Talk:Emo/Archive 8

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New Page?

Wiki should have 2 emo pages, Emo (Music Style) & Emo (Subculture). Agree? 72.160.149.4 (talk) 20:35, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

No. This has been roundly rejected multiple times, and separate articles on the so-called "subculture" have in the past been redirected or absorbed back into this main article. Browse through the archives and I'm sure you'll see many reasons why this is a bad idea. --IllaZilla (talk) 23:27, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Emo is unusual as being seen as both a sub-culture and a sub-genre, but it would be very difficult to disagregate them.--SabreBD (talk) 00:58, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Article is so far off it's not even funny

Instead of editing it, it would probably be easier to nuke the thing like it's Hiroshima and start over.

The history of emo in one sentence: A poorly worded sub-genre of hardcore music that started in the 80's and was bastardized by the media as being something more softer by indie rock bands, which would later transform into a sub-culture/lifestyle in addition to the music which has so little to do with the roots of the genre.

Got it?

What we have here is a sub-genre of music, which has seen plenty of evolution over the last 20+ years in sound and popularity, that was defined by someone with a horrible term such as "emocore". That's where this started, in the hardcore genre (hence "core"). But the problem are those three little letters in front of it. They made it too easy for people to think "emotional". Ok, anything emotional will start calling it emo. Problem is what music isn't emotional? It practically all is. But this term caught on in part of the underground scene and the mistake was planted deep.

Things would be fine for a few years until you started having bands in the indie rock circles start taking some subtle influences from some of these bands and putting it in their music. All these bands like Mineral, Sunny Day Real Estate, Jimmy Eat World, The Promise Ring, Texas Is The Reason, etc., that's not emo. It can't be. They're not playing hardcore music. So instead of praising the underground bands that were defining the early 90's emo sound, the attention goes to those other bands. And it only got worse (and this article gets a lot worse) by people calling stuff like Taking Back Sunday and Dashboard Confessional emo. Seriously? Chris Carrabba sits down with an acoustic guitar to sing some songs and this is supposed to be in the same genre that started with Rites of Spring/Embrace? Come on...

This article doesn't even mention any of the 90's emo bands that actually played emo. Where's Indian Summer, Julia, Still Life, Portraits of Past, Current, Hoover, Navio Forge, Evergreen, Garden Variety, Moonraker, Maximillian Colby, Moss Icon, Policy of 3, Shotmaker, etc.? So many of those bands define the classic 90's emo sound and there's not even a mention. What about the record labels involved like Ebullition, Bloodlink, Threeoneg, Gravity, No Idea, Level Plane, Dischord, etc.?

What about the fact that emo nearly died in the wake of those bands breaking up and the fake media emo bands gaining popularity in the mainstream? Where's the mention of that next wave of more screamy, fastier emo like Saetia, Off Minor, Yaphet Kotto, Yage, Orchid, Neil Perry, pg.99, Usurp Synapse, Portrait, You And I, etc.? Nope, let's just mention the freaking Movielife or something. Then don't even get me started with this My Chemical Romance BS. The bands that should be mentioned there are City of Caterpillar, Circle Takes the Square, On The Might Of Princes, The Pine, The Shivering,

How can you have an article that doesn't even recognize the destruction of a term that was meant for something completely different than what it's turned out to be? Smk42 (talk) 23:30, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Take the rants elsewhere. There are plenty of reliable sources that trace the history and evolution of "emo" both as a musical style and as a term, over the last 25 years. Emo is not exclusively "emotional hardcore". Your restrictive view implies that a term can only ever mean one thing, which of course is not so. Hardcore punk itself is very different now from what it was 20 years ago, yet it's still called hardcore. Punk rock is very different now from what it was in 1977, but it's still called punk rock. Musical styles and genres are not chained to 1 definition or group of artists forever and eternity; these are artistic styles, they grow and evolve and change. Wikipedia articles are based on reliable sources, not editors' opinions. If you can find reliable sources that discuss the artists and labels you've mentioned above, then by all means feel free to write some new content into the article based on those sources. However, I doubt you'll be able to find sources to back up your claim that about the "destruction of a term that was meant for something completely different than what it's turned out to be", since "emo" is a nebulous term that was never "meant for" anything really specific in the first place. --IllaZilla (talk) 01:06, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Alright.

Wrote this while Illa was typing, so he's probably covered a lot of it.

First off, what browser are you running?

A number of the glaring omissions you mention can be quickly spotted in the article with various forms of "ctrl + f."

Nextly, the "next wave of more screamy, fastier emo" is described in the screamo article, which is linked several times in this article.

Thirdly, I don't know how you seem to have completely missed the entire "Origins" section, but it appears you have. This article also never refers to "emo" as "anything emotional," nor is that something it would be likely to get away with.

The article is also fairly clear on taking the legitimacy of the mainstream stuff with a grain of salt: "In recent years the term "emo" has been applied by critics and journalists to a variety of artists, including multiplatinum acts and groups with disparate styles and sounds."

Finally, WP:RS, WP:POV. (Albert Mond (talk) 01:14, 12 July 2010 (UTC))

I'll reply to the more rational & helpful person before I reply to the Wikinazi on this topic.

Albert Mond, I know how to use ctrl + f, and I did that several times resulting in no matches of the bands and labels I'm talking about. And it's not like I was scraping the barrel for obscure names either. Come on, Indian Summer isn't even mentioned? "Angry Son" (or any title you'd like to give it as their songs officially were untitled) is basically the definition of an early 90's emo song. And my God, Drive-Thru Records gets a mention and it's own paragraph over all the real labels that matter. Drive-Thru is full of pop-punk for the most part and has never had a single emo band in their entire history. As for the Screamo article, I have no beef with that individual article. The problem is it's mentioned only twice in this entire Emo article, once in the lead and again on the info bar under "Subgenres". That actually goes against Wiki's policy for leads, as you shouldn't have something in the lead without it ever appearing in the body. And trust me, it doesn't appear anywhere in the article. That's bad writing.

I did not miss the Origins section. That part's good enough, but once it gets to the "Reinvention: early 1990's" everything goes to hell. It's as if a totally different person wrote the Origins section and let someone take over for the rest. I don't even know how you can think this article wants you to take the mainstream stuff with a grain of salt. That's all this thing dissolves into. The "Mainstream popularity: 2000s" sub-section is worth a complete abortion. That is an embarrassing collection of paragraphs to have on this article. If you want to write a good article about emo, you simply give the history of the real music and bands behind it mixed in with the media's 90's takeover of it, other bands from different styles of music that have taken influence from it, and the over-the-top media & mainstream hijacking that went on in the 2000's (which leads to lifestyle/fashion crap, etc.). That would cover it pretty well. Much better than ignoring all the real history of the last 20 years and reporting on how many copies a freaking New Found Glory album sold.

Now for the WikiNazi that seems to have established himself as the Hitler of this article's value. What reliable sources do you speak of? Some Rolling Stone writers that never picked up a hardcore album in their life? Or do you think quoting Andy Greenwald a million times is a reliable source because he wrote a book? Anyone can write a book, and Greenwald's book is one of the biggest troublemakers out there in screwing up the history of emo. Why not a single mention of Andy Radin's fourfa.com site that is very popular among fans and internet users at shedding some light on emo's history over the years? And some of the sources here lead to dead links. Like one to RS that cites Weezer's Pinkerton as an emo album. Uhh, great album, but too bad it has zilch to do with emo.

Emo came from emocore, which meant emotional hardcore. That's what the term was meant to stand for. Like I said, it's too bad someone didn't just say "melodic hardcore" or something to that nature, because emo is going to confuse people ("what, you mean emotional right?"), and we see it easily did. But that's crying over sour grapes. It is what it is. At least present it properly. Metal music has changed a lot, but you can still at least understand how Black Sabbath can transform into something like My Dying Bride or some extreme metal bands. The roots are still there. And again, the metal article on Wiki does a good job of going over the history (briefly, with links to more detailed articles on the sub-genres) of metal and all the sub-genres that have come about. This emo article does jack compared to that. How in the world does Embrace or Fuel or Rites of Spring evolve into Dashboard Confessional and New Found Glory? How can you even seriously compare Dashboard and NFG? One's playing acoustic rock (when DC was good that's what he was doing at least), and the other is nothing more than a pop-punk band. And why such ignorance towards indie rock's existence? Because that's where these bands like The Promise Ring, Sunny Day Real Estate, Mineral, Texas Is The Reason, midwest 90's stuff, etc. really belong. You want to say they're influenced by emo, fine. Many were. But let's not pretend they stole the genre out from under the hands of all the bands rooted in the underground/hardcore scene that were playing real emo at the time.

I've gone on and on about this topic for years, then stopped for a while as I grew disinterested in keeping up with new music. I couldn't even tell you what's happened in the real emo scene the last 4 years or so, if it still exists. I don't know which bands are big. Wikipedia wasn't popular/widely used when I was at the height of my knowledge over the genre. Right now I don't have the time or energy to start digging for historically correct articles on the topic. They'd probably be hard to find, given that so many of these bands and people were deep in the underground at a time when the internet was not popular. You'd have to find modern quotes that speak back on the old times. I know there are some bands that hated the term and refused to associate themselves with it. Maybe some names attached to that would help.

I think there's a ton of work to be done on this article. Maybe some young enthusiast will make the effort to do it. But I know many are too jaded and disgusted with the years of misconceptions that it's not even worth banging your head at the wall anymore. Just accept what you know and who cares if other people don't get it.

And one last thing: there are several of the bands I've mentioned that have decent articles on here stating their importance to the genre. It's not like the entire site is ignoring their existence. Just this Emo article apparently. Smk42 (talk) 02:55, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

I'd like to address some of your specific statements:

• "Angry Son" (or any title you'd like to give it as their songs officially were untitled) is basically the definition of an early 90's emo song.'

Statements like these demonstrate that you are heavily POV-based in your approach to this article (as well as List of emo artists). You need to cite a reliable source to back up a substantive claim like this.

• Drive-Thru is full of pop-punk for the most part and has never had a single emo band in their entire history.

I agree with you that Drive-Thru is primarily a pop-punk label, however you cannot argue that they signed and aggressively promoted a number of popular bands who were touted (and described by critics) as emo during the early 2000s, and thus played a role in popularizing the style as it was known/came to be known at the time, much as Vagrant Records did in promoting The Get Up Kids, The Anniversary, Dashboard Confessional, et al. In fact you could say that these labels are largely responsible for shaping the popular definition/conception of "emo" as it became known in the early 2000s. Ignoring this would be akin to ignoring the significance of Epitaph Records to the popularization of punk rock in the 1990s. There's a reason Greenwald devotes an entire chapter to these labels in his book on emo.

• once it gets to the "Reinvention: early 1990's" everything goes to hell. It's as if a totally different person wrote the Origins section and let someone take over for the rest.

Actually I wrote pretty much everything down through "Mainstream popularity: 2000s", after which I trailed off. You seem to think that "everything goes to hell" because the article sticks to its sources and follows the popularization of the term/style, rather than focusing exclusively on your favorite underground bands who are not even mentioned in any of the sources. As I said, though, if you have sources that go futher into the history, and cover some of these artists and labels, nothing is preventing you from adding new content and citing such sources.

• If you want to write a good article about emo, you simply give the history of the real music and bands behind it mixed in with the media's 90's takeover of it, other bands from different styles of music that have taken influence from it, and the over-the-top media & mainstream hijacking that went on in the 2000's (which leads to lifestyle/fashion crap, etc.). That would cover it pretty well.

