Introduction
Possibly the most misunderstood music subgenre around at the moment, Emo is not your anorexic sweater wearing depressive teenager, it is not a way to describe the big group of kids who hang at the mall with thier dyed black flock of seaguls haircut and it certainly isnt every artist who has a slight hint of emotion in thier music, these are narrow minded views made by people who dont really care or understand what Emo is but just follow the trend to slate anything they think is "emo" in thier unperceived minds with thier dismal opinions.
What we do know is that emo derived from early Punk Rock and Harcore Punk, this is true no matter how many Punk (I dont know who black flag are) rock wannabes try to deny this.
Overview
In its original incarnation, the term "emo" was used to describe the music of the mid-1980s DC scene and its associated bands. In later years, the term "emo-core", short for "emotional hardcore", was also used to describe the DC scene. The term "emo" was derived from the fact that, on occasion, members of a band would become spontaneously and literally emotional during performances. The most recognizable names of the period included Rites of Spring, Embrace, One Last Wish, Beefeater, Grey Matter, Fire Party and slightly later, Moss Icon. The first wave of emo began to fade after the breakups of most of the involved bands in the early 1990s.
Starting in the mid-1990s, the term "emo" began to reflect the indie scene that followed the influences of Fugazi, which itself was an offshoot of the first wave of emo. Bands including Sunny Day Real Estate and Texas Is the Reason put forth a more indie rock brand of emo, which was more melodic and less chaotic in nature than its predecessor. The so-called "indie emo" scene survived until the end of the 1990s, as many of the bands either disbanded or shifted their style to the mainstream.
As the remaining indie emo bands entered the mainstream, newer bands began to emulate the more mainstream style, creating a style of music that has now earned the moniker "emo" within popular culture. Whereas, even in the past, the term "emo" was used to identify a wide variety of bands, the breadth of bands listed under today's emo is even more vast, leaving the term "emo" as more of a loose identifier than as a specific genre of music.
Quick note about the DC scene
The DC Scene beng "The music of Washington D.C." which is known for two primary scenes, hardcore and associated derivatives and a hip hop-dance music hybrid called go go.
Washington is known for its contribution to hardcore punk rock, particularly bands like Minor Threat and Bad Brains and Dischord Records, but it had a vibrant musical community prior to hardcore's arrival with bands like the Razz, Slickee Boys and Penetrators putting out records on local independent labels like Limp, O'Rourke, and Dacoit.
Now back on topic...
History
The First Wave (1985–1994)
In 1985 in Washington, D.C., Ian MacKaye and Guy Picciotto, veterans of the DC hardcore music scene, decided to shift away from what they saw as the constraints of the basic style of hardcore and the escalating violence within the scene. They took their music in a more personal direction with a far greater sense of experimentation, bringing forth MacKaye's Embrace and Picciotto's Rites of Spring. The style of music developed by Embrace and Rites of Spring soon became its own sound. (Hüsker Dü's 1984 album Zen Arcade is often cited as a major influence for the new sound.) As a result of the renewed spirit of experimentation and musical innovation that developed the new scene, the summer of 1985 soon came to be known in the scene as "Revolution Summer".
Within a short time, the DC emo sound began to influence other bands such as Moss Icon, Nation of Ulysses, Dag Nasty, Shudder To Think, Fire Party, Marginal Man, and Grey Matter, many of which were released on MacKaye's Dischord Records. The original wave of DC emo finally ended in late 1994 with the collapse of Hoover.
Where the term "emo" actually originated is uncertain, but members of Rites of Spring mentioned in a 1985 interview in Flipside Magazine that some of their fans had started using the term to describe their music. By the early 90s, it was not uncommon for the early DC scene to be referred to as "emo-core", though it's unclear when the term shifted.
