Talk:Emo/Archive 7

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New picture

Please link this picture in this arcticle: File:Emo kid.jpg There aren't any presentable pictures about emos in this arcticle. So I think this picture will really show how the real emo kids appear. Thanks. I cant edit this arcticle, i dont know why. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Christo161 (talk • contribs) 01:51, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

This isn't Flickr, or Myspace. We're not here to plaster pictures of "real emo kids". There's really nothing in the article that's properly referenced to reliable sources that this picture would serve to support. I hardly think some generic picture of an average teenager holding a giant cardboard Final Fantasy sword is going to add anything informative to this article. --IllaZilla (talk) 02:51, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Okay, sorry. But on this guy there are almost all preferences of emo style. Honestly, he was my best friend and he is dead, and I wanted to keep his memories... Of course I understand your reasons. It's a pity. --Christo161 02:33, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

I understand your reasons, but Wikipedia is not a memorial site. --IllaZilla (talk) 06:55, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

He's not really the steryotypical emo. A picture of such a person would be good I think (or a cartoon of it or something) but thats not it. --Him and a dog 06:36, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Added Template:Notaforum

I hope that nobody minds I added {{notaforum}}, because although I haven't visited the article or edited it prior to adding the aforementioned template, I'm pretty sure the talk page gets plenty of comments from people complaining about what emo is or isn't. --Whip it! ^{Now whip it good!} 07:25, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

It does, but we usually just revert them outright. The talk page header already has the "not a forum" message in it, so I'm not certain that a separate template is really necessary. But I'll leave it. --IllaZilla (talk) 08:11, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Citations

IllaZilla, alright I think I will no longer try to butt heads with you. Instead, I will ask for your assistence. I just once again edited the Emo "backlash" section by re-inserting portions that were removed. I need your help because I don't know how to format the parts where those little numbers pop-up which cites the articles referenced.

Here is what I added in brackets: In 2008, Time Magazine reported that "anti-emo" groups attacked teenagers in Mexico City, Querétaro, and Tijuana.[32][33] One of Mexico's foremost critics of emo was Kristoff, a music presenter on the popular TV channel Telehit. (In a rant packed with curses, Kristoff said Emo was "fucking bullshit" and just a worthless movement of pubescent girls who fancied the lead singers of bands.)

Combined from two Sources: [1] and [2]

(Many deride emos for being posers who are overly sentimental and accuse them of robbing from other music genres.)

From one source: [3]

These are virtually word for word additions extracted from those articles.

Thank you beforehand, IllaZilla! I hope no one removes those again, since they are sourced, both LA Weekly and Time Magazine. --Tommy the Dressmaker (talk) 05:30, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I removed them before I noticed this message. If you would like to learn how to cite sources on wikipedia, please read WP:CITE. If you are still having difficulty after reading that, ask again and I'll be happy to help you with citation formats. --IllaZilla (talk) 06:55, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Dude, I don't why you removed the posts and simply could not have returned them to their original form since you say every edit is logged on in the archives somewhere. And besides, the edits I included were also put up on the discussion page so you could have just copied and pasted it.

And if you had actually read the two articles in Time Magazine and the LA Weekly you would have seen they were already referenced and had references up there before but someone else took them down. I think the reason why they get delted is because it was a little too close to the truth and hard hitting against the emo/scene posers to whom this backlash is directed. --Tommy the Dressmaker (talk) 03:41, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Here was your edit, and here's why I reverted it:

1. In the first sentence you used a direct quote as well as a summary paraphrase, without citing any source. This is against the verifiability policy.
2. In the second sentence you made another unreferenced generalization.

Since neither statement had a reference, I reverted the edit outright. This was before I noticed that you had posted the references here on the talk page. When I noticed that, I gave you instructions (above) on how to re-add the information with proper citations, and invited you to ask for help if you had trouble adding them. I'm trying to teach you how to fish here, "dude". If you would like the information to be in the article, read WP:CITE and add it with citations. Nobody here seems interested in doing it for you. --IllaZilla (talk) 04:18, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Article/source discrepancy

The article that Wikipedia cites gives the OPPOSITE chronology of what the Wikipedia article says

In the mid-1980s, the term emo described a subgenre of hardcore punk which stemmed from the Washington, D.C. hardcore scene. In later years, the term emocore, short for "emotional hardcore",[2][3] [emphasis added by me]

