"Real Emo" only consists of the dc Emotional Hardcore scene and the late 90's Screamo scene. What is known by "Midwest Emo" is nothing but Alternative Rock with questionable real emo influence. When people try to argue that bands like My Chemical Romance are not real emo, while saying that Sunny Day Real Estate is, I can't help not to cringe because they are just as fake emo as My Chemical Romance (plus the pretentiousness). Real emo sounds ENERGETIC, POWERFUL and somewhat HATEFUL. Fake emo is weak, self pity and a failed attempt to direct energy and emotion into music. Some examples of REAL EMO are Pg 99, Rites of Spring, Cap n Jazz (the only real emo band from the midwest scene) and Loma Prieta. Some examples of FAKE EMO are American Football, My Chemical Romance and Mineral EMO BELONGS TO HARDCORE NOT TO INDIE, POP PUNK, ALT ROCK OR ANY OTHER MAINSTREAM GENRE

    • deadbergeron [he/him,they/them]
      ·
      4 years ago

      The truth about "emo" is that most of what is accepted here isnt really emo, it's some form of indie rock. People here point back to Cap'n Jazz and Sunny Day Real Estate as the progenitors of everything they listen to today, which is true, but they are not progenitors of emo. They are pioneers in college indie rock (and in SDRE's case, mainstream indie rock [yeah, they were on MTV in 96 and half the members went to Foo Fighters, look it up]) incorporating influence from post-hardcore and emo.

      There's a reason this stuff is called "post-emo indie rock," or as it has been branded thanks to a handful of early 90s bands no one remembers any more who were from the actual midwestern United States and actually played emo (including Gauge, Current, Ordination of Aaron, Endpoint, Split Lip, Friction, and Chino Horde), "Midwest emo." The reason is because it isn't really emo and needs to be distinguished, kind of how 'metalcore' came about when that scene stopped being primarily hardcore and moved to metal/alternative.

      In a similar sense, the post-emo/midwest/indiecore scene moved away from hardcore in the mid 90s, and was seen as a new, post-emo movement, hence the name and ridicule from hardcore bands. Meanwhile, I doubt anyone who lists Mineral or American Football as their favorite 90s "emo" bands could name any actual mid/late 90s emo. Sucks cause there's so much good shit: Traluma, Chocolate Kiss, Stratego, Edaline, Twelve Hour Turn, Unionsuit, Blue Water Boy, Still Life, Thumbnail, Four Hundred Years, Assfactor 4, Sleepytime Trio, Amber Inn, The Deadwood Divine, Bread and Circuits, The Red Scare, Metroschifter, Radio Flyer, The Hal Al-Shedad...I could go on.

      You see, the fake/real emo dichotomy is nowhere near nuanced enough to capture the layers of relation to emo that all the music referred to as "emo" has. That's a pretty annoyingly confusing sentence so lemme break it down - there are four types of emo:

      REAL REAL EMO (emotive hardcore. Usually melodic hardcore punk with minor influences from post punk and what would become, with emocore's help, post-hardcore indie rock; from Rites of Spring and Moss Icon to Walleye and Falling Forward to The Shivering and End on End to Slow Code and GIVE. Emotional hardcore punk rock music)

      FAKE REAL EMO (non-hardcore music that gets considered "real emo" by pretentious middle class dorks who have no clue. Usually indie rock, math rock, or post rock that is influenced by the instrumentation, composition, and/or dynamics of emo; from The Van Pelt and Boys Life to Penfold and Boilermaker to Mock Orange and No Knife to empire! empire! and My Heart to Joy to Hightide Hotel and Oso Oso. Post-emotional hardcore punk rock music)

      REAL FAKE EMO (non-hardcore music that has just as much influence from emo as FAKE REAL emo, but because it's not sad, mellow, and somber [cough or not rock music] is refuted as "emo" by most twinkle dorks. Usually post-hardcore, alternative rock, or melodic hardcore/pop punk that takes from all the same places as indiemo; from Samiam and Trusty to Sense Field and Grade to Seaweed and Kill Holiday to The Movielife and Boys Night Out to Title Fight and Polar Bear Club to Self Defense Family and Narrow Head. Post-emotional hardcore punk rock and "emo-adjacent" [meaning, diy bands who played shows with emo bands in the underground] music)

