Contrary to popular belief, Emo is not short for Emotional, at least not really. It is not a style, either. It has nothing to do with cutting yourself, or boys with swooping haircuts taking pictures of themselves. Emo is not about whining about your problems. It’s got nothing to do with your girlfriend breaking up with you. If you believe that, you’re exercising your right to do so. This does not, however, make you correct.

Emo is short for emotional hardcore. Say it. Say it again. Say it a third time. Keep doin' that. If emo just stood for emotional, it wouldn't make sense. All music is emotional in one sense or another.

What if an Emo band got popular? Would it stop being Emo? No, it wouldn’t. In the recent times, Circle Takes The Square has gotten somewhat popular, thank god.

However, people need to understand that Emo is essentially DIY punk. It cannot be mainstream. It can be as popular as it can possibly get. But it’s still not mainstream. When we say DIY, we mean it gets where it gets without corporate promotion, and it’s produced independently. What happens if you happen to see a Circle Takes The Square album at Wal-Mart? You stop taking drugs. This wouldn’t happen. You’re probably only going to find their album at, say, an independent record store. Even those don’t always carry what you want. It’s usually best to go with a distribution (or ‘distro’) website. You’ll notice that those sites rarely charge very much for music, and they usually carry vinyl as well.

Emo started in the 80’s, with a little band by the name of Rites Of Spring. While this is arguable, as the Husker Du album Zen Arcade, which is said to have started the style, came out before Rites Of Spring’s End On End album. But I digress. Rites Of Spring were only together from the spring of 1984 through the winter of 1986, but in that span of time, they set the stage for the shape of punk to come. The term Emo started when people at Rites Of Spring concerts started yelling “You’re emo!” at them. This is part of why people say Rites Of Spring started Emo. I tend to go with this, partially because I don’t like the thought that an album started the genre. It makes more sense that the band themselves did.

Emo sparked and faded a bit, until the legendary band Moss Icon came along. In my personal opinion, while Rites Of Spring started the genre, Moss Icon perfected it. Their album Lyburnum is widely considered one of the best Emo albums around, as it’s the ideal album. In my experience, the music on the album is perfect for beginners, as it’s not too loud, but it’s not quiet, either.

After awhile, the sub-movement of Screamo began. Bands like Palatka and Swing Kids were the new norm. It was loud, fast, and it could easily kill you, if you weren’t careful. This kind of music has become the new norm for Emo bands, but the unfortunate thing is that, nine times our of ten, it sounds like random syllables being screamed.

One thing that I don’t like is that people talk about “the waves of emo”. This doesn’t work, because it usually includes what’s considered Emo today. Yes, genres do change as the years go by. Rock has stopped being about sex and drugs, and started being more about that and more about relationships. Rockers have started talking about “making love”. But genres do not become the polar opposite. Does it really make sense that a bunch of guys screaming could really evolve into one guy with an acoustic guitar? I don’t think so. Sure, Pg. 99 is a vastly different band than, say, Moss Icon, but the two are in the same genre because of their sound and their content. Sure, Pg. 99 was a band with songs that make your vocal chords bleed just to listen to them. Sure, Moss Icon sounds more like one of today's louder Indie bands, at times. But the two are, inherently, the same, because of their sound and their content.

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All of this information is taken directly from this site. Also check out Wikipedia.

Real Emo Bands
1905 * A Case Of Grenada * Amanda Woodward * Ampere * Angel Hair * Antioch Arrow * Arse Moreira * Assfactor 4 * Aussitôt Mort * Balaclava * Baron Noir * Blacken the Skies * Boa Narrow * Born Dead Icons * Breather Resist * Bucket Full of Teeth * Burnman * Calvary * Circle Takes the Square * City of Caterpillar * Clikatat Ikatowi * Cobra Kai * Conation * Corn On Macabre * Cost of An Arm * Cowboys Became Folk Heroes * Creation is Crucifixion * Crestfallen * Current * Daitro * Danse Macabre * Dear Diary I Seem To Be Dead * Die, Emperor Die! * Dispensing Of False Halos * Efra * Embrace * Emo Summer * Enoch Ardon * Envy * Evergreen * Flashbulb Memory * Former Members of Alfonsin * Funeral Diner * Get Fucked * Gospel * Harriet the Spy * Heroin * Hot Cross * Hugs * I Hate Myself * Indian Summer * I Wrote Haikus About Cannibalism In Your Yearbook * I Would Set Myself on Fire for You * I, Robot * Index for Potential Suicide * Joan Of Arc * Joshua Fit for Battle * Kakistocracy * The Khayembii Communique * Kobayashi * The Kodan Armada * La Quiete * Lee Marvin Computer Arm * Life at These Speeds * Light the Fuse and Run * Louise Cyphre * Love Like... Electrocution * Love Lost But Not Forgotten * Make Me * Malady * Mannequin * Mary Reilly * Mass Movement of the Moth * Mayans * Maxamillian Colby * Memento Mori * Moss Icon * Neil Perry * Off Minor * Orchid * Palatka * Pg.99 * Phoenix Bodies * Please Inform the Captain This is a Hijack * Plunger * Policy of Three * Portrait * Portraits of Past * Pretty Faces * Raein * Rites of Spring * Ruhaeda * Saetia * Sakita Sarra * Shikar * Shotmaker * Sinkthefucker * Sl's3 * Sophora * Stop It! * Suis la Lune * Systral * Tafkata * Takaru * Ten Grand/The Vidablue * The Apoplexy Twist Orchestra * The Avenging Disco Godfathers of Soul * The Disease * The Holy Shroud * The Infarto, Scheisse! * The Spirit Of Versailles * The State Secedes * To Dreamo of Autumn * Towers * Transistor Transistor * Turn Around Norman * Twelve Hour Turn * Uranus * Usurp Synapse * We Fly Our Kites at Night * Whenallelsefails * Wolves * Wow, Owls! * Yage * Yaphet Kotto * You and I * Zegota

AWESOME, ABOUT BLOODY TIME

EDIT: added a sample of emo music (some of what can be found on playlist.com).

if I could find the clapping smiley, I would post it

u meen dis wun rite

Bug wrote: u meen dis wun rite

mel mixedtape wrote: if I could find the clapping smiley, I would post it

that aside, excellent guide

Yay! Finally.