Citation #2 clearly states that the genre/term "emo" came about AFTER "emocore". Also, I was there (the DC hardcore scene), and I own about half the 80's Discord Records on vinyl ;-) yet I never heard anyone use the term "emo" until the late 90's or 2000's: As the article Wikipedia links to says, the term "emocore" came FIRST. You'll also never find the term "emo" in the Rites of Spring etc records (that were pressed in the 1980's anyhow). The term "emo" DIDN'T EXIST in the 1980's. so the last thing I blockquoted should read:

The term emo describes..." (delete "In the 1980's..." )

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.155.22.160 (talk • contribs) 13:43, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Yeah this poster is correct. Here is a link to Ian Mackaye speaking about EMO-CORE and uses the phrase EMO-CORE several times but only uses the abbreviated term "EMO" one time when mentioning Emo Phillips. So it seems Emo-Core was first and EMO only later on. [4] --Tommy the Dressmaker (talk) 03:37, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Emo subculture

I would suggest if there would be a separate article for the emo subculture, as the emo music genre and the emo subculture are two different topics, as for me, being a user that would be considered emo, I would generally think that this should be in order. GunMetal Angel 18:22, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

That topic's been beaten to death many times over. See the "Actually a Subculture?" section above, for example. Also see these discussions in the archives: [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]. The topic has been contentious, but the general consensus (which I happen to agree with) is that there simply aren't enough reliable sources to verify that there is such a thing as an "emo subculture" or to write an encyclopedia article about it. What few sources have turned up have been rather weak and insufficient to base an article on. It's also probably worth considering the meaning of subculture. "Emo", whether you mean it in terms of music, fashion, culture, or all 3, is almost entirely mainstream in 2009. It would be extremely difficult to make the case that music, styles of dress, and modes of culture that are currently popular and practiced around the world could be considered a "subculture". Bottom line: You've got to do the research and find sufficient reliable sources first before you can consider splitting or creating a new article topic like that. --IllaZilla (talk) 20:49, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Gunmetal is right. Look at the LA Weekly, Time Magazine and NME articles, they all say that Emo is a subculture. I also wanted to add the statement here that GunMetal Angel is no proxy of mine nor is anyone else since I don't really know how to communicate with other people who post on WIKI. --Tommy the Dressmaker (talk) 01:25, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I've looked at them. Frankly, there's not enough there to build a separate article around. That's my main point here: that even if you can make a convincing case for calling it a "subculture", there's still not enough verifiable material about it to warrant splitting it off into an independent article. Look at Punk rock#Visual and other elements: I can hardly imagine that you'd be able to come up with a larger (well-written and referenced) section than that describing the "subculture" aspects (ie. fashion, trends, etc) of emo that would justify a completely separate article on the subject. --IllaZilla (talk) 01:54, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Upon how many emo kids there are every day, deciding to be in the subculture, or otherwise not completely in the subculture, but the fashion; there definitely is a way to do this [make the article], we have plenty of "emo" characters that have put themselves upon the web for exampling[10][11][12] [13] (hell, I would out-of-characteristic make a thread on a forum to show people what emos are really like including a picture of me, along with two of my friends who are as well in the emo subculture). And now as for the bottom line, I would very-much agree with any third-party emo that would agree with an article such as this being created, such as we have lots of forums, and we have plenty of Google search results for "emo". GunMetal Angel 21:40, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Please read Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:Reliable sources. There is absolutely no way that completely common, cliché MySpace-type photos, "emo" messageboard forums, or most of what you would find in a Google search for "emo" would even remotely qualify as reliable sources. In order to write an encyclopedia article about an "emo subculture" you need reliable, published third-party sources such as books, academic journal articles, (reliable) magazine articles (such as from nationally-published music criticism magazines), etc. If you were to write an article, or even add to this one, using what you've presented above as "sources", I promise you it would be deleted in a heartbeat. --IllaZilla (talk) 22:08, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

[The first statement] if said in that way, everything seems like it's as weak as a toothpick, but I assure you, if I (or somebody else) was able to do this, it wouldn't generally be that hard, I mean I will agree a magazine's official website feels like a bit of a more structured source, however, I'd say reliable sources wouldn't be too dificult gain, the emo subculture is made of kids, and created from kids; why should we have to scatter around so much for sources upon making an encylopedic-article? GunMetal Angel 00:35, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

"The emo subculture is made of kids, and created from kids." – Look, I'm not insulting you because of your age, I'm really not, but the term "emo" (in reference to both music and associated elements like fashion & culture) has been around for something like 25 years. It is not "made of kids, and created from kids". It has a long history, and it's important to remember that, like other labels such as "punk" or even "pop", it means different things to different generations of people.