As the DC scene expanded, other scenes began to develop with a similar sound. In San Diego in the early 1990s, Gravity Records released a number of records in the hardcore emo style. Bands of the period included Heroin, Indian Summer, Angel Hair, Antioch Arrow, Universal Order of Armageddon, Swing Kids, and Mohinder. At the same time, in the New York/New Jersey era, bands such as Native Nod, Merel, 1.6 Band, Rye Coalition and Rorschach were feeling the same impulse. Many of these bands were involved with the ABC No Rio club scene in New York, itself a response to the violence and stagnation in the scene and with the bands that played at CBGBs, the only other small venue for hardcore in New York at the time. Much of this wave of emo, particularly the San Diego scene, began to shift towards a more chaotic and aggressive form of emo, nicknamed "screamo".
By and large, the more hardcore style of emo began to fade as many of the early era groups disbanded. Even still, a handful of modern bands continue to reflect emo's hardcore origins, including Circle Takes the Square, Hot Cross, City of Caterpillar, Funeral Diner, and A Day in Black and White.
Back in DC, following the disbanding of both Rites of Spring and Embrace, MacKaye and Picciotto decided to join forces in a new band, called Fugazi. While Fugazi itself was not categorized as emo, the music it created would soon influence the second major wave of emo.
Early Emo Influence's
In California, particularly in the Bay Area, bands like Jawbreaker and Samiam began to mix the DC influence with pop punk to come up with their own take on the classic DC emo sound. On Jawbreaker's album Bivouac, singer Blake Schwarzenbach evolved from the traditional hardcore vocal sound into a more melodic crooning, which displayed a more emotional feeling of loss than the desperation and frantic nature of MacKaye's voice. Other bands soon reflected the same sense of rough melody, including Still Life and New Jersey's Garden Variety. The style continued to evolve into the 2000s through bands like Avail and Hot Water Music.
Also in the early 90s, bands like Lifetime reacted in their own way to the demise of youth crew styled straight-edge hardcore and desired to seek out a new direction. While their music was often classified as emo, it was also considered to be melodic hardcore. In response to the more metal direction their hardcore peers were taking, Lifetime initially decided to slow down and soften their music, adding more personal lyrics. The band later added a blend of speed, aggression, and melody that defined their sound. Lifetime's sound, lyrics, and style were a virtual blueprint for later bands, including Saves The Day and The Movielife.
The Second Wave (1994–2000)
As Fugazi and the Dischord Records scene became more and more popular in the indie underground of the early 1990s, new bands began to spring up. Combining Fugazi with the post-punk influences of Mission of Burma and Hüsker Dü, a new genre of emo emerged.
Perhaps the key moment was the release of the album Diary by Sunny Day Real Estate in 1994. Given Sub Pop's then-recent success with Nirvana and Soundgarden, the label was able to bring much wider attention to the release than the typical indie release, including major advertisements in Rolling Stone. The heavier label support allowed the band to secure performances on TV shows, including The Jon Stewart Show. As a result, the album received widespread national attention.
As more and more people learned about the band, particularly via the fledgling Internet, the band was given the tag "emo". Even where Fugazi had not been considered emo, the new generation of fans shifted the tag from the earlier hardcore style to this more indie rock style of emo. It wasn't uncommon for Sunny Day and its peers to be labelled with the full "emo-core". However, when pressed to explain "emo", many fans split the genre into two brands: the "hardcore emo" practiced in the early days and the newer "indie emo".
In the years that followed, several major regions of "indie emo" emerged. The most significant appeared in the Midwest in the mid-90s. Many of the bands were influenced by the same sources, but with an even more tempered sound. These bands included Boy's Life, Christie Front Drive, and Cap'n Jazz. This brand of emo was often referred to as "Midwestern emo" given the geographic location of the bands. In ensuing years, bands such as The Promise Ring, Braid, Elliott, and The Get Up Kids emerged from the same scene and gained national attention.
The area around Phoenix, Arizona became another major scene for emo. Inspired by Fugazi and Sunny Day Real Estate, former punk rockers Jimmy Eat World began stirring in emo influences into their music, eventually releasing the album Static Prevails in 1996. The album was arguably the first emo record released by a major label, as the band had signed with Capitol Records in 1995.
Other bands that followed the Sunny Day Real Estate model of emo included New York's Texas Is the Reason, California's Knapsack and Sense Field, Austin's Mineral, and Boston's Piebald and Jejune.