      FAKE FAKE EMO (non-hardcore, non-emo related music that still gets referred to as such by the mainstream/anyone who thinks emo is synonymous with "sad." Can be anything but most commonly indie rock, because people don't understand the difference between releasing a chart-topping record that influences the whole landscape of music, including the underground and therefore emo; and actually being related to the underground DIY hardcore punk movement known as emo. Take your pick; Weezer, Boys Like Girls, The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, Modest Mouse, Julien Baker, Pinegrove, Linkin Park, The Cure, Morrissey/Smiths, blink-182, Atreyu, Simple Plan, AFI, My Chemical Romance after their first album (especially Black Parade, a pop rock album), The Front Bottoms)

      If you ask me, artists like lil peep, Wicca Phase Springs Eternal, nothing,nowhere, shinigami, and LiL Lotus all fit perfectly into category three, REAL FAKE EMO. These are all DIY artists who are inspired by the same "emo" bands as every revival/sparklepunk/sadwank indie band that gets jerked to death here, but because it only comes through in aesthetic and lyricism as opposed to...oh wait, no, thats exactly the same as pretty much all modern emo -- it is only related to Real Emo (aka REAL REAL EMO) via aesthetic and lyrics - if it's actually related to any degree. The sound is not even kind of close and isn't rooted in hardcore at all. Every twinkle-centric band you love is rooted in indie rock because twinkles dont come from hardcore; every band with a sing along chorus is a pop band. How are you gonna tell me that indie pop artists with sad yelling are emo, but indie trap artists with sad yelling aren't?

      TL;DR - here's your ultimatum, indie dorks: either both American Football and Lil Peep are emo, or neither of them are.

      Your sad indie rock is not emo either.

  • femboymarx [none/use name]
    ·
    4 years ago

    "'Real Emo' only consists of the dc Emotional Hardcore scene and the late 90's Screamo scene." Absolutely fucking wrong.

    If the implicating is that Emo is exclusive to the DC scene that was happening in the 80's, and that emo is EXCLUSIVE to that region on earth, then no. Emo may have had its inception there but anyone who truly knows emo knows that the genre quickly spread EVERYWHERE, even outside of the US to other continents. The second implication is that real emo is exclusive to the sound that bands were playing in those early days (e.g Rites of Spring, Embrace, Moss Icon etc etc) and no, absolutely fucking wrong. Emo was a genre that once planted its seed quickly grew and evolved. Which is why the band "After words" sound different from rites of spring, which is why the band Chino Horde sound different from After Words, which is why Indian Summer sound VERY different from rites of spring etc etc etc. TRUE emo has different sounds from the mid 80's sound to the 90's distinctive sound that you hear from bands like Cedar of Lebanon and Don Martin 3. People will try to argue that emo has evolved to inlcude bands like the get up kids and american football and to that I say "Yes it has, but it does not include those fake emo bands. Bottom line is that Emo is far from being exclusive to DC in the 80s.
"The late 90's screamo scene?" what the fuck is this? this is how you know that the person who runs "memelords against furries and fake emo" is a complete entry level normie. The page does nothing but Dickride bands like Orchid, Pg 99, loma Prieta, Suis la lune, city of caterpillar etc etc. While they are good bands, these guys are VERY late in the game. Orchid and Pg 99 literally play an evolution of screamo (screamo being an evolution of emo) that's more screamoviolence than pure screamo (again, because they were very late in the game). Loma Prieta are even LATER in the game and the shit they play has twinkle riffs everywhere (twinkle riffs are the bane of emo and are a clear signal of fake emo) Loma prieta do play screamo, but a very far evolved version of it. And suis la lune get the fuck out of my face, their music is so goddamn post rock influenced (albeit really good) that to note them as examples of pure EMO is asinine. The point is that the copy pasta wants to imply that Emo only consists of that 80s DC shit and the "Late 90's screamo scene" which is beyond fucking inaccurate because as we established, all those "screamo" bands that we mentioned are fucking late as hell in the game. Screamo started in the early 90's and was extremely prevalent in the French Hardcore scene, and when you actually listen to those bands (Jasemine, Anomie, Fingerprint, Ivich etc etc) you see that their TRUE screamo sound sounds MUCH different from Pg 99. THESE are the true screamo bands they are the TRUE EMO. Whoever wrote the copypasta literally knows hardly anything about screamo and is under the impression that "screamo" started late in the 90s and that is so fucking goddamn off. Bands like Orchid, Pg 99, Tristan tzarsa, iwrotehikus are to Screamo what I Hate Myself are to Emo. And Speaking of I hate myself, most of their music is Fake emo. THe only real emo song I've heard from them is the first track on "Four Songs". Bottom line is that all those screamo bands technically are screamo, but they are NOT what "true emo" or the "true screamo scene" is exclusive to. Far from it.