So again, you want the article to reflect your point of view rather than reflecting reliable sources. No, we're not going to go in that direction.

• What reliable sources do you speak of? Some Rolling Stone writers that never picked up a hardcore album in their life? Or do you think quoting Andy Greenwald a million times is a reliable source because he wrote a book? Anyone can write a book, and Greenwald's book is one of the biggest troublemakers out there in screwing up the history of emo. Why not a single mention of Andy Radin's fourfa.com site that is very popular among fans and internet users at shedding some light on emo's history over the years? And some of the sources here lead to dead links. Like one to RS that cites Weezer's Pinkerton as an emo album.

The sources cited in the article, of course. Your opinion of Rolling Stone notwithstanding (as it is irrelevant), is is a reliable source in the field of music journalism and criticism. Yes there are broken links to Rolling Stone, because they recently revamped their entire website. Broken links can be fixed. As for Greenwald, he is a senior editor for Spin who literally wrote the book on emo and had it published. That you consider him a "troublemaker" because his book doesn't fit your restrictive, elitist view of the style doesn't mean squat as far as Wikipedia's concerned. fourfa.com (which, by the way, I have read, and found interesting) is not a relible source, because it is self-published, has no reputation for fact-checking or accuracy (being entirely a personal website), and Andy Radin is not a published writer in the fields of music history or criticism. Being "popular among fans and internet users" does not equate to reliability. If it did, we might as well cite people's blogs. Finally, with regard to Pinkerton, there are a number of sources attesting to its significance to the popular conception of emo in the late '90s. That you disagree with the opinions of published music authors, journalists, and critics does not make your correct, though you are certainly entitled to your opinions.

Essentially, your whole argument boils down to point of view and bias, and the fact that you are either unwilling or unable to do the research to find sources to back up your assertions. You'd rather rant on the talk page about how the more popular "emo" acts "stole the genre out from under the hands of all the bands rooted in the underground/hardcore scene that were playing real emo at the time". Frankly, that horse is long dead. You may want to consider that your definition of "emo" is not the only valid definition, and accept the fact that a thorough encyclopedia article on emo (or any genre) is likely going to cover some artists that you don't like. The goal here is to write a thorough history of the style, and that includes the popularization of it and the artists who brought the term to mainstream recognition and popularity. Ignoring them in favor of an elitist, restrictive definition of the style would be highly biased, as well as revisionist. --IllaZilla (talk) 05:26, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Clearly you know very little about these bands as you wouldn't be saying some of the things you are. You are Greenwald, right? You've basically used this article to ballwash his lousy book that is in fact another stepping stone in the falsification of a misunderstood sub-genre of hardcore music that was born with the worst name in the history of genre titles. If you're not him, then I hope he's paid you well to pimp his nam here.

You know why these things are so little known? Because the people that know about it, that care about it, aren't writing for Rolling Stone/Spin or sharing their thoughts on some famous blog or anything like that. Where are these so-called reputable sources? I don't need some celebrity gossip site telling me a band is emo-pop (what?) and having this site link to that as if it's factually correct. I see a solid 9 links to the Billboard charts, all for completely off-topic, non-emo related material. I must say the standard set for good sources here is criminally low.

None of this is my point of view, because I am simply talking about facts and events that really happened. Yes those bands were real in the 90's, and yes they played what is really emo. Then the mainstream caught ahold of it and ruined it by plugging bands like SDRE and Weezer that had nothing to do with it. That's what really happened. Why would there not be countless tales of this happening? Because the mainstream media, the only people that can put out articles in the mid-90's before the internet buzz, never heard of the damn word until those kind of popular bands started having it associated with their name. "Oh emo, that must be emotional right? And listen to this band. They don't sound like anything else out there today. Emo it is!"

You think I'm an elitist, but I'm just being a realist. I see the full puzzle here. What you're presenting in this Greenwald-quote stealing essay is only part of the puzzle. The only thing revisionist is the idea that these pop-punk/indie rock bands had anything to do with a genre that was already changing and evolving from the hardcore scene it began in back in the 80's. But no, let's not give those bands a single sentence of credit in this poorly written article. Smk42 (talk) 05:51, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from 84.48.212.12, 13 July 2010

{{editsemiprotected}}

Remove the part where it is mentioned that skate-shoes are popular in the emo-trend, they simply aren't. It's a sin even to say something like that.

84.48.212.12 (talk) 21:31, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Done Removed the part about shoes. Looking through the paragraph the sources don't seem to back up any of it. Let me know if more needs to be removed. SpigotMap 22:13, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

An article for emo adherents written by emo adherents

As a lay person, and this view is supported from reading the archives and this talk page, that this article is POV. It's been edited by people with an agenda with sources that also have an agenda to create a particular viewpoint that swamps the reality under a "factual pile of banality.

Particularly as the lead is buried at the bottom of the article. That adherents of this particular culture are well known for their angst, suicides and self harm. It's quite amusing reading this article's narrative interpretation of how Emo arose without ever critically analysing the associated social practices attributed to this group. According to this article's rosy view, like the music but the depression and the pervasive low-self esteem are worth just a sentence or too!! LOL maybe the editors on this page should turn their hand to the pages on Germany circa 1931-1945! With the writing talents on show in this article, it's quite obvious that the Nazis built an ordered structured society, created jobs, brought the economy out the Great Depression and developed national unity. Of course, a couple of sentences at the end that article could mention, erm a little bit about the Holocaust and WWII.

But hey, with the greatest sarcasm intended, according to this article EMO is all about the music and self expression. The small global problem that has got government worried has nothing to do with teenagers who associate themselves with a internationally recognised social group that has a problem with self harm and suicides. In Wikipedia's best traditions, the lead is buried at the bottom. This smoke and mirrors approach gives undue weight to untested narrative at the cost of creating an article that does not challenge or analyse the negatives in balance with the positives.

This article also demonstrates how believers are only writing to justify themselves and their beliefs and practices. In studying previous discourse on this article, it's pretty obvious that the WP:OWN clan know what they don't like because they only use refutation (prove that I am wrong) whereas a neutral would give a rebuttal (this is my case because...). It's the same irony, that explains why there are no atheist theologians! People who believe absolutely, do not question what they absolutely believe which makes what they say POV. As noted before....this article is better consigned to the bin. It could then be recreated by editors who are not attached to the Emo "cause". It's the only way you are going to move forward. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.130.57.162 (talk) 13:15, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't even know where to begin to explain what's wrong with your view. First of all, "the lead is buried at the bottom"??? The article has a perfectly good lead section right at the top. You claim that the article is very POV because it focuses on the music and the history rather than things like cutting and depression...it seems what you'd rather see is an article all about how teenagers are depressed and have low self-esteem, with the music and history relegated to a minor role in the article. Of course, that would simply be POV in the opposite direction. It's also worth noting that the whole depression/low self-esteem/cutting/suicide business has only been associated (by the media) with emo for maybe the last 6 years or so, and this is a style of music that's been around for 25 years. To suggest that the depression/suicide business should be the lead section is complete crap, akin to suggesting that the entire lead section of the grunge article should be about heroin use and suicide. What is this about a "small global problem that has got government worried"? What government? Can you produce some reliable sources referencing the so-called "small global problem" and the "internationally recognised social group that has a problem with self harm and suicides"? I seriously doubt you'd be able to build up enough of a case for that viewpoint, and even if you could they would all be from recent years. Per NPOV we are not going to make the entire article focus on a media stereotype that has only arisen in the last several years, when the article is in fact about a musical style that has been around for ~25 years. --IllaZilla (talk) 14:47, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

He's right about one thing: this article blows hard. Referencing Nazi Germany is hilarious given the person above's Hitler-esque control over this POS. The lead is not well written at all. It references "screamo", which is never mentioned at all in the body. You don't put things in the lead that show up nowhere else. Then to have the nerve to say the media has only focused on this suicide/depression (admittedly not something I think needs to be expanded on much here) for about six years? Hello, the media has only focused on their false-perceptions of emo as music for about 8 years period. Don't you dare throw that 25 year number out there when the media doesn't care about the first 17 or so of those years. And they've mangled it all up for a long time anyway. It's their fault this is all screwed up, which still isn't demonstrated well enough in the crappy article. Smk42 (talk) 22:03, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

It's not Hitler-esque at all. What IllaZilla does is simply try to keep the article as Wikipedian as possible. Wikipedia's policies may not be perfect, but I feel that they work rather effectively. (Albert Mond (talk) 22:19, 30 July 2010 (UTC))

Smk42, you're kind of hitting on one of my central points: we can't bias the article in favor of any particular era or perception of "emo". the IP editor thinks that the article should focus entirely on the recent media stereotype of depressed, suicidal emo kids, yet you & I both acknowledge that the mainstream media has only devoted significant attention to emo in the last 8 or so years, when it's a style/term with a 25 year history. Conversely, you want the article to focus almost entirely on the bands of the late '80s & early '90s, marginalizing the more pop-oriented directions that the style took afterward and the popular perception of emo in the last 10 years. This too is completely biased, favoring one restrictive, elitist definition of "emo" when it's clear that the word has a much wider-ranging scope in common usage as well as in the music press. Both the early bands and the recent media attention and stereotype deserve mention, but as parts of comprehensive coverage of the topic, not as the whole. Neither should dominate the article, as they are only parts of the whole story. We're here to write a comprehensive encyclopedia article, not to promote recentism and sensationalism nor historical exceptionalism. --IllaZilla (talk) 23:14, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Except this article is extremely biased because it references the same Andy Greenwald junk 70 times. You want to talk about Wikipedia standards, show me any good historical article on here with a lot of references that goes to one same reference for more than 50% of the time (and over 70 times total). That's absurd. Just rename this "Emo (as defined by Andy Greenwald)" and be done with it. The "style" did not change into pop-punk and indie bands; the media did that by screwing up the word. The real bands continued playing and evolved in sound (many taking a heavier approach which is only hinted at in the lead but never once mentioned again), but it was still in the same genre and rooted in hardcore. That's the whole point of having sub-genres. They build from a larger genre. This article makes zero distinction that while emo continued and evolved naturally, it was at one point rebranded in the media into something completely different from where it started. Smk42 (talk) 23:57, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

There are few sources that are as reliable or that go into as much detail about emo as Greenwald's book. It's also the most comprehensive source I have on-hand. As I've mentioned to you before, additional reliable sources are always welcome. I agree that the article needs more sources, but that doesn't invalidate the cited content it already has. You're welcome to add additional content from other reliable sources that you may have access to, but stop knocking the Greenwald book just because it doesn't share the same restrictive definition of emo that you cling to. So far you haven't produced any reliable sources to support your continued assertions about how "the media screwed up the word" and "the real bands kept playing and evolving". Continually ranting about it on the talk page isn't helping at all; either pony up the sources or drop the stick. You're coming at this from a fundamentally flawed approach: You already know what you want the article to say, and you're trying to find sources that only support your view. Naturally you're going to have problems finding them, because that's not how you do proper research. You don't start with your conclusions and then try to make the evidence support them...you have to gather your sources first, go over them, and then base your writing on what they say. That's how encyclopedia articles are written. For better or worse, the vast majority of reliable sources simply don't agree with your restrictive, elitist definition of emo. --IllaZilla (talk) 00:36, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