Strangely, as "indie emo" became more widespread, a number of acts who otherwise would not have been considered part of the "indie emo" scene had their albums referred to as "emo" because of their similarity to the sound. The hallmark example was Weezer's 1996 album Pinkerton, which, in later years, was considered one of the defining "emo" records of the 90s.
As the wide range of emo bands began to attract notoriety on a national scale, a number of indie labels attempted to document the scene. Many emo bands of the late 90s signed to indie labels including Jade Tree Records, Saddle Creek, and Big Wheel Recreation. California's Crank Records released what many considered the defining compilation of 90s emo in 1997, titled (Don't Forget to) Breathe, which featured tracks by The Promise Ring, Christie Front Drive, Mineral, Knapsack, and Arizona's Seven Storey Mountain. In 1998, Deep Elm Records released the first in a series of compilations called Emo Diaries, which featured tracks from Jimmy Eat World, Samiam, and Jejune. In 1999, famed 70s compilation label K-Tel even released an emo compilation titled Nowcore: The Punk Rock Evolution, which, regardless of its source, was surprisingly comprehensive. (Nowcore included tracks by Texas Is the Reason, Mineral, The Promise Ring, Knapsack, Braid, At the Drive-In, and Jawbox, among others.)
With the late-90s emo scene being more national than regional, major labels began to turn their attention toward signing emo bands with the hopes of capitalizing on the genre's popularity. Many bands resisted the lure, citing their loyalty to the independent mentality of the scene. Several bands cited what they saw as mistreatment of bands such as Jawbox and Jawbreaker while they were signed to majors as a reason to stay away. The conflict felt within many of the courted emo bands resulted in their break-ups, including Texas Is the Reason and Mineral.
By the end of the decade, the word "emo" cropped up in mainstream circles. In the summer of 1998, Teen People magazine ran an article declaring "emo" the newest "hip" style of music, with The Promise Ring a band worth watching. The independent nature of the emo scene recoiled at mainstream attention, and many emo bands shifted their sound in an attempt to isolate themselves from the genre. In the years that followed, Sunny Day Real Estate opted to shift to a more prog-rock direction, Jejune aimed for happy pop-rock, and The Get Up Kids and The Promise Ring released lite-rock albums.
While "indie emo" almost completely ceased to exist by the end of the decade, many bands still subscribe to the Fugazi / Hüsker Dü model, including Thursday, The Juliana Theory, and Sparta.
The Third Wave (2000–Present)
At the end of the 1990s, the underground emo scene had almost entirely disappeared. However, the term "emo" was still being bandied about in mainstream media, almost always attached to the few remaining 90s emo acts, including Jimmy Eat World.
However, towards the end of the 1990s, Jimmy Eat World had begun to shift in a more mainstream direction. Where Jimmy Eat World had played emocore-style music early in their career, by the time of the release of their 2001 album Bleed American, the band had almost completely removed its emo influences. As the public had become aware of the word "emo" and knew that Jimmy Eat World was associated with it, the band continued to be referred to as an "emo" band. Newer bands that sounded like Jimmy Eat World (and, in some cases, like the more melodic emo bands of the late 90s) were soon included in the genre.
2003 saw the success of Chris Carrabba and Dashboard Confessional. Carrabba's music featured lyrics founded in deep diary-like outpourings of emotion. Where earlier emo had featured lyrics of a more dark and painful direction, Carrabba's featured a greater focus on love won and lost and the inability to cope. While certainly emotional, the new "emo" had a far greater appeal amongst teenagers experiencing love for the first time, who found insight and solace in Carrabba's words and music.
With Dashboard and Jimmy Eat World's success, major labels began seeking out similar sounding bands. Whereas Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and the other Seattle scene bands of the early 1990s were unwillingly lumped into the genre "grunge", the labels wanted to be able to market a new sound under the word "emo". Which sound that was didn't particularly matter.
