If you have been reading my Multiply blog since it started, then the posts below would seem familiar. I wrote these a few years back, probably when I was in Form 4 or Form 3. It was around the same time I started listening to Funeral For A Friend, and it was 'emo' before 'emo' even got big. Now emo is just... Shit. Some of the 'emo' bands I heard back then must've changed ways because they don't sound emo anymore. I think they are embarassed at being given the same tag as My Chemical Romance. I kow I would be.
The thing is, the term 'emo' itself has changed meaning over the years. Emo was actually a sub-genre of hardcore punk. Early emo was also labelled as emotive hardcore (emocore) and melodic hardcore. Emo was an attempt to escape or deviate from straight-edge hardcore, presenting a more melodic alternative to the rawness of metallic hardcore.
The more famous bands that are actually emo aren't usually considered by the mainstream as emo at all. Consider Dashboard Confessional and Jimmy Eat World. They are both emo, or more accurately, indie emo. Even Weezer is considered emo to an extent. Of course Jimmy Eat World is losing its emo influences now, as the term emo has been abused by the industry to promote new bands to a young audience that craves a new and trendy version of emo.
To define 'emo' music is now very hard as there are really so many variations of emo bands, that sometimes have nothing in common. Lostprophets and My Chemical Romance have little in common. Yet both of them are regularly labelled as emo. Dashboard Confessional and Taking Back Sunday are hardly similar, yet both are considered emo.
Basically the term emo is now nothing more than a term to describe a certain stereotype of a group of people dressed in tight jeans and with fringes onto one side. Depression and self-injury is associated with this stereotype, though self-proclaimed emos claim that this is merely a generalisation. I don't disagree with that.
I'm really not sure why I started talking about emo. At first this was just going to be a friendly entry about the things I've written over the years. Haha. One of my favourite bands, Coheed & Cambria, has ridiculously been given the label 'emo,' which is an insult in itself. If they were to be categorised, the only label even close enough to describe them is Progressive Metal. A lot of bands that have been given the label 'emo' shun such categorisation.
Signing out
Over and out
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