East Coast a little bit.

-Similar to punk vs. hardcore punk - faster, louder, harder, much more intense and single-minded. Most of these bands play extremely fast, and introduce the "chaos" concept to hardcore. This is extremely abrasive music, with vocals screamed at the physical limit of the vocal chords. The guitars are distorted to the point that notes and chords are hard to recognize - although often the guitarists don't even play notes, instead making piercing, staccato bursts of noise, squeals of deafening feedback, or a wash of strummed dissonance. The bass often has quite a bit of distortion as well, unlike straight emo. This is everything emo done more so - sometimes so totally over the top that the band 's songs are not even recognizable when performing live. Antioch Arrow, for instance, thrashed about so much on stage that they sounded less like a band than a giant amplified blender. After each song, they had to retune every string, and usually had knocked over a good fraction of their equipment. These shows tended also to be quite short for reasons of the band's physical endurance.

-All the other notes about emo records, shows, economics, etc. apply to hardcore emo too. It's very much simply a subset of emo. In my eyes, this was the ultimate expression of the form. There was a frantic, primal quality to a band like Heroin that could just reach through your ribcage and squeeze your heart like in the Temple of Doom. I never found that in any of the other types."

It is a very influential and important underground form of music. Basically the a dominant part of the underground soundtrack to DIY artists/writers/student youth of the period. Fused jazz, hard rock, even prog, and punk through emo. At times it sounds like the NYC "no-wave" of the 90's.

These bands and their records need mentioning, is my point. Mostly instigated by Gravity Records with the "gravity sound" gravityrec.com I'm just a fan and not related to any record labels. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.252.244.97 (talk) 01:44, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Fourfa.com has been used in this article before. Unfortunately, it is not considered a reliable source by Wikipedia (or academic) standards because it's a personal website and does not have a reputation for fact-checking or accuracy. While it is an interesting read, it is nonethless merely a collection of the author (Andy Radin)'s opinions, and he is not considered an authority on the subject (I can find no record of any other music-related writings of his, nor any of his writings that have been published other than on that site; he appears to be mainly a photographer). Wikipedia has rules about using self-published sources (see WP:SPS, which is part of our verifiability policy). Fourfa.com does not pass the criteria for reliablity by these standards. I'm not saying that the bands, albums, etc. you are describing aren't important (as a San Diego native I'm particularly fond of the Gravity stuff myself, esp. Clikatat Ikatowi), but unless there are more reliable, third-party sources describing their significance to emo then this info can't be included. For more information, see Wikipedia:Reliable sources.

The "hardcore emo" tag, by the way, is simply what Mr. Radin is choosing to call it. You'd have to find at least several other sources describing it as such in order to be able to label it that. Emo originated from hardcore punk, after all...I think it would be rather silly to be calling similar bands only a few years later "hardcore emo". If anything, it's the later bands (mid-'90s etc) that moved it away from hardcore, so the phase you're describing is still the emotional hardcore, or "emocore" that originated in the mid-'80s. It's later on that the "hardcore" bit started to get dropped as the music moved away from HC and more towards pop. --IllaZilla (talk) 02:50, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Great Criticism section

This article has a great criticism section, but it makes me wonder why other articles of other musical genres do not have criticism sections comparable to the one in this article. The criticism section in this article takes up approximately 40% of the space in this whole article! I suppose that someone should go onto the "alternative" article, and add a huge criticism section, which makes up at least 40% of that article?

If you do not get my sense of humor, I am trying to say that this article is EXTREMELY BIASED. I suggest that someone change this article to pertain to the views of all people, and not just those that hate this genre of music. --71.199.5.214 (talk) 13:28, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree that the criticism section needs an overhaul. I recently rewrote most of the history section, and planned to go through the rest of the article, but other projects/commitments/life got in the way. I plan on returning to work on it when I have ample time to spend on it. In the meantime, if you would like to work on it, please go right ahead. --IllaZilla (talk) 18:28, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

I disagree somewhat. The article most certainly has space that goes in favour of said genre. While some of the Criticism section seems unnecessary, I believe it is notable that a number of more recent bands to be called 'emo' so despise the term. Such a phenomenon is often common in first waves, and was present in first wave emo. Deep Purple rejected 'heavy metal', and I've read that bands such as Bauhaus and Sisters of Mercy rejected 'goth rock'.

However, you don't hear Metallica saying they were never a metal band, or (as far as I know) 69 Eyes saying goth is a "pile of shit."(Albert Mond (talk) 22:48, 1 May 2009 (UTC))

History is too long

The history section name-checks too many bands and just isn't interesting to anyone who wouldn't want to read an entire book on the subject.

Sure emo has a history, but it's still primarily a 2000s fad. we should focus the article more on emo's popularity, not its obscure indie phase.

Mimzy1990 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 23:01, 13 May 2009 (UTC).