In turn, the term "emo" shifted to describe a form of music significantly different from its forebearers. And, in an even more expanded way than in the 90s, the term came to encompass an extremely wide variety of bands, many of whom had very little in common. Today, "emo" is often used to describe such wide-ranging bands as Funeral for a Friend, Taking Back Sunday, The Starting Line, Brand New, Something Corporate, A Static Lullaby, From First To Last, Finch, and From Autumn To Ashes
In many cases, "new emo" bands are simply trying to pursue their own version of the "emo" that came before on their own terms. However, the backlash stemming from the success of a few seemingly "less emo" (and more popular in the mainstream) bands, including Dashboard and The Used, has brought an increasingly substantial pool of detractors.
In a strange twist, screamo, a sub-genre of the new emo, has found greater popularity in recent years through bands such as Thrice and Glassjaw. The term "screamo", however, was used to describe an entirely different genre in the early 1990s, and the bands themselves more resemble the emocore of the early 1990s. (As a reference, see Jim DeRogatis' November 2002 article about Screamo.)
As a result of the continuing shift of "emo" over the years, a serious schism has emerged between those who ascribe to particular eras of "emo". Those who were closely attached to the hardcore origins recoil when another type of music is called "emo". Many involved in the independent nature of both 80s and 90s emo are upset at the perceived hijacking of the word "emo" to sell a new generation of major label music. Regardless, popular culture has embraced the terms of "emo" far beyond its original intentions, out of the control of the independent-minded.
Backlash
As the chorus of detractors increased, emo became more and more a target of derision. Like the Goth scene, people who focus on emo music often share a dark and emotional psyche that makes them feel like they belong outside the mainstream. They tend to thrive on the emotional ups and downs that are typically prevalent in emotionally-driven music such as emo. At the same time, fans of other rock genres, which often emphasize aggression and anger, accuse emo of being too "soft" and whiny.
In the early years of the "third wave", however, the derision was relatively light-hearted and self-effacing. In September of 2002, web developer Jason Oda put forth Emogame. In the game, Steven Tyler of Aerosmith kidnapped The Get-Up Kids, and players could assume the identities of several popular emo singers (including Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes) to fight him and his minions, along with more or less every subculture in the American landscape. The game referenced numerous emo stereotypes, but also included pop culture references such as R2-D2 from Star Wars. The game was well-received by both fans and critics of emo alike, eventually spawning multiple sequels. This kind of self-awareness gave emo a much more respectable image to outsiders, as it showed emo to be self-conscious enough to see the humor in itself without abandoning what made it unique.
In recent years, the derision has increased dramatically. Male fans of emo are often hit with homosexual slurs, largely a reflection of the style of dress popular within the "emo scene" and the fact that in many cultures, males are expected to be stalwart and strong, not overly emotional; emotions are "weak" and "feminine". In recent years, however, western male culture has shown many new signs of change and acceptance on the outlook of expected stereotypes from male culture. Recent TV programs such as A&E, feature highschool faculty changing its curriculum to teach young kids the dangers of "teasing" or "condemning" a male peer for showing his true emotions. Other shows such as 7th Heaven and Prince of Bel Air have also preached such values. This new awareness most likely owes much of its inception due to such tragic events such as the Columbine High School massacre and not emo music. However, emo has subconsciously challenged such notions and has stirred an evaulation of this draconian trend in our culture.
Regardless of the criticism, emo music retains a loyal audience that includes many who would otherwise consider themselves outside the so-called "emo scene". As with punk rock, the term "emo" may persist for years to come and evolve into even more styles and sounds. Whether or not recognition of the genre will persist and which version of "emo" will be best remembered remains to be seen.
A Quick Look At Screamo
Screamo is a musical genre that developed out of emo, more specifically hardcore emo, in the early 1990s. Characteristic of the genre are the screaming vocals (not growling). Other than that, it is fairly hard to classify (particularly since the rule about screaming vocals is bent fairly often). It is sometimes also mistakenly referred to as "emo violence", which is closely related (although bands in both genres borrow ideas from each other).
Screamo bands play a thrashy brand of emo often featuring harmonizing guitar riffing and anguished vocal screams. It is sometimes perceived that because of its sheer speed and brutality, screamo bands often border on grindcore, however what basis this has in fact is questionable. Many screamo bands play a slower melodic breakdown in songs. Lyrically, screamo topics are often times introspective, although it is not uncommon to see a screamo band with political lyrics. Most screamo songs use imagery and metaphors to whine of lost love or failed friendships.