I cling to facts and truth. Many of your so-called reliable sources couldn't even tell you what Minor Threat and Black Flag sounded like let alone these bands. People that know what they're talking about usually see it as a waste of time to deal with idiots that don't, or that won't listen to the truth because it ruins their "cool" mainstream image of what they've been spoon-fed to believe about emo. Greenwald isn't any better of a source. He's just someone that wrote a bad book. Big deal. Don't you even understand why it'd be hard to get old articles on here? No internet existed. Bands broke up fast. Records are out of print. The record labels closed. No talking heads in the media knew what the hell emo was in the early 90's. Common sense. And this article doesn't even really talk about what makes emo emo, and I know someone like you couldn't do that either. Instead of talking about what kind of music or vocals are used, time is wasted on lyrical content. Those are words. Lyrics do not define music genres. Anyone can write a song about any topic they want. The point of the genre is to describe the actual music involved and how it's played. Where's the fact that bands very rarely used clean, melodic singing vocals early on? It was either a yelling/screaming type vocal from hardcore, or they would actually just talk in the songs like how bands like Indian Summer and Moonraker did. Genre is how you play, not what you say. That concept is lost here, along with many others. Smk42 (talk) 03:37, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

You keep going on about how sources on these "true emo" bands don't exist because they predated the internet... Have you ever thought about non-internet sources? You'll note that Greenwald's book is, well, a book. Clearly didn't need to scour the internet to find that source. Same with Michael Azerrad and Steven Blush (who, by the way, devote entire chapters to Minor Threat & Black Flag). It's not really that hard to find non-internet sources, especially if you have access to a university library or journal search tool. You keep going on about your "facts and truths", but as Albert Mond pointed out above, my concern here is keeping Wikipedia's articles in line with Wikipedia's polices, and the standard for information on Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. It's not as difficult as you make it out to be to find sources on obscure bands; Blush's book is filled with passages on obscure hardcore bands and listings of out-of-print records. But it doesn't really matter what advice I give about sources, you'll just continue to call any source that doesn't stick specifically to your narrow definition of the genre a "bad source" and continue to go on about how "people that know what they're talking about" (aka random anonymous internet types like yourself) are more authoritative sources than published music journalists & historians. And on that note, I'm gonna leave this particular rigored equine to rot in the road. --IllaZilla (talk) 05:21, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

When are you going to learn that a definition should only be accurate and correct, and has nothing to do with narrow-minded? You should read your crap out loud and hear how bad it sounds. University libraries and journal search tools? Are you serious? Like I'm going to find plenty of people reviewing the latest LP that had a few hundred copies pressed (at best) when it came out. I don't have little distro order forms from the early 90's either. Those things usually contain little descriptions of bands/albums. Even if I did, you wouldn't take them as legit sources anyway as you would delete anything like that if I edited this topic. You don't let anyone skew from the word of Greenwald. What's Greenwald have on other people with websites? His crap has an ISBN number to it? Big deal. You already shot down fourfa.com. What makes Greenwald better than Andy Radin or Ben Gook's 2002 article (http://www.furious.com/perfect/emo.html)? Why mention Blush when he gets referenced 3 times and clearly is not someone that's written about emo other than filling out the 80's hardcore scene history by briefly mentioning the Revolution Summer. Maybe I'll write a book, self-publish 5 copies, make a website to promote it, then I can fix this garbage up. Of course after all that hard work you'd just delete it anyway because you love pushing the agenda of lies here. Smk42 (talk) 06:38, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

P.S. As it turns out, it isn't all that difficult to find at least some covereage of some of the lesser-known bands that you've mentioned, even on the internet: Indian Summer, Moss Icon, Hoover, Evergreen, Garden Variety, Moonraker, Maximillian Colby, Saetia, Neil Perry, pg. 99, Usurp Synapse, Portrait, You and I, City of Caterpillar, On the Might of Princes. That took all of 10 minutes, and I only searched 1 site. Clearly the problem is less that sources don't exist, and more that you just can't be bothered to search for them.

• University libraries and journal search tools? Are you serious? Like I'm going to find plenty of people reviewing the latest LP that had a few hundred copies pressed (at best) when it came out.

You won't know until you try. When I was working on my graduate thesis I found plenty of published books and journal articles that discussed punk bands and releases that I knew to be obscure, short-lived, and out of print. I'm not talking just about reviews. I'm presently reading an entire book about a band that only existed for 3 years & only put out 2 singles & an LP.

• What's Greenwald have on other people with websites?

Aside from being a senior contributor at Spin and a published music journalist and critic, you mean?

• What makes Greenwald better than Andy Radin?

Again, that Greenwald is a published music journalist and critic and senitor contributor for a major music publication, while Radin is some random person on the intrnet with a self-published website? Do you see where I'm going with this?

• Why mention Blush when he gets referenced 3 times?

Because you attempted to erode the credibility of the sources by claiming that "Many of your so-called reliable sources couldn't even tell you what Minor Threat and Black Flag sounded like". I'm pointing out that several of these sources devote entire chapters to these bands (even Greenwald devotes significant coverage to Minor Threat in his opening chapters).

• Maybe I'll write a book, self-publish 5 copies, make a website to promote it, then I can fix this garbage up.

If you feel you can write a better book on emo and get it published, by all means give it a shot. But "self-publishing five copies" isn't going to make you any more credible as far as Wikipedia is concerned, any more than Radin's self-published website makes him a credible authority on the subject. The comparison is ridiculous anyway, since Greenwald's book is neither self-published (it's published by one of the country's largest publishers) nor are there only 5 copies (it's in the Library of Congress for pete's sake).

--IllaZilla (talk) 07:12, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Wow, he writes for Spin. He must be a genius! ....Skip Bayless is a paid journalist and on TV, but you couldn't tell he knew a thing about sports listening to him. Don't hide behind that crap. And allmusic.com is a largely inconsistent site. Yes, they have a large database, but that doesn't mean they know what the hell's going on half the time. Just look at your Moss Icon link. They mention they're emo, but do you see it listed in any of the three genres/styles they have there for them? Of course not. That would mean they would have to actually be consistent on something. Same thing happens for You and I there. Your pg.99 link goes nowhere. And that's the wrong Evergreen. That's the Kentucky band, which according to allmusic.com, plays music in the "International" genre with "Club/Dance" or "House" stylings. (....right) And do you see any of that listed in that album review? Nope, because allmusic.com is an inconsistent wasteland of information. That's the wrong Moonraker too. That is the right Portrait, but for the love of god, New-Wave/Post-Punk Revival? Do they even try on that site? And this is the kind of stuff you hide behind for "credible" sources. A bunch of hogwash thrown together. I'd love to see anyone on that site try telling me why City of Caterpillar and Fall Out Boy could both be listed under Emo. Fact-based history can easily explain CoC. It can't explain Fall Out Boy. Smk42 (talk) 08:08, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

If I'm not to late and may throw something in, I know a lot of emo people and neither of the points of view that I saw in this discussion is at all true. In fact, they hate the few who give the bad stereotype substance. If this is late, sorry, or if it doesn't do anything. I simply felt the need to include another point of view that is out there. 98.118.138.234 (talk) 05:32, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Problem with redirects and distinction

There's "emo" music, and then there's "emo pop" music. These things both direct here. But should they? I believe that this article already makes the distinction. Prehaps we might even need to branch off the concepts into seperate articles such as with 'pop music' and 'power pop'. Sugar-Baby-Love (talk) 20:14, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

The problem is that we probably can't, yet. "Emo Pop" may not be common enough a term to warrant a Wikipedia description at current, though usage will likely rise. If we could currently get it done, though, I'd support it as a sub-section of this article. (Albert Mond (talk) 01:54, 25 August 2010 (UTC))

But having "emo pop" go directly to "emo" is a problem. It's like having "pop rock" go directly to "pop". At the least, we should have a distinction made via sub-section. Sugar-Baby-Love (talk) 02:11, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

To the best of my knowledge, "emo pop" is a sometimes-used but not widely-disseminated phrase. To have a subsection on it, we would need reliable secondary sources that discuss it in some detail (and by that I don't just mean sources that use the phrase "emo-pop", but sources that actually describe in some depth what it is, how it's related to just plain emo, etc.). If those can be found, wonderful; we can certainly get a subsection going. However I don't think that having "emo pop" redirect to emo is an issue, in fact I think it's the only logical place for it to redirect. It's not really the same as having "pop rock" redirect to "pop music", because pop music is a very wide umbrella genre covering numerous subgenres and styles. Emo, on the other hand, is (or originated as, anyway) a subgenre of a subgenre (hardcore punk) of a subgenre (punk rock). Comparitively, it'd be more like if pop punk wasn't a suitable stand-alone topic, the logical place to redirect it would be punk rock. --IllaZilla (talk) 17:13, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Some oxymoron, media-fabricated, buzzword genre that doesn't even exist. I noticed it redirects here too and that's just wrong. But go figure. Something wrong here.Smk42 (talk) 19:10, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

As usual Smk42, your rants are unhelpful. You've made your disdain for this article and its contributors well-known. If you don't have anything constructive to contribute to the discussion, please don't bother. --IllaZilla (talk) 19:41, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

My Chemical Romance

My Chemical Romance is not emo anyway. Just because a girl hanged herself don't make them a suicide cult. My Chemical Romance wants to save your life not destroy it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.148.194.105 (talk) 08:37, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Your opinion is irrelevant. Numerous reliable sources have linked My Chemical Romance with emo, and this was happening well before the British girl's suicide. Music publications including Rolling Stone, Spin, and Allmusic have been associating the band with emo since at least 2004. --IllaZilla (talk) 17:29, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

My Chem is one of the most mainstream emo groups along with Taking Back Sunday and Hawthorne Heights. Your opinion defending your favorite band doesn't work here. • GunMetal Angel 02:40, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Where are the goths?

Emo is blatantly based on the Gothic movement originating in Britain (at least in style), so why no mentions? --MacRusgail (talk) 17:59, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

(A) You would need reliable sources to verify that claim, which would likely be difficult to find because (B) that's not true. Emo originated from the Washington, D.C. hardcore punk movement of the early-mid 1980s. Numerous sources support this, and it's detailed in the article. In recent years a number of bands have been tagged with the "emo" label who have gothic influences (in their music and/or style) such as My Chemical Romance, Alkaline Trio, Aiden, etc., but this does not mean that emo is "blatantly based on" the gothic rock movement. Historically there has been almost no similarity between emo and goth—either in music or style—until the early 2000s, and even then only in the sense of "some of the bands wear black, use eyeliner, and sometimes sing about 'dark' topics". --IllaZilla (talk) 18:38, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

The article does make mention of Morrissey's seminal band The Smiths as having influenced the genre by the late 80s/early 90s, and the Smiths, though not a goth band themselves, had similar sway over the gothic rock movement. Morganfitzp (talk) 14:39, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't see how that draws a formative connection between emo and goth. They are 2 separate genres. Emo originated from hardcore punk while gothic rock (according to the WP article) originated from post-punk. I imagine that one would be hard-pressed to find a source linking Rites of Spring and Embrace to, say, Bauhaus or Siouxie and the Banshees. --IllaZilla (talk) 16:38, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Goth rock/metal as musical genre really has nothing to do with emo, unless you can put the basis upon something such as deathrock wherein it can root to each other somewhere within the punk movement, but other than that I think you're getting subcultures confused with musical genres. • GunMetal Angel 02:38, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Says nothing: "characterized by melodic musicianship"

I'm sorry, but what on earth is this description supposed to convey to someone? "Melodic" <--- well we ARE talking about a music style. "musicianship"??? <--- Says nothing and/or is borderline subjective! This subphrase doesn't characterize anything. I suggest we axe "melodic musicianship".Tgm1024 (talk) 04:16, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Melodic adj. (1) characterized by a sweet or agreeable succession or arrangement of sounds (2) characterized by a rhythmic succession of single tones organized as an aesthetic whole.