The bottom line is that to write an encyclopedia article on Wikipedia, all of the information in that article has to be verified by reliable sources. Just because you consider yourself "emo", and you feel there are a lot of other "emo kids" out there, doesn't mean it's appropriate to try to launch an article about it. If you look over the previous discussions on this talk page and in its archives, you'll see that truly reliable sources describing an "emo subculture" are, at best, difficult to find. Trying to write an article just based on the opinions of "emo kids" would be original research. Books, journals, reliably-researched magazine articles, music critics...these are all reliable sources. MySpaces, fanzines, random websites, blogs, forums, and "the kids" are not reliable sources. If you feel you can find actual reliable sources from which to source an article about "emo subculture", by all means present them here. But they're going to have to be a heck of a lot better than anything you've suggested so far, because thus far it's all been, in your words, "as weak as a toothpick". --IllaZilla (talk) 01:46, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

You seem to be trying to get-at something that I didn't even mean, I could be 25-years old, not be emo, and I'd still state that, and MySpace profiles, blogs or just general emos isn't what I meant, what I meant is I would like to find something among a source that was written by emos (or former emos) for the emos, there's really nothing better in the concept of speech in which somebody stating something that actually knows what it is and what it's like and has "been there". And above all, I really never had any intention to make an article such as this if it would become this much requirements. -~- GunMetal Angel 17:41, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

OK, sorry, I think I misinterpreted what it was you were getting at. Even so, "a source written by emos, for emos" doesn't sound like the type of source that would be appropriate for writing an article in an encyclopedia (I mean, imagine what the punk rock article would look like if it relied on sources that were "by punx, for punx", or what Nirvana (band) would look like if all of its source material were "by Nirvana fans, for Nirvana fans"). If you're talking about some kind of professional article that includes interviews, etc., then absolutely that's fine. But if you're talking about fanzines, emo fan sites, etc. that's not going to cut it. There are plenty of good, solid sources out there that use interviews with people who've "been there", and those can be used as sources here because the book/magazine/website has a reliable publication process, a history of fact-checking, and editorial oversight.

Try to think of this as though you were writing a college-level research paper – you need to find at least several academic sources put out by reliable publishers, otherwise you don't have much to go on. Again, Wikipedia:Reliable sources is a really good guide to the kinds of sources that are and aren't appropriate for this type of thing. Obviously not all articles start out with this kind of good sourcing, but over time if no sources of this caliber turn up then the article stands little chance of ever being well-developed and is eventually deleted or merged into a larger article. --IllaZilla (talk) 19:32, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

IllaZilla, once again, I don't want to fight anymore. My months vacation from wiki has made me realize certain truths. Number one, I am generally correct but I don't have the energy or patience or desire to write the wiki article because, at root, I hate emo/scene kids and generally they should be allowed to wallow in their ignorance about what Emo means or doesn't mean. But I do have a problem with your statement, if you will indulge me: You say that there is not enough information in the wiki article to built a new page on the Emo subculture? I think this is strange considering that wikipedia has Emo down as a subculture in its very list of subcultures! [14] Answer that for me?

Having said that, I should add that the main driving force for restricting Emo to the music genre is because once there is an actual subculture page all the attention from the emo/scene kids will be direct there and no longer here: since it is primarily a fashion/subculture thing and not a music style, per se. I say this because most of the media coverage deals with the 2000's on Emo. Undisputed.