Emocore's Essential Albums
Embrace "self titled":This band just wasn't around long enough to polish all their songs. Some of the lyrics are kinda funny in their lack of subtlety, but some just cut right down to the core of the human condition.
Rites of Spring "End on End": I don't even need to talk about this. This band wrote the book.
Dag Nasty "Can I Say": Musically, this is fast melodic punk but the vocals are *so* heartfelt and emotive, and the lyrics *so* unrelentingly introspective and hopeful.
Fugazi "self-titled": They showed us that sometimes there's more depth and power in restraint and quietude than in full-power blasting punk. Sometimes you just need to all strum the same octave chord and shut up.
Fuel 7 "discography CD": If not for this band, I think the world would have been too afraid to infringe on the sound Fugazi had carved out. Fuel wasn't afraid to write great, powerful songs on the Fugazi foundation. (I gather there's a different band called Fuel on the radio these days, kinda techno?)
Jawbreaker "Unfun and Bivouac": Beautiful, angsty pop-punk with a huge minor-key edge, deep, incisive lyrics that cut right to your soul, and a keen sense of when to relax, when to build up, and when to just blast it out at full power and scream.
Samiam "untitled": Aspired to the same thing as Jawbreaker, but somehow more sincere and honest.
Ignition "CD discography": From 1984 to 1989 or so, this band covered a lot of ground under the DC guitar rock banner.
Hot Water Music "Finding the Rhythms": Fuel For The Hate Game. Takes the best of the Fuel/Fugazi twin vocal/twin guitar drive and adds a sweaty Avail pop-punk pulse, with scratchy, gruff singing that doesn't need to be beautiful to get the point across. This band positively embarrasses bands with only one singer.
1.6 Band "CD discography": Took the best of the Dag Nasty energy and catchy, corkscrewing riffs and added the best emo style 16-year-old vocals ever recorded.
Kerosene 454 "Situation At Hand": A temple to the DC octave-chord noisy over-distorted SG/Marshall guitar. This is the guitar sound bands dream about. These are all sweet pop songs made impossibly heavy by the crushing weight of the loudest guitars ever recorded.
Lifetime "seveninches": Good God, talk about heartfelt singing, adreneline-charged bouncing energy and speed, and the sweetest melodies ever written. This band's mission was to reunite punk and hardcore and emo.
Falling Forward "Hand Me Down": Right in the middle of a bunch of styles - a bit of moshy east coast hardcore, a bit of emo yelling, a lot of Midwestern emocore melody. Introduced a lot of sxe kids to melodic, sensitive rock that was still powerful.
Split Lip/Chamberlain "Fate's Got a Driver": Perfectly crafted songs dripping with Midwestern melody and driving energy. Some people hear crooning bar rock, but the emo buildups and the way the singer's voice breaks in the loud parts prove otherwise.
Emo's Essential Albums
Rites of Spring - "End on End" LP/CD [Dischord Records, 1985]. Essential for the sheer intensity and emotion of the vocals.
Moss Icon - "Lyburnum Wit's End Liberation Fly" LP/CD [Vermiform Records #15, 1988]. The beginning of the soft/loud emo crescendo, and advanced the emo vocals a long way. The CD has an almost-discography of stuff that's very hard to find now.
Native Nod - "Answers" 7" EP and "Bread" 7" / "Today, Puberty; Tomorrow, The World" discography CD [Gern Blandston Records]. The "Answers" record has some of the earliest full-on emo screaming. "Tangled" remains one of the very best emo songs ever. Excellent guitar stuff. "Bread" is a lot more developed, with some of the earliest emo-peggio (god, I hope that term doesn't catch on) twinkly guitar parts alternating with full-bore crashing distortion. The CD includes a later reunion recording (not as good).