Musicianship n. the composition, conducting, or performing of music.

In other words, "a style of rock music typically characterized by sweet or agreeable arrangement of instruements and expressive, often confessional lyrics."

Not all music is melodic (some is deliberately amelodic), and "musicianship" distinguishes the arrangement of the instruments from the content/arrangement of the vocals. Since we are describing the style and character of the lyrics, it makes sense to also describe the style and character of the musicianship. --IllaZilla (talk) 04:52, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

This is the problem with Wikipedia.

Ok, the biggest problem with this article is that it goes straight from the underground originators into what was mislabled in the mainstream in the 90's and early 2000's as "emo." There was not Rites of Spring... and then Jimmy Eat World. This is the main issue with Wikipedia when it comes to articles like this. Wikipedia will only allow content if it is sourced using "legitimate sources." That makes a huge problem considering emo was an underground movement. You can't really find mainstream sources that discuss how bands such as Indian Summer and Heroin defined what became the true emo sound. There is not even a mention of this period of emo. It also fails to mention the transition from bands like Indian Summer to more aggressive versions of the emo sound pioneered by groups like Saetia, Orchid, Joshua Fit for Battle. Perhaps these bands would be labeled as "screamo" but they have a lot more to do with the true emo sound than every single mainstream band listed in the emo article. There simply is no way to find "legitimate sources" for this material. It was underground. This article fails miserably. It should either be deleted, or it should at least be mentioned that the term emo was misused by the mainstream to describe bands that had absolutely nothing to do with the original scene. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.162.3.75 (talk) 00:29, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

This has all been said before, ad nauseum. If it can't be reliably sourced, it can't be included. Sorry, but that's research-based writing. If you're so passionate about these bands and their role in the history of emo, then make an effort to find some sources and include them. There are plenty of great, published sources on bands that were not mainstream; claiming "you won't find good sources because the bands were all underground" is just lazy. The purpose of the article isn't to name-drop your favorite underground bands of the late '80s/early '90s, nor to rant about how the term was "misused" and stolen from "the original scene"; it's to compile the history of the musical style as described by reliable sources including published music journalists and historians. If these bands were so darn important, then surely someone in those fields will have published something about them and their contributions to the style. If not, then they probably weren't all that important. I'm sorry if that pisses off the hipsterati and the emo purists, but this is an encyclopedia, not a scene report. And by the way, if you really think that the article goes straight from Rites of Spring to Jimmy Eat World, then you seriously need to read it again (or maybe try reading it at all, since you clearly haven't). There are sections on the early '90s bands Jawbreaker and Sunny Day Real Estate and on the independent bands of the mid-'90s like Braid, The Promise Ring, Mineral, etc. --IllaZilla (talk) 02:12, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Discussion about non-free media and this article

A discussion about the use of non-free media on this article is taking place at Wikipedia:Media_copyright_questions#Excessive_amounts_of_Fair-use_Audio_Files_at_Emo. --Hammersoft (talk) 16:31, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Weezer is not EMO!

Lol remove Weezer from this page, wtf it's not emo... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 187.106.13.19 (talk • contribs) 19:06, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Nope. Weezer's primary genre isn't emo, but that doesn't mean they haven't had any impact on the style. Several sources cite Pinkerton as a very signficant album to the '90s emo revival (Greenwald even calls it the most important emo album of the decade). The article doesn't call Weezer an emo band, it merely explains the impact of that particular album. --IllaZilla (talk) 15:37, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Emo-pop

Are you certain that it is correct to consider this type of band that might well be considered Pop punk, as part of Emo, a genre that is Hardcore punk-based? When the scene of the 90's Emo (one that has influences from Indie rock) returned to the underground, there was a leap, and suddenly bands with no connection to the stylistic origins of Emo came to be labeled as such. Logically, this should not be considered Emo, but something that is labeled incorrectly as Emo. And if I remember correctly, quoted author Andy Greenwald himself endorses this point of view. Anyone who works for some time at Emo Project knows all that. It's not a simple matter of private opinion or conspiracy theory. Is a slang term used incorrectly and absent of compunction to designate a fad and a great number of "emotional" bands. Consider this as correct is just as prejudiced like the anti-"Emo" "ideology". Everyone knows that the term Emotional Hardcore was created to be the common label to all the Hardcore punk bands absent of ideology. As bands are not Hardcore would be Emo? Just because half the world thinks so, and it echoes in media, does not become a truth.

I will not edit Wikipedia refusing all sources that say this or do anything in disagreement with you, but I find it very strange. Lguipontes (talk) 23:14, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia is magical. ._. (Lguipontes) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lguipontes (talk • contribs) 23:17, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Your argument is very difficult to discern. Yes, "emo" in recent years bears little resemblance to the "emotional hardcore" of the mid-'80s, but as the article describes, the style has evolved and changed over the decades. What you said about Greenwald doesn't make sense, because he specifically says that the style and use of the term "emo" has shifted & changed over the decades, and that the unifying thread is the intense emotional connection between the artists, music, and fans. This has been gone over on this talk page ad nauseum...you can find several past discussions in the archive. The bottom line is that "emo" is a nebulous term with very little consensus definition. Saying that bands are "incorrectly labeled" as emo is assuming that emo has a fixed definition, which as the history shows is anything but the case. From Rites of Spring to Sunny Day Real Estate to The Promise Ring to Jimmy Eat World to The Get Up Kids to Dashboard Confessional to Fall Out Boy to Paramore is a long road covering ~25 years of musical evolution and cultural change, and Paramore certainly doesn't sound like Rites of Spring, but an evolutionary thread is there. --IllaZilla (talk) 23:45, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

It doesn't matter whether or not there was a gap or absent of clear evolution between Emocore and Emo-pop. Sources across the web say that emo-pop exist and label prime examples of the genre. not to mention the term "Emo" is given to bands like Mayday Parade, Fall out boy and Owl City. no correlation between them but they are commercially influenced and lyrical similarities (Depression, expressive, confesional, Blah blah blah). Even on the Owl city musical style section has emo-pop sourced, several times. there are trusted sources across the internet (see allmusic links below) saying its a real movement. Where did you get that emo is a term given to hardcore bands without ideology, it's musical and lyrical style.

http://www.allmusic.com/explore/style/emo-d4525 http://www.allmusic.com/explore/style/emo-pop-d13770

and to IllaZilla, who reverted my edit to the article saying it is unreliable and that there was no source mentioning emo-pop despite the second link was a page about emo-pop as a sub-genre. There is a discusion on the Crunkcore page and as it shows, allmusic is reliable ans passes WP:RS so don't just revoke a post because it looked weird. Improve the edit or bring to the discussion. To what you said about about all the change and evoloution in emo, that doesn't justify Paramore and From Rites of Spring being in the same genre. That's like saying Deathcore and Death metal are the same, though they are different musical style, lyrically and scene. and just like with Paramore and FRoS despite any lyrical similarities, they are musically different. Jonjonjohny (talk) 00:18, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Just because allmusic says its true doesn't make it true and just because it is consensus on another page does not make that the consensus here. Are there other sources that back up your argument? You claim there are widespread sources but all I can see two allmusic articles. --Guerillero | My Talk 01:00, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I am uneasy about the Allmusic "Explore music..." links because they do not give author credit. While well-written and certainly touching on important points, it's hard to know if they are reliable if we don't know who wrote them. All of Allmusic's reviews and artist biographies are credited to their authors. These "explore music" descriptions don't seem to be credited to anyone. A Google search of the "emo-pop" text reveals that the identical text is to be found at Last.fm, which is user-contributed and can be edited by anyone. Since the Allmusic page does not credit any author and does not state the date of publication, it's near-impossible to know where the original text came from (one assumes that some Last.fm user is plagiarising Allmusic, but it's also plausible that it could be the other way around). --IllaZilla (talk) 01:21, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

"Where did you get that emo is a term given to hardcore bands without ideology, it's musical and lyrical style." No, I said the term Emotional Hardcore was created for this purpose. However, all the bands that were considered Emo in the 1990s, were instrumentally related to Hardcore punk, even though much influenced by Indie rock, Powerpop, Pop punk or whatever.

The modern bands and artists who make Emo-pop have no roots in Hardcore punk, so for me it makes no sense whatsoever. I did not see a clear development from The Juliana Theory/Jimmy Eat World/Weezer to Fall Out Boy, and then, Paramore.

Well, apparently you have already formed a consensus and a layman like myself could not destroy it (I'm not doing drama, I'm assuming my inability to argue well). So since the Emo includes all sorts of Pop punk bands, you should also amend Screamo article, since he disqualifies Alesana, Escape the Fate and the like as part of the genre mentioned, and it clearly says that only bands that were part of a particular scene of what I call 'Real Emo', may be considered Screamo. Lguipontes (talk) 02:36, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

@Lguipontes I get where you are coming from and you are making a good point. But I think this is the way underground music goes. Take a look at punk. The Sex Pistols, Black Flag, Crass, Green Day, Zao and +44 have very little in common but they are all considered to be punk bands by one group of people or another. I think the same is with emo. --Guerillero | My Talk 03:40, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

@Guerillero Why not tell me before? I think now I understand this article. The concept of Emo is not defined musically as a limited aspect, a unique and special scene. It's a social, sociological concept, among other factors. Thus, it would be incorrect to say that the article should take that view, but show the other, that there is a fixed musical concept of Emo?

Really, in this respect, the crossbreed of goths and scene kids listening Pop punk are not posers. They are something to be respected, studied and considered also as Emo, or whatever name they well understand if this socially constructed concept change. But what I think now it would be important to show another point of view, that this flight of derivatives Hardcore also flees to the roots of Emo. Namely, I consider it as different phenomena. Lguipontes (talk) 04:51, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from Bsubtle, 27 December 2010

{{edit semi-protected}} Please change the band name "Lunchmeat" at the end of the 1st paragraph to "Soulside" because it is the same band and Soulside has a Wikipedia page where readers and find out more. See Wikipedia page "Soulside" where it explains the bands name change. Thanks!

