Emo.
Emotional hardcore, emotive hardcore, or emocore, started in the Washington D.C. suburbs in the mid 1980’s as a synthesis combining hardcore punk, post-punk, power pop, and college rock. The key components musically speaking were agile basslines interlocked with snappy polyrhythmic drums, alongside either jangly or crunchy guitars providing a melodic counterpoint to rough-edged vocals. Dynamics are crucial, in that fortissimo passages are mixed with pianissimo or even silent measures, especially in terms of guitar parts. The influence of punk comes mostly through the DIY aesthetic, relying on cheap and widely available gear (like solid state amplifiers over vintage tube amps) and an appreciation for unpolished production.
Lyrically, the genre is built on a raw, distinctly personal basis, with self-identifying protagonists baring their souls throughout. Emo music is the very definition of heart-on-the-sleeve. Frequent themes include alienation, trauma, and loss.
Some people say (jokingly) that the first emo album is Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys, which encapsulated the feelings of longing and dissatisfaction that are so prevalent in the genre. Realistically, the first emo bands were in the Revolution Summer wave of DC area harDCore punks: Rites of Spring, Embrace, Dag Nasty, and Beefeater. They toured relentlessly, and the underground network of distribution spearheaded by Dischord Records meant that their influence traveled all across the country.
The second wave of emo bands sprang up like fairy circles, centered on but distinct from coastal punk scenes. Bands like San Francisco’s Jawbreaker, Seattle’s Sunny Day Real Estate, San Diego’s Drive Like Jehu, and Los Angeles’ Weezer demonstrated the widespread resonance of the genre, and these groups were the first to experience commercial success. Incorporating more mainstream qualities led to attention from major labels, and some like Weezer went on to astounding success.
The third wave represented the infiltration of emo into suburbia and middle America, as the music moved inward from the coasts into flyover country. The Midwest made itself known, and provided some of the most enthusiastic practitioners of emo. From Illinois came American Football, Braid, and Cap’n Jazz, Missouri provided The Get Up Kids, Nebraska birthed Cursive, Wisconsin gave us The Promise Ring, and looking further south, Texas supplied Mineral while Arizona was the birthplace of Jimmy Eat World.
The story doesn’t stop there, but I’ll split the topic of emo into three separate articles. That means that I’ll confine myself to the 20th century for this portion, stopping cleanly in 2000. Normally I would also only list bands that embrace the label, but so many of the early emo bands reject the nomenclature that it would be foolish to leave them out. I blame Ian MacKaye. I’m also listing songs by letter rather than sorting them. Think of it as a sampler rather than a definitive ranking. Let’s get started.
I can already tell that this is going to be controversial. I’ll go ahead and leave this button right here so you can tell me I’m completely misguided in great detail:
A. Why Did We Ever Meet - The Promise Ring
The Promise Ring is the template from which all subsequent emo bands are constructed. Dancing basslines pulsate over spritely drums, with stop-start guitars buzzsawing back and forth. There’s an underlying tension within 1997’s Nothing Feels Good, culminating in bassist Scott Beschta getting fired shortly after recording. It may have made things uncomfortable, but great art comes from conflict, right?
B. A Dozen Roses - Braid
Speaking of drummer changes, Braid hired Damon Atkinson for their third album Frame and Canvas to replace Roy Ewing. Atkinson’s bombastic style contrasted greatly with Ewing’s softer, swingier drumming. The band also incorporated time signature changes closer to the nascent math rock genre than anything in popular music at the time, giving them a post-punk sheen that made them stand out from their compatriots. Alas, they broke up after this tour until 2011’s reunion. Atkinson’s drumming is the clear standout here. Fellow skinbashers take note.
C. Seven - Sunny Day Real Estate
Sunny Day Real Estate is best known as “the band Dave Grohl cannibalized”, but it’s much more than that. 1994’s Diary is the beginning of the second wave of emo after it’s DC roots. SDRE’s origins in Seattle led to a contract with Sub Pop, the central venue for grunge and grunge adjacent music. It’s their only real album as a cohesive unit, though. Upon convening to record the follow-up, the band imploded thanks to internal strife, a religious conversion by lead singer Jeremy Enigk and the rhythm section of William Goldsmith and Nate Mendel jumping ship to the Foo Fighters over a period of about a year. Later reunions weren’t able to capture the magic of that first album, which is genuinely special.