Hoover - "Lurid Traversal of Rte. 7" [Dischord Records #89, 1993], and the later 12" EP/CD, which is a 1997 reunion recordings of songs that never got released before the band broke up. Wow. Some people say this sounds like Fugazi,and they miss the point. It sounds like classic DC twin-guitar midtempo style, as do Fugazi and a hundred other bands. The important part was the way the evil slithering basslines made it seem so dark and serious, and the way the singer worked up from whispering to a tortured animal howl at the end. "Cuts Like Drugs" has it all.
Hoover/Lincoln split 7" (Art Monk Construction #1). If you ever had to be stranded on a desert island with four emo records, this has to be one. Perfectly captures everything that was happening in emo in 1993. Gut-clenching pain and sublime beauty at the same time. Amazing.
Lincoln - both 7"s. The first, on Watermark in 1992, was fascinating because it was basically a heavy DC sxe record (Worlds Collide and such), with screaming emo vocals and slowdown emo parts in the middle. They were really the first to do that, and shortly thereafter most moshy sxe bands started doing the screaming thing. The second 7", Art Monk Construction #7, was full-on DC octave-chord painful-screaming emo recorded in 93 but not released until 1995. Both are amazing. The first is extremely rare, so snap it up if you see it.
Nation of Ulysses - "Plays Pretty For Baby" LP/CD [Dischord, 1992]. The first NOU record intruduced the world to the emo-as-über-stylish-mod-fashion-statement and band-as-mock-revolutionaries ideas, along with some of the best chaotic hardcore craziness. But it wasn't until this second LP that they really found their niche, with fantastic songs that just hang together perfectly, unexpected trumpet blasts and low-fi jazz interludes and all.
Still Life - "From Angry Heads With Skyward Eyes" 2xLP / CD (out soon?) [Ebullition Records], plus 8" and 7" EPs. Still Life were really the only emo band that stuck with the chunky palm-mute guitars. The vocals really took the gut-wrenching screaming to a whole new level. With two LPs worth of epic-length songs of unceasing intensity, this record really set a high mark. The earlier 7" was a bit moshier. The later stuff was less so, and more centered on darkly melodic basslines.
Navio Forge - "As We Quietly Burn a Hole Into..." 12" EP (no CD, may be out of print altogether) [Shadow Catcher Records #1, 1993]. Definitely the emo-est of all emo records. Powerfully churns through Fugazi-ish twin guitar attack and deeply sinister, turbulent emotion. Not the throat-shredding screaming, but rather slowly building sobbing and moaning breakdowns with heartfelt poetic lyrics.
all Indian Summer, especially their 7" and the Indian Summer/Embassy split 7". Indecipherable whispered words about milkweed and trees in between blasts of screaming and creamy, soaring, crushing octave chords, while low-fi Bessie Smith jazz records play softly in the background.
Current - "Coliseum" LP / discography CD (except for a few songs) [Council Records #2, 1993]. Just about as heartfelt as vocals can get, these guys had the quiet/loud poetic-lyrics catchy basslines emo down to a science.
Maximillian Colby / Shotmaker split 12" (Max Co songs available on a discography CD with other essential songs from their 7" and compilations) [nervous.wreck.kids, around 1995?]. Another perfect split record that captures everything about its time. MaxCo combined the DC beauty and fury with a Slinty sense of when to shut the hell up and listen to pins dropping. Shotmaker played rocked-out emo like they were ****ed as hell and wanted desperately to play fast but somehow couldn't.
Policy of Three LP (Old Glory Records). DC style with a lot of Drive Like Jehu style mathematical tautness and complexity. They did the evil buildups bursting with tension like no one else could.
Floodgate LP and 2x7". Emotional punk with an insanely catchy songwriting talent stuck in its craw like a fishhook. Eventually the singer always goes crazy and screams like, "goddamnit get this thing out! Aiiiirrgh!"
Julia LP/CD (Bloodlink/Ebullition). Right at the tail of the emo boom, this record had a very tight, well practiced rocking DC groove with a wailing, just-barely-in-control singer always threatening to go completely nuts and topple the beautiful melodies the rest of the band was making. The best part is, strangely enough, an epic length song that slowly, purposefully builds up from nothing more than the sound of a ratchet driver drifting between speakers. There's also a Julia/Sunshine split 7" containing a live version of Julia's last song, and my god that song will break your heart. I saw three members of the band start crying and collapse at the end of that song once, and it broke mine.
