PRE-MO DREAMO EMO SCREAMO GLEAMO FE-MO RAP! … Real Emo DOESN'T EXIST | MUSIC is not a GENRE - Season 4 Episode #30

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FEATURED MUSIC:

REC – “Break You” (from Parts and Labour)

REC – “Suddenly” (from Synergy for the Weird)

NICK – “Your Sweetness” (from Your EP)

See that link right above this line? It makes me feel … whatever. Basically, I get all “emo” whenever someone tries to define what “emo” is and which bands do or don’t qualify. Not unexpected, I’m sure, since you know well I’ve got issues with “genres”.

As with any genre, one band you’re sure belongs is associated with another band that’s a little different. That band is close to another band etc. etc. until five bands down the line you’ve made it from emo to pop punk to Olivia Rodrigo, or emo to goth punk to The Cure. That said, I’m going to dive headfirst into this swirl of emo shite & hopefully resurface with some actual conclusions.

So what’s up with all the labels in this week’s title? First, it’s a perfect illustration of the mess we get in with this subject. It’s also an abridged history of where emo came from, when it popped (pun intended), and where it’s going.

As to that first thing, your definition of emo depends largely on when you discovered it, possibly more than almost any other type of music. If, like me, you learned about emo in the 1990s, you think of anything before Sunny Day Real Estate as proto-emo, and anything after, say, Jimmy Eat World as NOT emo. If you came to emo in the early 2000s, you’re more likely to call Fall Out Boy & Blink-182 emo acts. Here’s a quick breakdown of what I see as the main emo divisions:

For the FULL BREAKDOWN, including PRE-MO, DREAMO, EMO, SCREAMO, GLEAMO, FE-MO, and EMO RAP, go to: https://www.nickdematteo.com/podcast

So what is “real emo”? If you know MUSIC is not a GENRE, you already know the answer: There IS NO ANSWER. Qualities of emo can be found quite prominently in some 1980s bands, some grunge bands, and quite a bit of pop music. Some pop punk has emo leanings & some doesn’t. Some metal & prog bands are emo-adjacent. Others aren’t. What makes all this fun is finding the threads & following them until you hit on the “emo” that fits you.

You can argue that I was doing emo as early as Sunny Day, such as the song “Your Sweetness” (several years before Jimmy Eat World’s “Sweetness”, btw), but really the influence doesn’t pop up prominently until REC’s Parts and Labour, with the first song being the hands down best example of how emo REC can be. The second song is more in the line of “GLEAMO” than “EMO”. And the third one is the aforementioned “Your Sweetness”, from all the way back in 1996.

Do you know any of the music of the bands I profiled? What do you consider “real emo”? Do you think emo can be clearly defined, and if so which bands would qualify? Discuss dammit!

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