Thank you GunmetalAngel for keeping up the good fight. --Tommy the Dressmaker (talk) 05:42, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

"It's listed elsewhere on wiki" is not a valid reason to launch a new article. The fact that there are a few sources out there that use the words "emo" and "subculture" together does not mean that there is enough verifiable material around which to write an entire article about "emo subculture". There is absolutely no reason that the culture/fashion/other non-musical aspects of emo cannot be adequately covered here in this article. Per the summary style guidlines, which I happen to agree with wholeheartedly, we should develop content in the main article first, then decide if splitting it off into a separate article is appropriate. Splitting it now, when there is so little referenced content in the article discussing emo in terms of culture/fashion/etc, would be putting the cart before the horse. --IllaZilla (talk) 06:53, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

I have to agree with IllaZilla, the "emo" style is currently far too widespread to be considered an actual subculture. --Metalhead94 (talk) 21:36, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Talk:Emo_(slang)#The_sources_for_emo_being_a_subculture - this talk page is a good starting point for those wishing to make the case that emo is a subculture. That emo is not a subculture has never been subject to consensus it just wound up that all the people who believed it was not a subculture had more energy than those of us that believed it was a subculture. A while back we had two separate articles so we could focus on just the music in one article and all the other stuff in another article - it made for better articles and more peace but was later abandoned for some reason (I still don't fully grasp). --Cedars (talk) 11:31, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

If you indeed have sufficient reliable sources, then there is nothing stopping you from writing an awesome referenced section about the fashion/culture aspects of emo in this article. If that section grows to the point where it looks like it could stand alone, then we can discuss splitting it off into its own article per the summary style guideline. At this point, though, this article is pretty short and there is no reason that these aspects could not be adequately covered in it. Also, reading over this, I'm not convinced that most of those sources are reliable. This is not some contest about "who can argue the longest until the other guy gives up". It's about who's actually willing to do the research, write the content, and add the citations. If you have that dedication, then go for it. Thus far, for all the people crying out about "emo is a subculture" and claiming they have these great sources, I've seen very little attempt on the part of that faction to actually expand and improve this article. Be a trailblazer. Take your sources, open up a user subpage, and work on writing something that'll blow the naysayers away. --IllaZilla (talk) 17:03, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

This is not some contest about "who can argue the longest until the other guy gives up".' - you're new around here aren't you? :-) On a more serious note, this is actually more than has ever been offered since the pre-Cheeser days. With this invitation, I think there is a real chance for people to improve this article in substantive way. That would be a huge step forward for an article which only a few months ago carried the statement "fans of emo are also often presumed by others to be homosexual or bisexual" [15]. Cedars (talk) 05:52, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Far from new, just a bit more idealistic I hope ;) There is no reason that constructive, good faith contributions should be dismissed outright, and we should always encourage editors to research more, write better, and work on the path to becoming great and lasting contributors. Of course, there is also something to be said about undue weight and "making the sources say what you want them to say". You cannot do proper research if you already have your conclusion in mind. If my goal is to prove that "emo is a subculture", and I only look for sources that use the words "emo" and "subculture" in them, I am of course going to find plenty. But whether those sources are realiable for sourcing an encyclopedia article is debatable.

Keep in mind, also, that for every source you may find that says "emo subculture", there may be dozens more that do not call it a subculture, or describe it as something else entirely. For example, a google search for "emo+mainstream" returns 678,000 results and "emo+trend" returns 541,000, while "emo+culture" gets around half that with 298,000 and "emo+subculture" gets even less with 205,000. Not that these results tell us anything about the reliability of the sources, but it is a very rough way of getting a feel for the proportion of sources that say it's a subculture vs. those that say it's something else. Not that I'm trying to prevent anyone from writing about the subcultural aspects of emo, but I'm willing to bet that if I were so inclined I could write an equally or even more compelling section saying that it is entirely mainstream. Just something to keep in mind when you're using sources to promote a particular viewpoint, as I have noticed a number of editors doing in these discussions. --IllaZilla (talk) 10:07, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Just wanted to note, I have done a lot of archiving and archive cleanup of the old "Emo (slang)" talk page. The discussion Cedars refers to can now be found at Talk:Emo (slang)/Archive 6#The sources for emo being a subculture. --IllaZilla (talk) 00:34, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Merging this article with What Is Emo