Portraits of Past - LP (Ebullition). I personally know this band hated being called emo, but I don't care. This is emo of the highest caliber, with a crashing, shimmering beauty that was quite different from how they started out. Epic length songs build up to suprise stops, with long caressing indie rock guitar parts that break the melody down to its fundamental units, then slowly put everything back together again for a giant exploding finale.
"All the President's Men" compilation LP [Old Glory Records]. One of, in my opinion, very few cohesive and interesting emo compilations. At the time, this was essential for a demo version of Hoover's best, unreleased song "Breather Resist" (now on their reunion EP).
Hardcore Emo's Essential Records
Heroin - self-titled 12" EP / discography CD [Gravity Records, 1992?]. This record is the end-all, be-all of emo for me. A wall of furious, chaotic noise, vocal-chord-shredding screaming, lyrics of ultimate disillusionment and pain, just the right amount of melody to pull things together without interrupting the flow of angst. The 12" is a perfectly constructed 20-minute epic of emotional disaster. The 2nd 7" that preceded it is historic for its vocal brutality and unrelenting guitar attack.
Reach Out 7" and split 7" with Honeywell. Thick, heavy, chaotic hardcore with an anthematic, epic feel.
Swing Kids - discography CD or 7" [31G Records]. Hard to sum up in a few sentences. The first track on the 7" is still probably the best single example from this style, heavy and gut-wrenching yet brilliantly musical. In my opinion this was Justin Pearson (Struggle, Locust, etc) at his very finest.
Portraits of Past - split 7" with Bleed [Ebullition]. This was a shock when it came out. The vocals on these two songs stand today as some of the most extreme hair-raising screams ever put to tape. Musically, this and the Reach Out stuff define the Northern California hardcore sound.
all Mohinder (two 7"s and a split 7" with the Nitwits). A deeply melodic hardcore band with basslines that twisted all around your skull, these songs were gems boiled down to one or two minute epics.
Merel LP/CD discography [Gern Blandsten]. Crazy chaos held together by a swirl of oddball looping riffs.
Antioch Arrow - In Love With Jetts LP or CD discography [Gravity]. Chaotic hardcore at its extreme. Nonsensical music somehow rhythmless and tight at the same time. Widely dismissed as fluff at the time for the lack of content perhaps, but these records stand well on their own.
Angel Hair - 7", LP / discography CD [all Gravity Records]. More taut and composed, starting to branch out into more adventuresome music like a Bauhaus cover. Still chaotic and heavy.
Guyver-1 7" - a little later in the game, but fantastically good hardcore.
Post-Emo Indie Rock's Essential Albums.
Evergreen - 12" (the one from SoCal, not Louisville). Very rare. Churning, dynamic songs with the sweetest whispered vocals. Their 7"s are also worth tracking down.
Sunny Day Real Estate - "Diary" and the pink album LP/CDs [Sub-Pop]. Well, what to say? For a lot of people this is the end-all and be-all of emo. It sounded like Smashing Pumpkins alterna-rock to my hardcore purist ears when it came out, with its slick expensive production and mega-compressed sound. Now I hear it as a fascinating mix of post-hardcore guitars with emo-inflected vocals and superbly busy drumming, although Jeremy Enigk's lyrical conceit almost spoils the whole thing. Avoid the third and later records, as they slipped into complete alterna-rock. Still, "Diary" is a great record for rescuing people from commercial rock.
Elliot - U.S. Songs LP/CD [Revelation]. One of the better Sunny Day Real Estate clones (there are millions).
Mineral - "The Power of Failing" LP/CD [Crank!] Another SDRE clone, but one of the more energetic and captivating ones. The rough production on this record grinds on my ears a bit. The second record is very nice to listen to, but lost the energy that made them so cool.
"Don't Forget To Breathe" compilation LP/CD [Crank!] Great sampler of this style, not many duds unlike practically every other comp in history.
More To Come Soon...
24 Hour Revenge Therapy (The Emo Thread/FAQ)
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Linear Mode
