page_title: Emo
section_title: Characteristics
hierarchical_section_title: Emo / Characteristics
caption_attribution_description: Photo of Hawthorne Heights taken on April 14, 2007 at the en:University of Scranton by a member of the University of Scranton Programming Board.
context_page_description: Emo is a rock music genre characterized by an emphasis on emotional expression, sometimes through confessional lyrics. It emerged as a style of post-hardcore from the mid-1980s hardcore punk movement in Washington, D.C., where it was known as emotional hardcore or emocore and pioneered by bands such as Rites of Spring and Embrace. In the early–mid 1990s, emo was adopted and reinvented by alternative rock, indie rock and pop punk bands such as Sunny Day Real Estate, Jawbreaker, Weezer and Jimmy Eat World, with Weezer breaking into the mainstream during this time. By the mid-1990s, bands such as Braid, the Promise Ring and the Get Up Kids emerged from the burgeoning Midwest emo scene, and several independent record labels began to specialize in the genre. Meanwhile, screamo, a more aggressive style of emo using screamed vocals, also emerged, pioneered by the San Diego bands Heroin and Antioch Arrow. Screamo achieved mainstream success in the 2000s with bands like Hawthorne Heights, Silverstein, Story of the Year, Thursday, The Used, and Underoath.
context_section_description: Emo originated in hardcore punk and is considered a form of post-hardcore. Nonetheless, emo has also been considered a genre of alternative rock, indie rock and pop punk. Emo uses the guitar dynamics that use both the softness and loudness of punk rock music. Some emo leans uses characteristics of progressive music with the genre's use of complex guitar work, unorthodox song structures, and extreme dynamic shifts.
  Lyrics, a focus in emo music, are typically emotional and often personal or confessional, dealing with topics such as failed romance, self-loathing, pain, insecurity, suicidal thoughts, love, and relationships. AllMusic described emo lyrics as "usually either free-associative poetry or intimate confessionals". Early emo bands were hardcore punk bands that used melody and emotional or introspective lyrics and that were less structured than regular hardcore punk, making early emo bands different from the aggression, anger, and verse-chorus-verse structures of regular hardcore punk.
  According to AllMusic, most 1990s emo bands "borrowed from some combination of Fugazi, Sunny Day Real Estate, and Weezer". The New York Times described emo as "emotional punk or post-hardcore or pop-punk. That is, punk that wears its heart on its sleeve and tries a little tenderness to leaven its sonic attack. If it helps, imagine Ricky Nelson singing in the Sex Pistols." Author Matt Diehl called emo a "more sensitive interpolation of punk's mission". According to Merriam-Webster, emo is "a style of rock music influenced by punk rock and featuring introspective and emotionally fraught lyrics".
caption: The emo band Hawthorne Heights in 2007
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