Emo is not "primarily a 2000s fad". It has a history dating back to the mid-1980s, with important developments in the 1990s, and these deserve discussion in an encyclopedia article about it. You cannot focus only on the style's recent popularity; that is a ridiculous way to go about writing an encyclopedia (or any other academic treatment of the topic, really). "It just isn't interesting" isn't a valid reason for removing it. That's entirely your point of view and irrelevant to an encyclopedic treatment of the topic. We're not going to remove entire sections of the article just becaue you don't find them fascinating. --IllaZilla (talk) 23:46, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Seriously dude, how often did you hear about "emo" before 2002? only the most devoted hipsters would have any idea what is was before then. no other musical genre has such a detailed history than emo, and frankly, emo doesn't deserve to have such an extensive article about its obscure past. just imo. Mimzy1990 (talk) 03:45, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

"Seriously dude", there actually was emo before 2002. The term and the style have existed in various forms since 1985. Many reliable sources support this and illustrate that the style has a diverse history. You may need to accept the fact that emo does in fact have a history past Cobra Starship and Hellogoodbye. It's not only "devoted hipsters" who know this; entire books exist on the subject. Wikipedia relies on verifiability through reliable sources, not on editor opinion. Your point of view on the matter is irrelevant to an encyclopedic treatment of emo. If you continue to edit the article based on your own POV and original research, then your edits will be treated as vandalism and reverted. As for your claim that "no other musical genre has such a detailed history than emo", perhaps you need to check out the article on punk rock, which has been identified as one of Wikipedia's finest articles and is over 130K long. This is an encyclopedia; a detailed history is a good thing, and gutting it just because you don't care about anything before 2002 is wholly inappropriate. --IllaZilla (talk) 03:57, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Oh, and the answer to your question is "a lot". I graduated college in 2002, and I'd been hearing the term "emo" for at least 7 years at that point. I got hooked on it around 1999 with Something to Write Home About, which, by the way, is considred one of the key albums of the style. Jimmy Eat World, The Promise Ring, Jawbreaker, Sunny Day Real Estate, Rites of Spring, Embrace...these bands all predate 2002. Heck, even The Emo Diaries series goes back to 1997. --IllaZilla (talk) 04:43, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

I guess you must be one of those 5,000 people who WERE in the know, lol. But anyway, I have a suggestion - to end emo's mainstream popularity at 2008 - the style has considerably declined. Mimzy1990 (talk) 19:21, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

You might need to check your math. Nothing Feels Good sold in the mid-5 figures in 1997, the same year that Four Minute Mile sold over 15,000 copies. In 1999 Something to Write Home About was #31 on Top Heatseekers and Through Being Cool sold 50,000. Clarity sold over 70,000 copies between '99 and '01. New Found Glory was #107 on the Billboard 200 in 2000, Bleed American sold 30,000 copies in its first week in 2001. Hell, in the mid-'90s Jawbreaker were on Geffen and Sunny Day Real Estate were in rotation on MTV. Apparently quite a bit more than 5,000 people were aware of emo before it broke into the mainstream. Of course this all happened before 2002 so I don't expect that you were aware of it, much less care about it. As for your entirely POV-based claim that emo's mainstream popularity inexplicably ended last year, see below. Either find sources to support your claims or stop please stop making them. --IllaZilla (talk) 20:47, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

End Emo's mainstream popularity at 2008

I think we should change the range from "early 2000s-present" to "2002-2008".

the style has declined considerably, people don't even whine about emo as much as they used to.

Mimzy1990 (talk) 18:43, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Whether people "whine about emo as much as they used to" is totally irrelevant. There are still numerous bands described as "emo" that have high degrees of both mainstream & independent popularity (Jimmy Eat World, Dashboard Confessional, Taking Back Sunday, Saves the Day, My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy, Paramore, etc. etc.). Calling it dead in the water after just 6 years of popularity is entirely your point of view, and fortunately has no bearing here. Please stop insisting that the article should conform to your opinion of emo. Wikipedia relies on verifiability through reliable sources, not on editors' opinions. --IllaZilla (talk) 19:32, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

To be honest i'd support removing the field althogether, i've never liked it, it's always highly subjective and likely OR. What's counts as 'popular' and 'mainstream'? In my view this genre has never really ever been mainstream. --neon white talk 21:43, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that the style's major bands going platinum, being in heavy MTV rotation, and being cover stories on numerous music magazines counts as mainstream :-) Plus we have a specific, authoritative source (Greenwald) that flat-out says "emo broke into the mainstream in 2002". But as far as the infobox in general goes, I tend to agree with you. I've traditionally been against infobox fields that tend to be subjective or require additional context. --IllaZilla (talk) 22:25, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Emo's Modern Roots Synopsis

To put it bluntly, you here own computer's correct? Yes, I know, or you're at some library snooping and trying to pass off as mech. savoy. Upper crust or something... However, I'm here to remedy that emo pros. You are it. Period. Any Questions would be quite contrary to the discussion and I'm sure I have no qualms about reorchastrating my wherehouse abundancy of homonyme like tree/deco structure. No games, I'm just considering relevating you all to the formal stance of typical a typical people who have livened up their lives my constraining yourselves to comp/leet only and have passed on the fundementals of daily living... IT/Devry sarcasm aside, this whole shop talk has got to stop. ier i say, don't let the bed bugs bite while you're at home sitting in front of that screen is because that is all i can surmise in that you all blend together with former old guard emo's who looked, counter culture, yet mainstream. By and large, now hunt out that old D&D dice or material (hand-held) point counter, and get busy on the new Shangri-La (Door Front) [Plain old Dungeon Master], but yet stay away from anime, but is that emo? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bill Riojas Mclemore (talk • contribs) 19:49, 29 May 2009 (UTC)