Emo???

[rickbass]

Can anyone make a salient distinction between emo and punk???

I hear Rites of Spring, Dog Nasty, earlier Fugazi, Jawbreakers, etc. and I don't hear much if any difference between that and what I played in the late 70's in a punk band.....extremely loud instruments played extremely fast with a marginal singer.

As for the bit about the music having more of an emotional element, I don't hear it, unless bands like Fuel get lumped into emo, (and they do). But then, bands like Fuel don't sound like the other emo bands.

I know some of you don't like using genres but the store clerk has to organize the CD's somehow.

[jvasquez18]

emo is more emotional

[melvin]

Emo seems to always be about how girls dont like the guys in the band, on audiogalaxy they say its got tempo changes and what not. Dont know for sure.

[Brendan]

Emo. Psh. Buncha whiners.

[SuperDuck]

I think better representations of modern emo would be found in Modest Mouse, Sunny Day Real Estate (not the newest album), Jimmy Eat World (not the newest album), Saves the Day, or, better yet, there is a compilation series called The Emo Diaries. There's five CDs that have emo bands from all over the country from varioul labels. They're wonderful albums, and I highly recommend them. I own the first two, and most of the songs are great. (They can't all be gems...)

[rickbass]

Originally posted by dancehallclasher
...rickbass, for the love, do NOT put Fuel under "emo." *shudder*

Dancehall - It wasn't me! I don't know if the band or their label may have made that move.

SuperD - Those are very good suggestions. Thanks!

All I can say is that "emo" seems to be one of those boxes where you put things because no one really knows where else to put them, like "alternative" and "world". Some are heavily punk, some are right next door to the likes of U2 and Creed, not in terms of image but in terms of writing, IMO.

If anyone saw VH1's "Bands on the Run", I think Soulcracker and Flickerstick could market themselves as "emo" easily. They're close to stuff by Burning Airlines, Jets to Brazil, Rapture, and Boxer, and others in the "emo" bag.

[Matthew West]

Originally posted by rickbass1


Can anyone make a salient distinction between emo and punk???

I hear Rites of Spring, Dog Nasty, earlier Fugazi, Jawbreakers, etc. and I don't hear much if any difference between that and what I played in the late 70's in a punk band.....extremely loud instruments played extremely fast with a marginal singer.
SIZE]

I personally don't like the term, but if people are going to use it, they may as well understand it. For all intents and purposes, Emo music started out with the 1985 DC Revolution Summer bands. Mainly Rites of Spring and Embrace. They added a much more personal emotional aspect to a style of music that had primarily been political or third-person based. Most of the earlier 'emo' came from the DC area. Stuff like Hoover, Regulator Watts, featured bands who played like crazy, and had singers that would either scream or whisper. Some of the Louisville/Chicago bands like Rodan, Slint, and June of 44 get thrown in because of this as well. If you were playing any variety of punk/hardcore and you cried while you sang, which was fairly common, you got tagged emo. A lot of bands also got tagged emo because they played with their backs turned to the audience, giving the impression that they were too sensitive or something.

The emo term got turned over around 1991 to Sunny Day Real Estate. They became the new emo prototype, and the whole genre became more of an indie rock based thing, as opposed to the previous hardcore roots. So now you had bands like Mineral, The Promise Ring, Braid, and Christie Front Drive getting tagged emo. BTW, no one ever wants to admit that they are an 'emo' band.'

The whole thing has sort of gotten watered down now to the point that for most people, the term emo refers to bands that play sparklingly clean guitars and sing in very breathy voices. Jimmy Eat World's "Clarity" is a perfect example of this. That can be pretty too, but nothing like the sheer force that Hoover used to put forth (for anyone who never got to see Hoover in their heyday, I'm sorry).

So that's more or less where it stands now. A lot of people mistakenly lump bands like Burning Airlines, Jets to Brazil, etc. into the emo category because they really don't understand it.

Deep Elm Records pride themselves on the very emo qualities of their bands. As SuperDuck said, they have a series of records called the Emo Diaries (I think they're up to #6 now) that chronicles the current state of emo music.

