Time to clarify things, boys and girls: Emo is short for emocore, a contraction of emotional hardcore. The idea behind it was to combine aggressive music (hardcore) with soaring, anthemic melodies and introspective, well-written lyrics. (Hence the emotional part). Seattle's Sunny Day Real Estate—1992-95, reformed in 97, broke up in 2001—in our humble opinion, best defines and is the sub-genre's most important latter-day band. (No mention of emo would be complete without early pioneers Fugazi and its frontman Ian MacKaye's Washington DC-based Dischord label, which chronicled the music's nascent scene. The All Music Guide has more on the subject.)
Like punk, emo has become a big deal in the last few years. But something funny happened on the way to the bank: Imagine if the history of rock music—particularly punk—were revised and rewritten, with The Ramones and The Sex Pistols excised from the canon and replaced with Blink 182 instead. This is the parallel that can be drawn to current emo. SDRE is rarely brought up these days—let alone Rites of Spring or the aforementioned Fugazi—despite an absence of little over 5 years past; meanwhile third rate, watered-down posers get to be pseudo avatars. You could say that emo went form being The Cure-on-steroids to Air Supply with distorted-guitars, spiky hairdos, and some of the whiniest, lamest lyrical content heard in recent times. And no, we're not talking about Joan of Arc or Jets to Brazil; more like fratboy favorites Jimmy Eat World and that small army of makeup covered wusses that have unfurled the emo banner as their own. Jeez.