That makes complete sense.


grr. now i must applaud*gulp* Bug]

hahaha..finally i have the answer!
thx..
btw, Please Inform the Captain This is a Hijack..that's a long name to rmmber..lol

*weeps* I love you

shestheonlyoneifired wrote: hahaha..finally i have the answer!
thx..
btw, Please Inform the Captain This is a Hijack..that's a long name to rmmber..lol

did you also see "I Would Set Myself on Fire for You".... emo bands, have a thing for long names, and lyrics that read like an essay

e.g:

Circle Takes the Square - Kill the Switch

Mouth the words to deny, deny the symptoms, as 'oh yeah I'm doing fine', as I've found a most endearing psychosis.
Somewhere out there there's a thrill I swear. Desperate as I am I just can't strip bare and bleed the only purity I've known.
But I lay with reason. Found logic concieved in a walk with skin. I lay with reason producing these monsters.
Under painted catcalls as in temptation. yeah there's a key to be in, but there's no shade, no shade to blame.
Waterfalls in a cool grey, and the struggle is colored grey this day. The caw of crows fills up the picture plane.
Our picture plane is veiled in central neutral grey. Absinthe to slight the pain. This world's this worst case color scheme.
Streaks of oil stain, stained the road he crawled on homeward.
Oh yeah, oh yeah he killed the switch with some unwieldy gauge, absence and light remain.
I lay with reason found logic and reap in a walk with sin. El sueno razon produce monsinios.
When does this dream end? Now I've missed another whole season,
I've missed the fall, clearly its fallen on this land as fields once green are ochre now.
This is no dream. Trees have turned to skeleton, roots teased and knotted just below the surface skin of ground.
Stitched between the earth and the sky struggling to hold it down.
Sometimes to realize you have to lose track of sight blurring my vision makes it clear the tiny moving parts make up the whole.
The image is clear, a tower is built of my own pride, I cry in the shade that if offers, the only shelter I've known.
When does this dream end? This is no dream. This is the walking living breathing caricature of a memory.
Shamelessly I cave in to temptation of creation. But still my only thrill is empty sidewalks, silent streets.
The caw of crows fills up the picture plane. This is your picture plain in central neutral grey.
This world's this worst case color scheme. Streaks of oil stain, stained the road he crawled on homeward.
Oh yeah, oh yeah he killed the switch with some unwieldy gauge, absence and light remain.
Life is lowly anonymity, in death a noble pose, a Marat David.
Tell me who wouldn't give their lives for such a soap box to die behind. Life is lowly, lowly anonymity.
In the space of a smile I found sleep. As in sorrow, so shall ye reap, as in reason so shall ye sleep.
Reap the promised end to the struggle. Reap every point on our linear path.
Reap the smiles in time we borrow, every harvest relies on the last.
Reap the promising song of the sparrow, that they learned from the birth of sea.
Silenced by the threnody of the crows. Reap the fallen fruit of the dogwood tree.
But I witnessed in all this silence one souls definition of beauty. a backlit smile so temporary.
A facade so rich with evil history. Cast in direct opposition set to overwhelm his moment to shine and sleep-
came out on top of what was borrowed, and found all that beauty to be still.
Every breath as in sorrow, reap the promised end to this path, by every image that we borrow, every harvest depends on the past.
Subdivide in factions our linear forever, we subdivide our waking hours to sleep.
While guilty eyes turn toward a porchlight, enlightenment is losing sight.
Somewhere out there there's a thrill I swear. In this low light town when my shift begins the streets reflecting yellow, yellow, yellow in the vacancy that overwhelms the red, red, red, your vehicle the color of expansion.
Open up. the latter just a thought to thrill me knock knock knock the latter just a thought to thrill me.
Red is a four letter word. Four letter invitation. Now my head is locked in the direction of the sun...
Life is lowly anonymity, in death a noble prose, a Marat David.
Tell me who wouldn't give their lives for such a soap box to leave behind.
Life is lowly, lowly anonymity. I know its all been done before, I want to do it again. I want do it again.
Kill the switch.
This night our journey's through the dark.
Kill the switch, a welcome comatose, tonight we journey through the darkness.
As in sorrow, so shall ye weep, as in reason, so shall ye sleep.

KittensKill wrote:

I know its all been done before, I want to do it again. I want do it again.

Excellent lyrics you got thar.

Bug wrote:

KittensKill wrote:

I know its all been done before, I want to do it again. I want do it again.

Excellent lyrics you got thar.

Best bit of the song, isn't it?

I scream along every time.

these are the ones I've listened to a fair bit, so far:
Circle Takes the Square
City of Caterpillar
I Hate Myself
I Would Set Myself on Fire for You
Pg.99
Rites of Spring

Ive enjoyed all so far.. this is what Real Emo sounds like, and it sounds awesome..

I'll listen to more as I can get my hands on it.