D. For Me This Is Heaven - Jimmy Eat World
Clarity is where Jimmy Eat World became the band they were meant to be. After the struggles of producing their second album Static Prevails in 1996, the band was confident that they were recording their last album ever. They threw ideas at the wall to see what stuck, moving from the pseudo-pop-punk of their last album to straightforward emo and shifting Jim Adkins permanently to lead vocals over guitarist Tom Linton. A great example is the power ballad “For Me This Is Heaven”, which is clearly the result of a band that wants to try everything once. They never lost the pop sheen from their music, though, as you’ll see in subsequent posts. (Spoiler?)
E. Never Meant - American Football
A studio-based project from the drummer for Cap’n Jazz, American Football brings a delicate jazzy sensibility to emo, with tightly orchestrated polyrhythms anchoring dream-pop guitars and unclear, nearly mumbled lyrics. Slip-sliding cymbals and off-kilter bass drums rule the day, in the nearly unheard of 6/4 time signature. If Braid was math-rock emo, does that make American Football math-pop emo? Lyrically, the song is explicitly about a relationship falling apart, treading common ground in emo. If you listen to only one song in this post, make it this one.
F. Oh Messy Life - Cap’n Jazz
Cap’n Jazz is perhaps more famous for the bands that rose up in its wake than its own works. Everything the short-lived band (in existence from 1989 to 1995) recorded fits on a two CD album that is conveniently available, and titled Analphabetapolothology. Guitarist Davey von Bohlen became the lead singer for The Promise Ring, drummer Mike Kinsella became the lead singer for American Football and Owen, bassist Sam Zurick and guitarist Victor Villareal were in Ghosts and Vodka, and lead singer Tim Kinsella formed Joan of Arc. To make things more complicated, everyone but Davey was in Owls, and Sam and Tim were in Make Believe. The important thing to know is that Tim’s voice is distinctive in the same way that Billy Corgan’s voice is distinctive: either you love it or you hate it.
G. The Rhyme Scheme - Cursive
Omaha, Nebraska’s own Cursive formed when the members of Slowdown Virginia replaced their drummer and decided to dedicate themselves entirely to music to test their own discipline. “The Rhyme Scheme” is the first song on their second full-length album The Storm of Early Summer: Semantics of Song (and here you thought long album titles were an innovation from P!ATD or FOB), and it follows the template that Cursive would follow for the remainder of their career: noodly guitars alternating with digital crunch, covering both space and time in sonic chiaroscuro, while vocalist Tim Kasher bares his soul via a razor-bladed throat.
H. Holiday - The Get Up Kids
Something to Write Home About is the only real emo album recorded by indie stalwarts the Get Up Kids, but it crystallized the pop-punk influence on the genre. The slickness of the production from Chad Blinman and Alex Brahl reflects the pop sheen they were clearly striving for. The album is perhaps most significant for its impact subsequent bands; Dashboard Confessional, Alkaline Trio, and Saves the Day were able to sign to Vagrant Records as a direct result of the album’s success, while the third wave of emo (which we’ll get into in the next post) used its sound as a north star to guide the way. On top of that, it’s a really good album.
I. Parking Lot - Mineral
Texas marks its place on the emo landscape thanks to Austin’s Mineral. A slower and more thoughtful approach to emo is their trademark, influenced by goth rock like the Cure and shoegaze in the vein of Catherine Wheel. Cascading guitars drenched in digital delay contrast with aggressively distorted leads seemingly lifted from arena rock solos. Chris Simpson’s strong baritone is distinct from the typical emo nasality, sounding more adult rather than adolescent in its palpable angst.