Bsubtle (talk) 18:08, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

 Done Mr R00t ^{Talk 'tribs} 18:18, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

I fixed it using a piped link because the band's name during the "Revolution Summer" of 1985, which is the time period being discussed, was Lunchmeat. --IllaZilla (talk) 19:06, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

hair metal / pop punk

why isn't there a section connecting emo to it's *actual* roots as a major label boardroom construction in corporate america, namely as some kind of empty suit's crossover wet dream fantasy combining pop-punk and hair metal?

i was alive in and listening to SDRE in the 90s and nobody labelled them anything other than post-grunge. they were even signed to sub-pop...

jawbreaker was a punk band that toured with nirvana...although i remember a lot of comparisons with stone temple pilots due to the shared jazz aesthetic.

the average emo singer sounds exactly like the guy from blink-182, whatever his name was. at the very, very least this should be acknowledged... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.246.69.26 (talk) 01:58, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Yet another load of POV totally refuted by numerous relialbe sources. This is not a place to rant about what bands you think are/aren't emo of how much you hate major label bands. The article describes the historical development of the style as detailed by music journalists, historians, and critics. Take the rants to a messageboard forum where they belong. --IllaZilla (talk) 04:35, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

If that were the case, why isn't emo connected to Grunge? If they both rejected big record labels, and wrote songs with similar themes? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Seven Genres (talk • contribs) 16:45, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Emo mainstream popularity

Looking at the charts throughout 2010, I think we can all agree emo is not as popular as it was in 2007 or so. I suggest editing emo's popularity to 2008. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.2.209.106 (talk) 04:14, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Unless you can cite a reliable secondary source declaring that emo is no longer popular, and when it trailed off, that's original research. Bands tagged as "emo" are just as popular now as they were a few years ago (Paramore, My Chemical Romance, Jimmy Eat World, etc... regardless of whether you agree these acts are emo, it's indisputable that they've been labelled as such by the music press). Emo also continues to make headlines. So declaring it dead is premature (especially considering that it only broke into the mainstream consciousness ~8 years ago). --IllaZilla (talk) 04:23, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Paramore aint even emo brosef, they're pop punk/pop rock. There goes your credibility. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.27.142.64 (talk) 16:56, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Numerous reliable secondary sources have lumped them in with "emo". There goes your credibility. --IllaZilla (talk) 17:05, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Emovare

What has the Latin derivation of 'emotion' got to do with emo? The name is clearly and directly derived from the English word 'emotion', which just happens to be derived from Latin 'emovere'. If you want to put in the Latin derivation, why not go all the way back to Indo-European? It would be only slightly less relevant to the article. --202.131.238.35 (talk) 05:12, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

emo stands for "emotive hardcore" not "emotional hardcore"

I would change the article myself, but only moderators can, so could a mod change it and fix it?--D3st1ny (talk) 20:37, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Do you have any sources that claim that? --Guerillero | My Talk 20:44, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

The sources I have tend to refer to it as "emotional hardcore", but only in reference to the initial DC wave in the mid-'80s. From there it rather quickly contracted to "emocore", and not long after that, just "emo". It really doesn't "stand for" either of those things in today's usage. The "emo____ hardcore" phrasing is pretty much restricted to the mid-'80s in most of the literature I've studied. --IllaZilla (talk) 23:53, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Back in the day, anything that was deemed emotional on record sales was shortened to "emo", even jazz albums. Then emotional hardcore canmeout during the '80s and since that received most attention torward the phrase into how it used today to describe the music genre. I have never once heard of "emotive hardcore". My father is also a major vynil collector, so that also backs up my statement. • GunMetal Angel 23:38, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

It's defined as "emotive hardcore" on emo websites and on Urban Dictionary. --D3st1ny (talk) 04:04, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Those don't sound like reliable sources to me (Urban Dictionary is one of the ultimate unreliable sources). As I mentioned earlier, the sources I have—including the books Nothing Feels Good: Punk Rock, Teenagers, and Emo by Andy Greenwald and American Hardcore: A Tribal History by Steven Blush—call it "emotional hardcore". --IllaZilla (talk) 04:25, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Also Our band could be your life by Azerrad and a journal article I just found on ebsco. --Guerillero | My Talk 04:42, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Ah yes, I forgot Azerrad. Man, what a great book. --IllaZilla (talk) 06:00, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Emo's fusion genres

What about progressive screamo (like Circle Takes the Square), math rock + emo, melodic metalcore, and controversial emo punk and emo-pop? Lguipontes (talk) 09:15, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Reliable secondary sources would have to be provided to verify that these are actually genre terms that are widely used and can be encyclopedically described, rather than simply slang terms or neologisms. It all sounds like a bunch of internet slang gobbledygook to me. I mean, we're getting into subgenres of subgenres of subgenres here. How far down does it go? Like, sci-fi/fantasy progressive emo concept rock? --IllaZilla (talk) 18:04, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't see how any of those are genres, emo is already a breed of punk and there's really no such thing as "emo-pop". • GunMetal Angel 23:35, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I have the same point about Emo-pop. But, as these modern bands are now Emo, I would consider it important to separate "Old School" Emo (derived from Hardcore punk, and later, Indie rock), from these modern things. Would bring more clarity to the article, in my opinion. I see much, much, much diversity within this subgenre, and I think if we can not say what is or is not Emo, at least we can say that there are different groups in this subgenre. Well, I'm sure all you must be very tired of this 'genre war', so I said no more. Could not find the encyclopedic content at the time and still have not today for any of the mentioned "neologisms", I just was being a bore. x) Lguipontes (talk) 18:43, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

That is an interesting idea. I will think about how that could be done. --Guerillero | My Talk 18:44, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't see how this is not (or can't be) covered in the history section if sources can be found. Currently the history tapers off around 2002 (I take responsibility for that, I was rewriting the article a couple years ago & sort of trailed off there), but certainly there are sources that could be used to describe the continued varations up to the present. I'll have to dig through my old copies of Spin and Alternative Press, both of which gave a lot of coverage to screamo (Thrice, Thursday, et al) and of course have covered the more recent stuff like My Chemical Romance, Coheed and Cambria, etc. The history just needs to be brought up-to-date, really, to cover the evolutions of recent years. --IllaZilla (talk) 19:50, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, I know that Wikipedia itself is not a "reliable secondary source", but, in math rock article, I've seen mentions about some emo/post-hardcore bands, like Drive Like Jehu, The Dismemberment Plan, Shudder to Think, Hoover and Jawbox. And metalcore article also addresses the subject: "These bands combined more modern elements of punk and metal and tend to fuse melodic death metal and hardcore punk/post-hardcore, and in some examples the use of emo". My immediate thought was that Emo was developing fusion genres, and this would be a great opportunity to address the "schism" in the early 2000s who "broke" the gender (IF modern "Pop-punkish" bands can be Emo, I considere more appropriate to label them a subgenre of its own), we talked about above. So it is easy to find even secondary sources, which we does not need are people talking about the phenomenon "Real Emo x Emo-pop", The Emo Diaries themselves possessed a volume in which this theme was clear. Lguipontes (talk) 22:16, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

As the writer of The Emo Diaries and Drive Like Jehu articles, I don't really think these can be considered "fusion genres". Emo itself is barely a genre, more, as Greenwald says, a shared aesthetic. Not since the mid-late '80s "emotional hardcore" era has there been an identifiable emo "sound", though there have been plenty of bands tagged as emo, so it's hard to say that there is fusion happening if there isn't a definable genre to begin with...metalcore, pop-punk, indie rock, etc. were all around for a good while before ever being associated with the term emo, so it's more just that certain artists of these genres picked up elements of the emo aesthetic. It's less "fusion genres" than "the term 'emo' being applied to artists of a number of subgenres who happen to share certain aesthetics". The reference link for the claim in the metalcore article returns a 404 error, so it's hard to verify the claim. --IllaZilla (talk) 22:46, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Emo fusion genres and subgenres.

Aren't there more subgenres and fusion genres by emo?

Fusion genres are: emo-rock, which is a combination of emo and alternative rock.

Emo-punk, which is a combination of emo and pop punk.

Or the subgenre post-emo?

... which adds the sound of indie rock and pop punk to emo.

I've got example for each of these fusion genres.

• The Used in were in their earlier work emo-punk.
• The Get Up Kids were post-emo in their album Something to Write Home About,
• and The Almost were and stil are emo-rock.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.138.120.193 (talk) 12:40, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

You would need to cite reliable secondary sources to verify these claims. Otherwise this is nothing but your own opinion, unsuitable for an encyclopedia. --IllaZilla (talk) 15:26, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

link to confessional?

I think the first sentence should link to confessional. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Booboo cam (talk • contribs) 06:19, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

That would be incorrect. "Confessional" in that sentence is used as an adjective, not a noun. That is, it refers to the practice of confessing, not to a confessional booth. --IllaZilla (talk) 07:34, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Sorry! I mean Confession, of course.Booboo cam (talk) 07:55, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

I think that might just be overlinking. Most readers know what's meant by the adjective, just as they know what's meant by "melodic" and "expressive" (we don't have to link melody or expression to drive home the point). Plus, the confession article is about the religious rite, whereas here we're just talking about the open bearing of feelings. --IllaZilla (talk) 08:40, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

I disagree completely, IMHO most people don't know what any of those terms are - even those in the music industry don't always know. I wasn't sure that's why i tried to see what confessional was all about.Booboo cam (talk) 22:06, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Even so, it wouldn't link to the right concept. Confession links to an article about the religious rite. What you're looking for are dictionary definitions, which isn't what internal links are for. If readers need to know the dictionary defintion of "expressiveness" or "confession", they can go to Wiktionary or any other dictionary source. We generally don't link common terms or dictionary definitions. --IllaZilla (talk) 00:42, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

This whole article is bullshit

Emo was a derogatory term used for some old dc bands, probably first appeared in print in thrasher. Later it referred to a kind of DIY hardcore related to, but very much departing from straight edge and new york style hardcore. Jawbreaker was not emo at all. Wheezer? Are you high? Mainstream success with screamo? You are trying to tie together all this desperate forms under the tile emo, but its a revisionist history.

Emo was akin to hardcore that stretched from Lifetime, to Frail, to Heroin and the Ebullition bands. It is not related to indie rock, college rock, and especially not the stuff now called emo, which is just the recycling of an old term.

You can ask for sources, but this is where encyclopedias fall down, because the source is being there, is late night conversations, is being in that scene, its all primary with no documentation that anything except a anthropological study (digging up correspondence etc) could do. Even a million people involved in underground music at the time didn't know what emo was, because its also a term of dismissal. Read all the old old heart attack zines and then re-write all of this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 182.242.6.175 (talk) 13:26, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

No thanks. This is the same opinionated ranting we see here all the time. Clearly you've never tried to actually research the subject in any sort of academic way, by looking for reliable sources and basing your claims on those. No, you're only interested in your own narrow-minded definition and things that you did/saw/listened to, without any tolerance or regard for anyone else's views. This is an encyclopedia: the source is not "being there", it's "reliable, published, third-party sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy". The article is based on these kinds of sources—music journalists, historians, and critics—not rants by anonymous internet people who "were there". If you don't like that, then Wikipedia probably isn't the best resource for you. You'd be better off at a messageboard forum or blog, where opinions rule rather than reliable sources. --IllaZilla (talk) 14:44, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

I think I found research I would like to do... --Guerillero | My Talk 18:33, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Emo pop

After a reversion of my expansion of the emo pop redirect into a full article, I developed a section for the style here on the emo page as a starting point to get more sources. I have since found several sources beyond the one source I had for the initial expansion, and I am starting this talk section as a place to discuss the state of the emo pop section and whether it should be its own article. Please give me comments. Thanks, --3family6 (talk) 19:30, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

The main problem I see here is the level of repetition, particularly between this section and the mainstream popularity section. I am sure there is something that reliable sources indicate is emo pop, but at the moment I cant see how to differentiate this from the genre as a whole.--SabreBD (talk) 20:09, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Some of the sources I found, namely allmusic and Trinity News, discuss how the emergence of emo pop coincided with the mainstream popularity of emo, so it makes sense that there would be some repetition between sections, but this could be sorted out with editing. But I know what you mean, the two subjects are very intertwined, and it is difficult to tell the difference with the sources on hand. Thanks, --3family6 (talk) 21:01, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Wow! Just found this source which discusses how emo bridged into pop music. A few more like these would really help clarify.--3family6 (talk) 21:31, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

In my opinion the two subjects are somewhat inextricable: "Emo pop" is essentially mainstream recognition of emo in the form of popular circa-2000 acts (Dashboard, Jimmy Eat World, Get Up Kids, Saves the Day, et al) indebted or tangentially related to prior emo waves. For most (mainstream music publications included), this is/was emo, since the style had not received mainstream attention/exposure in the preceding 25 years that "emo" as a term/style had been around. With the emergence of popular emo-esque acts around the turn of the millennium (Taking Back Sunday, Thursday, Thrice, etc), the mainstream media picked up on the term and began applying it somewhat willy-nilly to very disparate acts that fit the general bill of "punky-ish music appealing to teenagers" (My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy, Coheed & Cambria, Paramore, Panic at the Disco, etc). All of these acts were/have been, at one time or another, declared emo in the mainstream music press (Rolling Stone, Spin, Alternative Press, etc). However, with the rise in popularity of the term came mainstream scholarship (Greenwald, etc) that traced it back to its origins, leading to recognition that what was branded emo in the 2000s was vastly different from what was considered emo in previous decades. Simultaneously, the mass application of the term "emo" to describe any sort of music popular amongst angsty teens (everything from Good Charlotte to Atmosphere) sufficiently diluted the meaning of the term (inasmuch as it ever had a definition) so as to be relatively indistinguishable from general popular rock music. Hence the emergence of the retcon-ish term "emo pop".

It's telling that what Allmusic is retroactively labeling "emo pop" (Pinkerton, The Get Up Kids, Panic at the Disco) are all all things that other sources described as just plain "emo" for years before Almusic invented the "emo pop" tag and began sticking it in their "style" sidebar. Heck, even Allmusic themselves called most of the stuff "emo" before they thought up "emo pop": [1] [2] [3] [4]. I know all of this must sound like just a rant of opinion, but it's based on following "emo" as a term/style for over a decade in the music press and reading multiple published sources about it (Greenwald's book, American Hardcore, Everybody Hurts, countless issues of Spin and Alt Press). In all that time, and with all that reading, I have only seen the term "emo pop" spring up in the last couple of years, and it seems to have been primarily cooked up and advanced by Allmusic who, like I said, are retroactively applying it to artists and albums that they themselves, along with most other mainstream sources, lumped in with emo over the course of the last 10-15 years. Pinkerton, for example, is cited in multiple sources as a landmark emo album of the 1990s, not as "emo pop": the Spin article calling it "a groundbreaking record for all the emo-pop that would follow" is from this year, in reference to the deluxe re-issue that was recently released. Pinkerton's importance to emo ("emo", not "emo pop") was discussed in other sources for over a decade before the term "emo pop" started to be bandied about. It's a bit like pop punk: If looked at in retrospect, through today's lens, the Ramones seem more pop punk than punk rock, because their music has more in common with Blink-182 or Green Day than it does with the Germs or Dead Kennedys. Yet from a historical perspective, the Ramones are considered the first verifiable punk rock group and that's what they were called at the time. Similarly, it seems wrong for us to be retroactively labeling things like Pinkerton and Fall Out Boy as "emo pop", a term that has only recently appeared, when they were described as just plain "emo" during their time and for years afterward. Much of the "emo pop" section seems to be revisionist history in that regard.

This reply has gotten much longer than originally intended. I'm basically saying that "emo pop" is a recently-invented term, and as a topic it seems to be inextricable from emo and is probably best discussed here, in the context of emo as a whole. I think it should be integrated into the history section so that it all flows as a chronological history, in much the same manner as the punk rock article presents its subgenres within the larger history of the parent genre. --IllaZilla (talk) 22:05, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

You make a very good point. I myself was thinking that working "emo pop" into the discussions of emo into the mainstream might be best. I've been doing exhaustive google searches for almost two days now, and the style seems to be scattered references here and there. From what I've gathered, emo pop is a stylistic approach that slowly emerged as emo became more mainstream. In a few years, it might be considered a style in its own right, as it's pretty close to being that now in terms of sources, but it isn't quite there yet, so right now, I think you are right, it should be worked into the existing sections.--3family6 (talk) 23:06, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Emo "subculture"?

I think there should be a seperate article for the emo subculture, instead of just emo music. It seems the prevalent styles among emo people and their typical behavioral traits are already covered in the article Goth subculture, but I believe, I myself bieng what you could call a "casual emo" and not a "stereotypical emo", that the emo subculture has enough differences from the "goth" subculture to be granted its own article. That's just what I think. Just a proposition. Any comments? 97.96.65.123 (talk) 02:13, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

No. Articles on "emo subculture" (and similar titles) have existed in the past but were eventually either deleted or merged here, as (A) they consisted mostly of original research, (B) there doesn't appear to be enough to say about the so-called "subculture" to warrant an independent article, and (C) the idea of a "subculture" is somewhat ludicrous, as emo reached international mainstream popularity in the 2000s (music and styles that top the charts, are played on MTV, and are displayed in the windows of Hot Topic stores at malls across America can hardly be said to be "sub"culture...they're simply mainstream culture). --IllaZilla (talk) 02:19, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Oh, well, okay then. 97.96.65.123 (talk) 02:26, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Weird. I turned to this page to learn about emo subculture, and learned almost nothing. I now know that it is linked to a music genre (I didn't know that) but for the rest the article says almost nothing about the fashion and lifestyle. Dutch Wikipedia is much clearer, having an 'emo' page about the subculture and an 'emocore' page about the music style. --80.79.32.43 (talk) 17:52, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

The two are somewhat inseparable. I wouldn't be surprised to find that the Dutch article on the "subculture" was very poorly referenced. --IllaZilla (talk) 18:02, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Kingface

Not damning anything here, first time suggesting an edit on Wikipedia, seems a good place to put it. I played guitar in the band Kingface reference in the opening History section. We would appreciate being removed as a emo-related band reference. We were certainly related inasmuch we were another DC-based band on the scene, but that's about it. As our bassist put it when we heard about this last week: We did a cover of La Grange once with little to no irony. We're probably not emo. Thank you. Pbobst (talk) 16:50, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

A reliable secondary source (Blush) mentions Kingface in connection with emo and the "Revolution Summer" movement, which is what's discussed in those sentences. Here's the full quote:

During the "Revolution Summer" of '85 many harDCcore types reinvented themselves. "Emo," for emotional post-hardcore, described the move to softer, more emotive music, embodied in Ian's project Embrace, Brian Baker's Dag Nasty, Tomas Squip's Beefeater, Kingface with Mark Sullivan, Bobby Sullivan's Lunchmeat, and Rites of Spring with Guy Picciotto and Eddie Janney.

All that the article mentions regarding Kingface is their connection to "Revolution Summer". It never calls them an emo band: "Similar bands soon followed in connection with the "Revolution Summer" of 1985, a deliberate attempt by members of the Washington, D.C. scene to break from the rigid constraints of hardcore in favor of a renewed spirit of creativity.[2] Bands such as Gray Matter, Beefeater, Fire Party, Dag Nasty, Lunchmeat, and Kingface were connected to this movement.[2][6]"

Sorry, but Wikipedia content is based on reliable secondary sources, which support mentioning Kingface among the Revolution Summer bands. I don't really see what a ZZ Top cover has to do with that. --IllaZilla (talk) 17:19, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Very US-centric

I don't claim to know much about emo pedigree other than the word coming into widespread use in the early-90s. I noticed there are few references to bands outside the US in the article - surely other countries must have produced some emo bands? Additionally, it doesn't take an expert to see that certain 80s bands from the UK must have had a massive influence - "maudlin bands like The Smiths, Joy Division & The Cure" seems a little lacking. Not sure that The Cure should be in there, but early Simple Minds, The The, The Cult, The Mighty Lemon Drops seem like possibilities. Also on the subject of The Smiths, granted it's retroactive labelling, but I defy you to find anyone in the world that emboys the 'spirit of emo' more than Morrissey. He did gut-exposing, awkwardness-exploring and poetic angst better than anyone before or since. Just my cheeky opinion but, the power of Morrissey's lyrics along with the often haunting, always exquisite music of Johnny Marr - frankly, I'm not sure why later bands bothered to turn up! --Yickbob (talk) 12:58, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Having done a lot of reading on the subjects of emo and punk rock over the last decade, I can tell you it's definitely an American phenomenon (as far as the music is concerned). It originated from the Washington, D.C. hardcore scene and all the most notable artists of each "wave" of emo have been American. In fact I don't think I've read about a single one from Europe or the UK. The bands you mention (Smiths, Joy Division, Cure) are all generally considered part of the post-punk or New Wave movements (post-punk was largely a British phenomenon at first, & Joy Division in particular are usually cited as one of the early and most significant post-punk acts). Most of the emo bands of the first wave (1980s) were firmly rooted in the American hardcore punk scene. The Smiths influence didn't start to set in until the early 1990s (evident in bands like Sunny Day Real Estate and Jawbreaker), and the even more maudlin influences (JD/Cure) didn't start to rear their heads until the turn of the millennium in the form of Thursday and other screamo acts. Most of the '90s emo bands were taking influence from each other, the grunge/alternative movement, and the U.S. punk rock revival rather than from the Brits.

P.S. "I defy you to find anyone in the world that emboys the 'spirit of emo' more than Morrissey." — Blake Schwarzenbach is more or less an emo god. If anyone ever built a Temple of Emo he'd be the statue on the front steps. --IllaZilla (talk) 14:09, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Months later, now writing in English without Google help! There are Emo bands in Latin America (I personally listened to 90's-Emo-resembling-bands from Curitiba and São Paulo in a distant past), but they are so underground that I suppose the scene to be less than 15,000 people, I tried to search for any Real Emo band here on the Internet but the results were often mediocre ones, which is surprising. Pop punk and even Teen Pop bands described by media as "emo" - what had made me so "sectarian" about a music genre /facepalm/ in the past, such mainstream bands are hated by most of Latin American rock fans, that is why regional "anti-emo" go to extremes; I've tried in vain to convince people through the Internet that this was a good genre since I'm talking Indie rock fans and not other subgroups where prejudice and narrow-minded taste is greater, as well try to save youth from a massively alienating mainstream culture (I know that it is somewhat square-toed now) via common groud i.e. sympathy for what is categorized as emo - have a popularity of millions (seriously, in all Brazilian states there are emos) of fans. Much of their fanbase, most of whom teenagers or young adults, try to emulate U.S. scene kids and emo mainstream cultures as they can, also labeling themselves emos (nevertheless be an emo is so last summer in South America now), coloridos i.e. colorful people (people who dress like BrokeNCYDE and listen to (extremely cliché fadish) Teen Pop instead of just "emo" bands), From UKs, screamos and there goes. The funny thing is that not only the media tooked it seriously, as I've seen university students appearing on social networks and meeting points of the emos to do researches, I think that they may have taken up academic material about this "phenomena". Rage was greater when colorido band Restart (regarded by everybody as Emo, what keeped me up the wall, almost all in Brazil uses the word emo as the worst anti-emo metalheads do it in USA) said to be influenced by some major "historical" Rock band. 2005-2010 was completely epic lulz in Brazil, as you can see in Lusophone Uncyclopedia version (which is more like Encyclopedia Dramatica than English Uncyclopedia, but I think less funny than both) article about Emo (and Indie). Sadly, everything about it is in Portuguese. Can we use content in languages other than English? Or better, this at least features any notability for en-wp? I don't think so. Lguipontes (talk) 18:30, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

RSes can be in any language --Guerillero | My Talk 19:56, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Hardcore punk?

I'm wondering why the emo article is tagged with hardcore punk. I see little similarity to hardcore punk in emo music. The fashion might be borrowed from hardcore punk but that's about the only similarity I see. 22:44, 31 July 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.76.65.246 (talk)

Please read the article. Emo originated from the early-mid 1980s Washington, D.C. hardcore punk movement. You can learn more about this by reading some of the cited sources, particularly Greenwald and Azerrad. --IllaZilla (talk) 08:10, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Typo

Sorry, I'm not able to edit the page since it's semi-protected, but there's a typo in the paragraph on "Emo Pop". The second reference to the band Fall Out Boy refers to them as "Fallout Boy". If someone else could correct the typo I'd appreciate it! Sophia sol (talk) 19:50, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

 Fixed --IllaZilla (talk) 21:20, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Misogyny Claims Evidence?

I was just reading over the criticism of emo and there's a whole section on how it's anti women. Perhaps it is true that there are few girls in emo bands but that is true of almost every genre and style of music that has bands as its primary unit, from jazz to metal to reggae. In addition, there's a section in regards to "anti-female lyrics" that cites a book page number as a source; I think it'd be better substantiated by actual citations of examples. I just don't feel that that section of the article and its allegations are really that well supported is all. Please comment on the matter, thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Naturada137 (talk • contribs) 05:22, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

If you're talking about the "gender bias" section, it is referenced to a reliable secondary source (Greenwald). If you would like to double-check the source or read more about the specific examples Greenwald discusses in his book, you may use the citation information to track the book down yourself. That's what citations are for. Actual examples would be superfluous and difficult to summarize, as (A) nearly all emo songs are written/performed by males, and there are dozens (if not hundreds) dealing with male/female relationships, and (B) who would decide which are the best examples? --IllaZilla (talk) 08:21, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

I actually have to agree with Naturada137. The claim is too broad and too controversial to simply cite to a single allegedly reliable source without even quoting the source. Without clear evidence that this idea is supported by more than a single, opinionated source, our article needs to make it clear that this view is simply that espoused by Greenwald, and what the particulars of his view are, rather than pass on his assumptions as encyclopedic fact.

IllaZilla, I have read several pages of archives of this article's talk page, and I feel that you are perilously close to asserting a WP:OWN level of control at this article. I see little evidence that any idea that you disagree with, or any challenge to your small number of personally preferred sources, has any long-term effect on this article, meanwhile there is a very large amount of disputation, which is "conveniently" archived very rapidly so that none of it ever attains enough critical mass to gain consensus for major changes. It looks to me like the majority of people who comment on this talk page believe that the article badly misrepresents the facts, on multiple levels. Yet you appear to generally ignore these issues, you are often the first to leap in to attempt to dispel any criticism as if it were of you personally, and you mostly just assert that your sources are complete and reliable, when we really have no reason to think this is true. Pop culture journalism and scholarship is almost invariably controversial, incomplete and promotional of particular points of view, and thus requires balancing. While I agree with you that "I was there, and this is how I remember it..." is not a justification for adding alleged facts to the article, when reader after reader consistently leaves comments here questioning the validity of the article and its sources, this is a very strong indication that the sources have WP:RS problems and/or that the narrowness of the source selection amounts to a perhaps unintentional WP:NPOV problem, and even (as a form of novel synthesis that "cherry picks" sources and their information) a WP:NOR issue. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 06:39, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

American Football

The debut and only self-titled album by American Football (1999) is worth mentioning in the late 90s, independent emo movement section, as it has maintained a cult following for over 10 years and is considered in some circles as one of the best emo albums of all time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 183.96.186.218 (talk) 10:31, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Source?. Classic case of POV, weasel words, & peacockerry. --IllaZilla (talk) 10:43, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

The Illinois scene gets passed over in most good sources. --Guerillero | My Talk 16:01, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Descendents

How on earth could Descendents/All not be mentioned as one of the bands, like Dag Nasty (with whom they've shared two members as I recall) who led up to this? To a lot of us back in the day, the whole "melodic hardcore" thing in the 80s was pretty much defined by Descendants. It's jarringly revisionist to omit them. They released obviously emo-core-ish albums in 1982, '85, '86 and '87 as Descendents, and as All they had 5 similar releases from '88 to '92. I'm not counting the later reunion stuff, just their original run. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 06:18, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

I've read numerous books on punk, hardcore, and emo, and not even once have I seen a source link the Descendents or All to emo. They're pretty much universally linked to melodic hardcore and/or pop punk. They came out of the Los Angeles hardcore scene, which had nothing to do with emo. It's certainly not revisionist to omit them when none of the sources discuss them in the context of emo. Rather, it would be jarringly revisionist to include them, given that they are almost universally associated with melodic hardcore and pop punk, and not with emo. For pete's sake (and I say this as a huge Descendents/All fan who owns all of both bands' records), their songs (especially the ones from the '80s) are mostly about girls, food, and flatulence. The claim that their albums are "emocore-ish" is entirely your own opinion and I've never seen reliable sources that would support it. They were contemporaries of Black Flag, the Minutemen, and the Adolescents, not of Rites of Spring or Embrace. Emocore in the '80s came from the DC hardcore scene, not LA. "Melodic hardcore" came from LA, while "emotional hardcore" came from DC. The two are not synonymous. --IllaZilla (talk) 06:31, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Nor are they unrelated. I don't know what sort of insular "we live a cave" world you are imagining in the 80s. It wasn't like that. And Descendents' stuff veered between the silly songs you point out and the emotional stuff for which they've been principally notable as a band, especially after '85. Your blind faith in separation of the East Coast and West Coast hardcore scenes is counterfactual. Bands toured. We all bought records from everywhere. People moved. Black Flag blended the styles, to the extent there were distinct anyway. And so on. I've addressed your over-reliance on a few pet sources (and your aggressive "guard-dogging" of this talk page) elsewhere. I agree with you that Descendents shouldn't be added without a source, though I don't see sources cited on a per-band basis in the article prose as it stands now. I side with many, many commentators that much of this article should be deleted as unsourced or unreliably sourced. I'm highly skeptical that no sources link Descendents and other melodic HC bands with emo, even if the DC influence was stronger (as it obviously was), but I haven't got one yet, so I'll table this for now. I suspect that the sources you personally prefer and rather vociferously defend here, as if you have a personal stake in them, don't make that connection, so you think it doesn't exist. I'd bet real money that other sources do. I didn't add Descendents without a source, I suggested that their omission is an error. I'm not sure I care enough to go do a pile of punk research right now, but if I don't someone will eventually. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 06:53, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Just goofing off for a couple of minutes:

• "New-old emo" (W'everTF that means) band Monument cites Descendents as an influence and covered their song "Bikeage".[5]
• An article from editorialist Ryan Ritchie at the Orange County Weekly specifically states that emo is (in part) directly descendent (pun intended) from the Descendents. "Every band that falls into the emo category owes the Descendents a royalty check." There's a whole segment of the article naming emo bands as an entire genre as part of the topic of that article: "Descendents Family Tree: Bands Directly Influenced by the Fathers of Pop Punk".[6]. I don't know what Ritchie's personal qualifications are, but the OC Weekly is a reliable source generally under the criteria of WP:RS.
• The increasingly misnamed TVTropes.com (it now covers every aspect of pop culture imaginable) has a page on the Descendents, which says "While nobody would mistake them for an emo band, they might be seen as a precursor for the genre".[7]

And so on. I found those in under two minutes on the first two pages of Google search results, while eating a sandwich. It took 10 times longer to write them up for this talk page here that it did to hunt them down. I'd be interested in the results if I actually started looking for collegiate-level work (this tends to exist more for filmmakers than bands, but there have been a lot of academically-inclined books about punk and post-punk and post-HC genres over the last decade. But I have more pressing matters than hanging around university libraries. And this is already enough to add at least a mention of Descendents in this article. Hell, it's better sourcing than most of the namedropping has already, since we have an emo band giving them kudos and a mainstream-published article that makes the connection is very clear terms, so we have a primary source and a reliable secondary. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 07:21, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

PS: Speaking as someone who was actually in the punk scene in multiple U.S. states back in the relevant period, your assertion that Descendents couldn't have influenced emo because they started melodic HC not emo-core, and emo is an outgrowth of emo-core, and they're just different, is untenable and bizarre. Actually, even if I only liked classical music and knew nothing of these bands, just basic logic would suggest that this made no sense. It's as off-kilter as suggesting that Gary Numan, for example, couldn't be cited as an obvious, palpable influence on modern industrial rock and industrial metal, and throwing out this idea just because while he's one of the best-known, first-wave synthpop performers ever, synthpop (an outgrowth of purist electronic music fused with disco) led to electro, house music, trance music and other variants that now inform our mass of electronica-pop acts, meanwhile industrial rock & metal came from a fusion of industrial music (itself an outgrowth of noise music) with post-punk and thrash metal, and they're just different. That's all true. And it's all false, if taken as some kind of map of limitations to influence or of "genetic" relationships. Setting up a diagram of "familial" relationships like this is a very limited metaphor, nothing more (you can only have only two genetic parents, but a genre can have 50 memetic ones). Failure to see that leads one to almost reasonable-seeming but ultimately absurd assumptions and assertions, such as that synthpop and industrial are just different, even geographically, with synthpop being mostly European and industrial mostly North American, so industrial rock can't really have anything to do with synthpop, and early synthpop pioneers can't be counted as influences on industro-rock. Which is total crap, just like the assumptions that a highly influential and long-lived emotive hardcore band had no influence on the development of emotive post-hardcore, simply because they were in California (mostly; All wasn't based there), as if records never left the city in which they were pressed. Real life just doesn't work that way. The idea that Descendents wasn't a huge influence on everything that led up to emo, and remains so on emo bands even today, is as dead wrong as pretending this isn't happening. Or that emo bands like the one already cited aren't doing covers of Descendents songs on their tribute albums. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 08:00, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Look, the page is on my watchlist, and I contributed significantly to the article. That's why I keep an eye on it and respond to comments made here. I understand that not everything was localized in the '80s, but it certainly wasn't as nationalized as it later became. The DC scene was very insular, and most of the Dischord bands were short-lived, at least those directly relevant to emo. A comparative few toured nationally (Rites of Spring only played 14 or 15 shows, for example). Black Flag trailblazed a lot of the national touring routes, and their impact on the east coasters is well-documented, but the bands associated with them and their development tend to be those classified as hardcore or alternative, not emo. And the records were coming from small independent labels, most of which were focused on a local scene (Dischord, SST/Cruz, Slash, BYO, etc.). It's not "counterfactual" to talk about the east and west coast scenes in the early-mid '80s as being largely distinct; this is backed up by many reliable sources and is why these sources talk about the LA scene vs. the OC scene and about "harDCore", rather than about a homogenous national scene.

I also wish you'd quit complaining about my so-called "pet sources". I'm sitting on a small library of books here and have read them all, I'm not picking and choosing and I didn't pull the article out of my ass: Our Band Could Be Your Life, American Hardcore, We Got the Neutron Bomb, Rock and the Pop Narcotic, Get in the Van, Spray Paint the Walls, Nothing Feels Good...I could go on. That's several thousand pages and none of them cite the Descendents as an emo band or talk about them in the context of emo. Just because there are some latter-day emo-leaning bands that cite the Descendents as in influence doesn't mean the Descendents were ever emo (as some of your sources above note, and call them "the fathers of pop punk", not fathers of emo). The descendants of the Descendents, as described in your OC Weekly article, are bands like Blink-182, NOFX, and Face to Face, not Jawbreaker, The Promise Ring, or Jimmy Eat World. The author's attempt to link the Descendents to emo is based on the fact that they had songs about girls. So what? So did plenty of other bands that weren't and aren't associated with emo. The Ramones, The Dickies, and Screeching Weasel all had plenty of songs about girls, but none of them are ever cited as progenitors of emo. In other words, just because Kris Roe really likes "Silly Girl" doesn't make the Descendents forefathers of emo.

"I don't see sources cited on a per-band basis in the article prose as it stands now"? Are you serious? Nearly all of the bands mentioned in the history section are directly referenced to specific sources. If that isn't enough for you, List of emo artists cites sources directly on an act-by-act basis. "Descendents' stuff veered between the silly songs you point out and the emotional stuff for which they've been principally notable as a band, especially after '85"? The Descendents are principally notable for their catchy tunes, not deep emotional introspection. Yes, there's some emotion in songs like "Good Good Things", "Cheer", "Clean Sheets", and the aforementioned "Silly Girl", but it's of the pop-punk variety (and for every one of those there's a "No Fat Beaver", "Weinerschnitzel", or "Kids on Coffee"). You could draw a direct evolutionary line from those Descendents records to bands like Blink-182 and MxPx (both of whom have cited the Descendents as a direct influence), but not to Sunny Day Real Estate or Mineral, whereas sources have drawn evolutionary lines from Rites of Spring on through SDRE to Jimmy Eat World, etc. The fact that you found sources in 2 minutes of a Google search by typing "Descendents" and "emo" isn't surprising, given that in the last 10 years pop punk and emo have become pretty much synonymous (again, Blink-182, The Ataris, etc...add "Warped Tour" to that search and you'll still probably get a ton of hits), but it's telling that those sources are from this year. Again, the fact that a current "emo" band gives the Descendents kudos doesn't make the Descendents emo...Chris Carrabba really likes R.E.M., but that doesn't make R.E.M. emo either. I've got plenty of Descendents cover songs in my collection, and very few are by emo bands: the vast majority are by pop-punk groups. Face to Face covered "Bikeage" too, 15 years before these Monument guys, but Face to Face isn't an emo band and "Bikeage" isn't an emo tune, so what's your point? Jimmy Eat World have covered The Prodigy and Wham!...does that make The Prodigy and Wham! forefathers of emo? Of course not. Correlation does not imply causation.

Anyway, as previously stated the vast majority of reliable sources link the Descendents directly to melodic hardcore and pop punk, not directly to emo. The links between them and emo have been made in recent years and are tangential, ie. "this pop punk band that is sort of emo says they like the Descendents, and the Descendents had songs about girls too, so...". But in all my reading about the histories of hardcore and emo I haven't seen any authors give a direct correlation between the Descendents and emo, or describe how the Descendents fit into the evolution of emo as a style during the 1980s. I'm unconvinced by latter-day sources that draw revisionist tangential connections between the two based solely on pop-punk bands and lyrics about girls. Your "I was there, so I know better than you" attitude is irrelevant, not to mention unhelpful. --IllaZilla (talk) 08:27, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

I repeat: "Actually, even if I only liked classical music and knew nothing of these bands, just basic logic would suggest that this made no sense." (I.e., I retracted the "I was there" argument). It isn't of any interest to me whether you personally find modern day sources interesting. This isn't your article, and you are not the arbiter of source reliability. WP:RS finds them interesting, and sufficient. If you believe that all modern sources who might make a connection between the grandfathers of emotive punk that has been largely categorized by outsiders like music journalists into a "melodic hardcore" box, on the one hand, and similar music in a slightly differently named artificial category, and the newer music it spawned, then the burden of proof is clearly on you to demonstrate that these sources are somehow unreliable while yours aren't. I also don't care what Descendents covers you have in your personal music collection; that's another "I was there" fallacy, really, and it misses the point. An actual emo band claims them as an influence. In all your reading about the histories of hardcore and emo, you never saw a link between emo and the Descendents? I just showed you one, published in OC Weekly. Of course it only took 2 minutes to find one, since the connection is obvious to everyone but you and whatever obsessive "rock family tree" sources you're relying on who seem to be making the "genetic fallacy" argument, and denying relationships between bands and genres because they think they've already identified the "parents". I guess you should go do your history rewriting at Descendents (band) and All (band), too, since both articles make it clear that the band (or bands, depending on how you like to think of their relationship) are not only known for introspective, emotional songs, but that this type of content increased release by release, coming to define them more and more (and their original release was pretty much nothing but silly stuff). This progression in lyrical content is a major aspect of the Descendents article, especially, which does not dwell on their catchiness.

I'm not going to argue with your further about this. It's clear that you have a dead-set view on this and nothing is going to change it. I've already sourced well enough the fact that some, including a music journalist at a major California weekly, believes they were influential on emo. You have sources that do not mention such a connection, but I'd bet zero of them specifically deny it. Nothing to argue about really. Neither I nor anyone else has made a case that Descendents were the most influential, only that the were influential and can be sourced as being viewed as such. I've already proven that at least some music writers DO see a strong connection. QED. I don't feel strongly that it has to be added right this moment. Another source or two like that would be helpful (hey, maybe that'll take another two minutes to find).

No one but you said anything about "lyrics about girls"; that has nothing to do with the position I've advanced and defended. Attacking a weak and imaginary "there's must be a connection because they both sing about girls!" argument is to bash an obvious straw man.

I believe you that "the vast majority of reliable sources link the Descendents directly to melodic hardcore and pop punk", since that connection is of course obvious. The upshot of that is that some (even if not the majority) do not limit their influence to that "line" entirely. You'd actually need a reliable source to push that view, a source that actually specifically rules them out as an emo influence. It's blatant original research (novel synthesis) to take sources that say that emo mostly derives from X, Y and Z, other sources who say Descendants mostly influenced A, B, and C, and then try to cite those sources as proof of no influences between the ABC and XYZ sides or of no influence by Descendents in particular upon X, Y and Z. Being heavily influential on the development of melodic HC, and not being one of the most obvious and recognized direct influences on period emo-core, are independent facts that cannot possibly be used as a causal argument against influence on the later development of emo, or against what we know of as emo now having drawn from more than just a handful of emo-core bands, as if they lived in bubble. Your own stated belief that "emo" and "pop punk" are being used increasingly interchangeably means this dichotomy can't actually exist, or it would be like calling country and rap the same thing. They can't be widely separated genres if no one but you and a few alleged scholars of modern music history can tell them apart.

PS: I'll take your word for it on the sourcing of individual bands in the article. I must have looked at the wrong passage, and missed some of them being sourced earlier; I just thought I saw some without citations. But it was a side point anyway. I think the piles and piles of harsh criticisms here and in the recent archives raise far more serious problems than this entire conversation. No one's going to be grossly mislead by Descendents not being mentioned, but many who come here feel that 90% of more of this article it wrong and that it's sources are full of crap. That's a very serious issue, and auto-archiving it all under the rug doesn't do anything to solve it. I also still think that your involvement is too hawkish on this page. Watchlisting is one thing, but compulsion to put down every suggestion that the article isn't perfect is another. Your responses to people here come off as snotty, flippant and dismissive. The archives are a long string of you and not much of anyone but you basically telling everyone else to screw off. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 10:37, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Typo

Under the fashion topic, this sentence is misspelled.

Bright colors, such as blue, pink, red, or bleached blond, are also typical as highlights in emo hairstyles.

It's "Blonde" — Preceding unsigned comment added by XMusicFreakoX (talk • contribs) 01:41, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Either spelling is correct, actually. Many English writers choose to adopt the French convention where applicable, using "blond" to refer to a male's hair and "blonde" to refer to a female's. Here, there is no obvious gender, so it makes sense to use either form. Remember, though, Wikipedia policy is to be bold and try fixing things yourself. If someone disagrees with your edit, they will undo it, and then it is time to go to the talk page.  dalahäst ^{(let's talk!)} 01:47, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Melodic musicianship

Can anyone explain what this phrase is supposed to mean? I removed it and someone reverted that, suggesting that melodic does not mean the same as musicianship, which has nothing to do with the fact that these words together describe pretty much all musical genres to the extent that "melody" is subjective. Any change in tone will produce something that can be termed melody, including percussion. Melodic musicianship sounds like someone couldn't come up with a proper way of describing it, and so lazily put in this redundant phrase. Why should wikipedia contain this redundancy? Ninahexan (talk) 05:11, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

It's not redundant, and it's certainly not lazy. This has been discussed before; It's somewhere in the archives. Musicianship is the craft of playing instruments (as distinct from vocals). Melody is the arrangement of the sounds. "Melodic musicianship" means that the playing of the instruments is arranged in an agreeable (melodic) manner. There are plenty of musicians whose playing is intentionally not melodic. Saying that the musicianship is melodic is not redundant, as melodic is an adjective describing a quality of the musicianship, just as expressive is an adjective describing a quality of the vocals. "Melodic musicianship" = adjective + noun. Simple. --IllaZilla (talk) 10:04, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

The point is that it is too simple, to the point of being redundant. You can give a number of examples of "musicianship" not being melodic, but the fact is that the majority of musical expression with instruments could be described as melodic. If you want to say that this form of music is characterised by melodic musicianship then this is wrong, because that quality is NOT a distinction between this and other genres. Just putting an adjective next to a noun doesn't justify wasting space in wikipedia. "An Inuit is a breathing human" is an example of an adjective and a noun pairing which although intelligible, is rendered meaningless by the lack of distinction it confers relative to the majority of other members of its overall class. Do you now understand? It is not a conflation of musicianship and melodic, but rather that this pairing confers an inadequate distinction between this and the majority of other genres. Ninahexan (talk) 00:51, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

The melody of the instruments, specifically the melodic guitar lines, is mentioned several times throughout the article as one of the style's key characteristics. --IllaZilla (talk) 00:58, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

If there is a particular melody, or melodic structure that characterises the genre then that makes sense, but just to use the word melody without any distinguishing character to it is just using a broad word that provides little meaning. For example, if when describing the transition from a more punk sound to a softer mellow sound then such adjectives would be used to describe the melody, whereas the word melody itself doesn't confer such nuance. I am not saying the musical quality is not melodic, just that melodic itself explains very little.Ninahexan (talk) 02:51, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Let's back up here. Are there sources that discuss the "melodic" nature of the style, and in what context. I agree that "melodic musicianship" is an empty phrase that could be used for most music in the world except maybe for stuff like drone metal or some non-Western indigenous music style. But the important thing is what do the sources say, and do they elaborate on the meaning of the term?--¿3family6 _contribs 03:05, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree - it's a silly phrase that will be meaningless to most readers. As a side point, in Iraq militias are killing emos. Should go in but I'm new to this page so I'll let others decide where.Malick78 (talk) 18:16, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

This is from an MSNBC article: "Originally associated with dense, caustic music and nontraditional song structure (no verse, chorus, verse), emocore stuck with its original definition while indie emo was defined by a more accessible pop sound as heard from bands such as Weezer, Jimmy Eat World, Promise Ring and The Get Up Kids. With accessibility came radio and MTV airplay. Now Emo belonged to the world."

So, "melodic musicianship" is going and I'll put in some words that actually attempt to differentiate the genre from the majority of other musical styles. Unless someone has any cogent argument?Ninahexan (talk) 22:14, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Care to provide a link to that article? --IllaZilla (talk) 05:07, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm a bit late to the discussion here, but I think the term "melodic musicianship" is far from meaningless or empty. I see it as sort of a counterpoint to other terms, like "rhythmic musicianship". Some musicians, bands, etc are focused more on melody, some are focused more on rhythm. Others consistently blend the two, while still others alternate between them. To me saying that emo is characterized by melodic musicianship just means that it emphasizes melody more than other properties of music. I think the bass guitar is a perfect example of this; many bassists focus on a very rhythmic, percussive style, but many others play intricate melodies on the instrument as well. 131.151.79.241 (talk) 21:13, 30 May 2012 (UTC)