A truely talented punk rock band formed in 1984 in Washington DC. They are credited with defining "emo".
By this I mean the true and original emo. Not the emo we all know of now days as Hawthorne Heights and Dashboard Confessional, where cutting wrists and wearing eyeliner is the main theme.
When Rites Of Spring banded, the main music at the
time was punk rock. But Rites Of Spring took punk music a step further by integrating love into their lyrics. They wrote love songs that still had the punk flare if the '80s in them. Along with highly emotional performances that were more emotional than most bands at the
time. And that is what emo really is. A musical genre. Not wearing girl pants and thinking you're life is so miserable.
The word emo supposedly came from the word emocore, which was
short for the genre that the Rites Of Spring fit into: Emotional
Hardcore. Throughout the '80s and early '90s, that is all the word emo was. But then came the 2000s, and the word emo was slowly becoming a new word with a completely different definition. Modern mainstream bands were inspired by the past emo musical genre. They played it in their own way while changing it. Then came the emo kids. The emo kids usually followed and listened to the newer bands that took after and raped the old emo. A general emo kid consisted of the following things, give or take a few:
- Converse shoes
- (On guys) Girl pants
- Hair covering the eyes
- Band T-Shirts
- Dyed hair, usually black and sometimes mixed with
red, brown,
blonde, etc
- Often
lonely and misunderstood
- Sweaters/hoodys
- Lip, eyebrow, ear, labret and sometimes tongue piercings
For
whatever reason, people began using the term emo to describe people who listened to or followed modern emo bands: the emo kids. The original meaning of emo was forgotten and replaced by the definitions you now see on this website. A band being the modern definition of emo is now a bad thing and is often frowned upon or recoiled at. Examples for "emo" bands are as follow:
"Taking Back Sunday? Pfft. They suck.
Fucking emo bands."
"hawthorne heightso is so emo, omagahzz cut mai rists n blak me eyes </3"
"Thursday is so emo! I love them!!!"
And examples of negative thoughts towards so called emo kids:
"Cheer up, emo kids."
"Dude, see that kid over there with the Taking Back Sunday shirt, dyed
red & black hair, eyeliner, converse and girl pants sitting in the corner alone over there? What a fucking
stupid emo
fag."
"Emo kid: I'm so different. Nobody understands me. Nobody gets me. I HATE MY LIFE. *Slits wrist with a razor blade*"
I gag whenever I hear someone describe a modern band from the 2000s and late '90s as emo. The modern
society of teenagers have no idea what the true definition of emo is, where it came from and what it really meant. I just wish the world could know about all of this so that this so called emo plague that has spread over the globe can finally cease.
I just don't understand how the world could turn a musical genre into an insult. What a damn shame.
I'm sure I didn't do a very good job or pay much attention to detail. If you really feel
like learning more about the origin of emo, refer to http://www.
Wikipedia.org and look up "emo"
TRUE: Rites Of Spring, Embrace, Dag Nasty.
FALSE: Taking Back Sunday, Thursday,
Dashboard Confessional, Thrice, Fall Out Boy, The Used, My Chemical Romance, Matchbook Romance, Bright Eyes, Angels & Airwaves, The Get Up Kids, Hawthorne Heights, Coheed And Cambria, Saosin, Saves The
Day, Silverstein, The Starting Line, The Used, The Early November, and much much more that I simply cannot think of at this moment.