J. Here Come the Rome Plows - Drive Like Jehu
Drive Like Jehu (a name pulled from 2 Kings 9:20 of all places) harkens back to the DC sound of hardcore punk, despite its San Diego origins. Harshly saturated guitars and bass combined with frenetic drumlines construct a ragged sonic landscape. Singer John Reis wails atop the noise, his voice rising to a scream and even a shriek at its apex. The band bridges the gap between emo’s origins and the later developments of screamo.
K. Breakfast of Champions - Rainer Maria
It feels like a disservice to consign Rainer Maria to the role of “token female band”, but their two female members are a relative rarity in the genre. Caithlin De Marrais’s delicate lead vocals intertwine with Kaia Fischer’s backing lines in the same way Caithlin’s basslines dance around Kaia’s guitar, blending in synchronicity. All four instruments are capable of hitting a hard limit, with untrimmed edges of equalization occasionally dissolving into atmospheric noise.
L. Back And To The Left - Texas Is The Reason
Ne w York City Krishnacore aficionados Norman Brannon and Chris Daly decided to leave Krishnacore behind to pursue other sounds, resulting in Texas Is The Reason. The hardcore influence is still present, especially in the snappy hollowness of the snare drum that takes center stage in Chris Daly’s drumlines. They released exactly one full-length album before calling it quits at their height after a successful European tour. Extremely infrequent reunions since have barely whetted the appetites of fans, but the band remains steadfast in their refusal to reunite long-term.
M. December 27, 1990 - The Appleseed Cast
A slow atmospheric song from a band that consistently pushed the edges of emo, “December 27, 1990” shows The Appleseed Cast to be experimentalists of the highest order. Formed in 1996 at the tail end of the original emo boom, their sound is unlike their contemporaries but still plays in the same sandbox. Singer and guitarist Christopher Crisci’s plaintive wailing floats over a disparate, dissonant guitar. Their later work coalesces into more mainstream forms, but this is The Appleseed Cast at their strangest.
N. Want - Jawbreaker
“Want” from 1990’s Unfun might be the first time emo and pop-punk came together to stay. The opener to their debut album set the tone: Blake Schwarzenbach’s strangled growl over Chris Bauermeister’s elastic basslines and Adam Pfahler’s rock-solid drumming. Blake’s voice would deteriorate over the years, so this album was the peak of his vocal prowess. Many other bands would attempt to duplicate the combination, but none had the effervescence heard here.
O. Golf Hill Drive - Boys Life
Kansas City, Missouri produced Boys Life in 1993, lasting only for two albums. Their sound is familiar, combining untuned distortion with shouted vocals drenched in plate reverb. Listen to “Golf Hill Drive” back to back with Taking Back Sunday and tell me what you hear. Their use of dynamics is nearly identical, but Boys Life did it first.
P. Sandpaper Steering Wheel - Piebald
Piebald’s first full-length album was 1997’s When Life Hands You Lemons, and I have to get something off of my chest about the sixth track, “Sandpaper Steering Wheel”. This song has stupid lyrics. Flat out inane. Even in a genre known for surface-level emotion and high school poetry notebook style angst, lines like “we will be the hummus generation, we'll decide for ourselves our degree of purity” stand out. Some songs are on this list not because they are good necessarily, but because I want someone else to confirm what I’m thinking.
Q. Courage Was Confused - Knapsack
There’s a fundamental warmth to Knapsack’s music. The whispered, nearly confessional verses invite the listener close, but the soaring choruses laden with vocal brickwalling push them away. Then the dense layers of guitars, harmonized and double-tracked, lift the song back up with a buoyance that belies the intense distortion. When I hear this, I think of how much Coheed and Cambria appropriated that sense of dynamics wholesale. At least they got to reunite and open for Coheed a couple of times.
R. Rocks Tonic Juice Magic - Saves the Day
Saves The Day took the melodic hardcore of their first album Can’t Slow Down and, after changing most of the band members after an ill-fated tour, added a more mainstream approach resulting in the pop-punk/emo hybrid on display in “Through Being Cool” (yes, the quotation marks are part of the title if you’re thinking of copy-editing me). “Rocks Tonic Juice Magic” is all sneers and snarling guitars, with burbling basslines providing propulsion. It also sets the tone for a slower, more methodical attitude that would be explored more fully on their next album (which will feature in the next post).