    So everything else this copy pasta goes at stems from this dude literally thinking that bands like Pg 99 are the true emo sound, which they aren't. Like how they say that real emo is HATEFUL. The distinction between Orchid and a pure emo band like Breakwater is so obvious that any normie could notice it. Characteristics of emo Yes they do include Hatefulness sometimes but True emo Sounds passionate, beautiful, melodic, Raw, Fast or slow, just pure and intense but still rather subtle and elegant as pretentious as that might sound. (like I said, emo has lots of different sounds and has many different feels)

    But yes, it's true, that whole "post emo" movement, the "midwest emo" shit, the "twinkle mathy" shit, and fucking the "emo revival" ALL OF THAT IS FAKE SHIT. ALL OF IT. I personally love bands like Mineral, SDRE, Get up Kids, Elliot etc etc but they aren't true emo. They have a slight influence but they don't like post harcore, they play stuff that sounds extremely light and poppy. But I'm going to say this now FUCK midwest, FUCK twinkle, FUCK "emo revival" which is the cringiest shit I've ever heard. These same people will try t say that calling bands like alesana and MCR 'emo' is fallacious yet they believe in the "EMo revival" which is the fakest emo you will ebver fucking get. Bands like American football are literally akin to fucking dashboard confessional. The fact that people will call American football an emo band is so fucking beyond even having the slightest bit of intelligence. Anyone who knows what emo is knows that it's a HARDCORE GENRE. Bands like MCR and ALESANA and THE USED (at least when they were starting) sounded an INFINITELY MANY times more True Emo than American football EVER WILL. The fact that american football get any fucking correlation to emo leaves me speechless. The fact that in any possible way AMERIcan Football can lumped in with the term "emo" let alone "REAL emo" is just, i have no fucking words.

    I've been on Fake Emo Patrol since 2014, and everytime I come across a get up kids or promise ring or american football video I always see way too many comemnts about emo, and I'm always happy to call y'all normies out and patroll fake emo. But ever since this shitty copypasta came out, now normies think they're on emo patrol and that they know what they're talking about. So now I have to deal with Posers who say that American Football are emo, AND I have to deal with posers who say that "ReAl EmO OnLY CoNsIsTs of TheE DC sCeNeE and the LaTE 90s ScReAmo ScEnE" fuck off. Shit makes me not even want to patrol anymore because all I ever see anywhere are normies who don't know what they're taling about. TRUE EMOS KNOW. We are the ascended ones. Whe watch you from above. We Stay rooted in the late 80s and the 90s, ascending gracefully to Emo eden through the sounds of true EMO bands. WE ARE THE ENLIGHTENED ONES, WE KNOW THE BEAUTY OF LIFE.

    I will continue to be chief of emo patrol, but this might be my last official statement or patrolling action. It's become something beyond me to bother with. there's no need to hope for humans to understand true emo, there's no hope in educating "memelords against furries and fake emo" Perhaps one day you will ascend (I personally was once like you, believing that emo meant SDRE, AF, orchid, Funeral diner, Lovelost but not forgotten) but for now, I won't bother anymore

    Share the fuck out of thisLet my words be heard

    LONG LIVE TRUE SCREAMO

    Edit: I totally forgot to talk about Capn Jazz, lmaoI'll keep it simple. Listen to a true emo band like Vanilla or Anasarca and then listen to Capn Jazz, I think it will all be clear.