And FWIW, the last truly great emo record was Cursive's "Domestica."

And Rickbass, do you mean the original Fuel, or the ba**ards who stole their name and are now on MTV? The original Fuel would fall into the early emo category.

[jrthebassguy]

I've only heard a few emo bands, but the Get up Kids are frikkin awesome.

[Flea Claydirnt]

Originally posted by jrthebassguy
I've only heard a few emo bands, but the Get up Kids are frikkin awesome.

They sure are!

[rickbass]

Originally posted by Matthew West
...And Rickbass, do you mean the original Fuel, or the ba**ards who stole their name and are now on MTV? The original Fuel would fall into the early emo category.

Matthew - Thanks so much for the best articulation of emo I've ever come upon. I'll definitely check out Deep Elm Records. They sound like their artists can put some definition on the term.

To tell you the truth, I don't know which Fuel. I was getting confused about what's "emo" and what isn't, so I looked at a local music store and looked at a couple of emo websites. They mentioned Fuel and the only Fuel I'm familiar with is the current incarnation. So, that just made the genre even messier in my mind. I guess they meant "the original."

I like a lot of the bands that CDNOW lumps together as "emo" but their collection is really a mess. If you look at something by one of fer-sure emo bands, like Jimmy Eat World and click on "related artists", then go to info about the related artist and click on "related artists" again, you often get a whole new list of bands that weren't "related artists" for the first band you looked up. ???? Me, too.

[Matthew West]

Rickbass,

There's a site at http://www.fourfa.com that does a fairly decent job at explaining the various permutations of the genre.

Personally, I don't agree whith some of the bands like Antioch Arrow and Universal Order of Armageddon being classified as emo, but to each his own.

And yeah, as regard Fuel, the first time I heard the radio station say that they were playing a song by Fuel a year or two ago, I was like "***, did they get back together or something?" You can imagine my disappointment.

As far as Deep Elm, don't take that as gospel. I know the guys in The White Octave (great band BTW), and they left the label because the guy who runs it was so hell bent on labeling everything "emo."

[nickis thebest]

there is a really cool emo band called Craig's Brother. what makes them emo is that all the songs they sing are sad, they dont write "punk" lyrics but they play loud and fast like punk

[foolfighter24]

One word: Fairview. They have multiple songs up at www.mp3.com and the older stuff(the songs you can dl directly to your computer) is so good. I love it. And Jimmy Eat World. And pinkerton by Weezer.

[rickbass]

Originally posted by Matthew West
...they left the label because the guy who runs it was so hell bent on labeling everything "emo."

I think there's a lot of that going on, Matt......Q: "What kind of band are you?" A: "Uh....what's in heavy radio rotation this month???"

I used to play punk in the late 70's that was like putting a knife to somebody's throat. When Talking Heads got thrown on the punk pile, I needed a barf bag.

Thanks for some really good insight on this.

[Nomadic Herder]

I was under the impression that stuff like New Found Glory was emo. I dont like them.

[rexspangle]

yeah I was going to mention promise ring and mineral they are emo bands. On of my old friends was in a band called sinclaire signed to sonic unyon. I would consider them emo but they were not ashamed to admit it.

[SuperDuck]

Originally posted by Nomadic Herder
I was under the impression that stuff like New Found Glory was emo. I dont like them.

I hate to be a genre nazi, but New Found Glory is not even close.

[jrthebassguy]

Originally posted by Nomadic Herder
I was under the impression that stuff like New Found Glory was emo. I dont like them.

On the fourfa page, it has all phases of emo (i think there are 4) and I guess new found glory might fit into todays phase, depends on how anal you are about your genres.

(BTW I don't like too much of NFG's stuff, but they put on a great live show)

[Donne Demarest]

Emo Phillips funny guy.

[Matthew West]

Originally posted by jrthebassguy



On the fourfa page, it has all phases of emo (i think there are 4) and I guess new found glory might fit into todays phase, depends on how anal you are about your genres.

Um, no. Again, not even close.