S. Her Side of Sundown - Chamberlain
David Moore is perhaps the great lost vocalist of the second wave of emo. He hits notes and demonstrates range that elevates him above his competition, especially in this song, the opening track of 1995’s Fate’s Got a Driver. Literally from the opening note, he applies a Layne Staley-esque strength to his part. The rhythm section is also notable as it pushes the tempo ever forward, until the chorus where the cymbals take precedence in the song’s midrange.
T. This Fabricated Town - Edaline
Stop me if you’ve heard this one: a band from a mid-major city (in this case Portland, Oregon) records and releases one album in its brief four years of existence (1996 to 1999) that sounds fresh and new even in 2022. Edaline is that band, and I Wrote The Last Chapter For You is that album. So obscure they don’t even have a Wikipedia page.
U. For Want Of - Rites of Spring
There isn’t emo without Rites of Spring. They were arguably the first band to meld hardcore punk instrumentation with nakedly emotional lyricism. In the same way that Seinfeld isn’t funny to modern viewers because all of its tropes have been used, overused, played with, and overextended, songs like “For Want Of” from their 1985 self-titled album sound like well-trodden ground to modern ears.
V. Money - Embrace
For the most part, I dislike Ian Mackaye’s approach to music. I think he’s self-righteous, vain, and egotistical, in a way typical of mid-80’s punks. That being said, I can’t discount his impact on multiple genres. When you listen to “Money” from Embrace’s only album in 1987, you hear the siren call to disaffected teenagers in basements and garages everywhere: one young man’s opinions shouted with great enthusiasm and energy, regardless of content or quality. There’s appeal for sure.
W. Circles - Dag Nasty
I greatly prefer Ian MacKaye’s contributions when he limits himself to production or distribution, as seen in Dag Nasty’s 1986 album Can I Say?. Brian Baker, the guitarist from Minor Threat, formed a new band that was less balls-to-the-wall aggressive than MacKaye’s brood, taking its cues from Descendants and The Faith. The guitars sound like instruments rather than industrial machines, and the harmonized vocals are clear and intelligible. It’s still punk, but you hear the glimmers of something more.
X. Why Are You So Mean to Me? - Vitreous Humor
Kansas produced another band on this list, Topeka’s Vitreous Humor. If this particular song sounds familiar, you may have heard Nada Surf’s cover, released in 1998 on their album The Proximity Effect. Vitreous Humor recorded the original in 1994 for a split EP with Boys Life. (Children, a split EP was when two or more bands released about ten minutes worth of songs each on one single piece of vinyl, usually a seven inch.) Their work was compiled on 1998’s Posthumous, their only full length album that came out two years after their demise.
Y. Tired of Sex - Weezer
If you’re reading this, I assume you’ve heard Pinkerton in its entirety. I’ll let you in on a secret: of the first three Weezer albums, this is by far my least favorite. (Blue Album, Green Album, a massive chasm, Pinkerton.) It’s Rivers Cuomo at his most Woody Allen (note: not a compliment!), but the sound of it is so influential that it can’t be ignored. Rivers has gone back and forth on whether he likes it or not, but it is raw and introspective in a way that gave bigger bands permission to explore their feelings of alienation and disillusionment on a grander scale. Whether that is a net positive is an exercise left to the reader.
Z. Thorn In My Side - Quicksand
Quicksand was not so much an emo band as an alternative metal band that dipped its toes into emo for a while, and the blistering “Thorn in My Side” from Manic Compression is a fantastic example. There are emotional lyrics, dynamic shifts, bass-forward instrumentation, and acrobatic drums, but it comes together in a much different package than (to pick two names out of a proverbial hat) The Promise Ring or Saves The Day. If you ever wondered what Primus would sound like covering The Get Up Kids, this is the answer.
If you liked what you’ve read today, I invite you to click any and all of the following buttons:
and as a bonus, enjoy this Spotify playlist of 90’s Emo: