Well, emo was originally short for emotive rock, which was a subgenre of hardcore. The term was (mis)appropriated around the time Bright Eyes and Death Cab and Dashboard came out for the kind of lyrically intelligent, slightly maudlin indie pop gone mainstream. It started to get used for Fall Out Boy specifically post "Take This To Your Grave" and into "From Under the Cork Tree" around the time of Pete Wentz's incident with prescription medication. Funny, that. Before then they were pretty clearly in the pop-punk category; Pete has said that he and Joe wanted to put together a band like Good Charlotte, which is a pretty clear indication of where they wanted to put their genre label.
This is also pretty closely related with the mainstream media generally (mis)labeling contemporary goth-adjacent rock as emo, probably because media thinks goth looks sad and sadness is apparently a characteristic of emo. Or something. I don't really understand the mainstream media. So by 2005 (at the latest) you had three threads of contemporary media that all got stuck with the emo label--slow singer-songwriter indie pop, the bitter, clever lyricism of Fall Out Boy, and the fashion and imagery of My Chemical Romance. (I am disincluding Evanescence here on purpose.) The result is a shambolic attempt to slap "emo" on anything wearing eyeliner, writing about sad or bitter things, or wearing black.
Predictably that doesn't work terribly well in practice, especially when the term itself was pulled from a subgenre that it is no longer is correctly applied to anymore. Pete rightly pointed out in some interview that most of what people write songs about is emotional stuff, so
everything
is emo.
Granted, emo as a descriptor, while nonsuccessfully applied to music, can serve as an accurate enough term for a style that fits snugly between hipster and goth.
Gerard ranting about other band's roadies trying to get girls to flash them for backstage passes.
[link]
There is audio of that. It kicks in at :28 and goes to 1:08
... um, why does she owe me a cookie?
She promised a cookie to the first person to use the term "stagegay" in the music thread.
"I wish my lawn was emo so it would cut itself."
I totally laugh at that, too.
And once again, SA for the win.
Granted, emo as a descriptor, while nonsuccessfully applied to music, can serve as an accurate enough term for a style that fits snugly between hipster and goth.
V. true. I was going to say that "emo is the new goth" in terms of a group of young people mocked for eyeliner and depressive tendencies (and boykissing) , but that's more accurate.
She promised a cookie to the first person to use the term "stagegay" in the music thread.
Awesome!
I was going to say that "emo is the new goth" in terms of a group of young people mocked for eyeliner and depressive tendencies (and boykissing) , but that's more accurate.
Yep, which is also why a lot of ElderGoths get cranky about emo. We look at the emokids and go, "waitaminute, aren't you just confused babygoths?"
We look at the emokids and go, "waitaminute, aren't you just confused babygoths?"
But they don't like bats! (Waitaminnit.) But they don't spend as much time on their hair! (Um.)
I got nothin'.
(Note: I'm being very tongue-in-cheek here. With no core of intelligence, therefore unlike Saporta.)
Mmm, but I wouldn't argue that emo is confused babygoth because there are particular style distinctions that differ from the goth style ethos. There are just as many things lifted from hipster and indie scene kids as there are from goth style. I'd have to sit down and have a think about specifics, but I can look at a hipster kid, an emo kid, and a goth kid and definitely tell the difference.
I can look at a hipster kid, an emo kid, and a goth kid and definitely tell the difference.
More importantly, who would win in a fight?
Whichever one has the most buzznet sockpuppets.
most of the bandom bands are fiercely against both, and frequently say things (in interviews, on stage) to change people's perceptions.
My Chem wants to Save Your Life, and they're completely non-ironic about it. To quote Gerard: "We've always been pretty vocal about our message... just to know that it's okay to be messed up, cause there's five dudes that are just as messed up as you, and we've overcome that in order to do what we do."
A lot of people are drawn to the idea behind the band as much as they are to the music.