What Is Emo is a newly created article, which seems to have some good, reliably verifiable content. It is redundant to this article, however, but I'm thinking that it would be an idea to merge the two. I know little about the subject, however, so I figure someone else should do it. -Lilac Soul ^{(talk • contribs • count)} 06:57, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Merge any verifiable content referenced to reliable sources into this article, then nominate the What Is Emo article for deletion. There is no way an article by that title should be allowed to stay. On a cursory glance, though, I think only 1 of that article's sources is reliable (the MTV article). The rest are personal websites, blogs, etc...total garbage from an encyclopedic standpoint. Yes, we all love fourfa.com, but it is nonetheless a personal website with no established reputation for fact-checking or accuracy, and should not be used as a source for Wikipedia. I would say that, given its current state and complete redundancy to this article, it could be taken to AfD right now. --IllaZilla (talk) 07:27, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Note: I have nominated the article for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/What Is Emo. Please comment there. After removing all of the unreliable sources from the article, all that is left is text that merely parrots what is already in this article, and 2 references that are already used in this article as well. --IllaZilla (talk) 23:34, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Inappropriately locked and still containing countless errors, flaws and contradictions

The fact that this article is locked is nothing short of ridiculous, the amount of unjustified and clearly flawed information is a travesty and requires much reworking and vital improvements to the accuracy of many sections. Origins of the emo genre have absolutely nothing to do with the hardcore and in fact existed before the evolution of punk into hardcore occurred on the east coast in the late 1970's. New wave rock bands such as The Cure are the first examples of emo, appearing in the mid 70s. Furthermore, allmusic is a terrible source and is discounted as a reliable reference in almost every decent music related article on Wikipedia. If this ignorance and oppression towards those wishing to make legitimate, justified and educated additions to the article continues, moderators will be contacted and further action will be taken.. --PinkTentacle (talk) 03:53, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

It's not "locked", it's semi-protected. This means that it is only protected from being edited by anonymous users and accounts that are not autoconfirmed. You are unable to edit it because your account is new, but after a few days or a certain number of edits you will be autoconfirmed and able to edit semi-protected pages like this one. This is a way of protecting frequently-vandalized articles like this one from persistent vandalism by anonymous and malicious users (ie. vandals who create one-off accounts for the purpose of vandalism).

Speaking as someone with plenty of background knowlege of emo and hardcore, I must say your statement that "Origins of the emo genre have absolutely nothing to do with hardcore" is completely incorrect. Emo is almost universally acknowledged to have originated in the Washington, DC hardcore scene of the early- to mid-1980s, with bands like Embrace and Rites of Spring. I have never seen a source on emo trace its origins to the mid-1970s or to The Cure. The Cure are nearly universally recognized as progenitors of new wave and gothic rock, not emo (in fact the word "emo" does not even appear anywhere in the Wikipedia article on The Cure). If you have a reliable source which describes The Cure as "the first example of emo", I would certainly be interested to see it. I am not speaking merely from opinion on this; I have read several books and other reliably published sources which verify that the genre known as "emo" originated from hardcore punk. Some sources I have on-hand, for example, include:

• Azerrad, Michael (2001). Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground 1981–1991. New York: Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 0316787531.
• Blush, Steven (2001). American Hardcore: A Tribal History. New York: Feral House. ISBN 0-922925-71-7. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: checksum (help)
• Greenwald, Andy (2003). Nothing Feels Good: Punk Rock, Teenagers, and Emo. New York: St. Martin's Griffin. ISBN 031230863. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: length (help)

Now, I grant you that the article is far from ideal at this point, and really needs solid sources like the ones above to be brought to bear on it (in place of more tenuous internet sources, though I haven't really seen evidence to back up your claim that "allmusic is a terrible source and is discounted as a reliable reference in almost every decent music related article on Wikipedia"...I see it used as a source rather regularly in both good and featured articles, albeit usually alongside sources that I would consider of higher caliber). I plan on doing that, but it is not a task any editor can do alone (particularly me, since I have a graduate thesis to work on). In the interest of bringing wider community support to this and other emo-related articles, I have recently done a major overhaul of WikiProject Emo with this article as one of its top-priorty tasks. If you are interested, please visit the project page and join up. Together I'm certain we can all improve this article to good article, and hopefully eventually featured article status. --IllaZilla (talk) 04:42, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Message from WikiProject Emo

Hello!

Editors of this article may be interested to know that WikiProject Emo has recently undergone a major revitalization. Please visit the project page to see our new look and check out some of our helpful new features, such as the Assessment Department and the Collaboration of the month.

We are currently holding a membership drive to increase our number of active contributors, as well as a roll call to see how many of our past members are still active. If you would like to join, please add your name to the Participants page along with a brief summary of your emo-related interests. Also please visit the project's talk page and add your signature to the roll sheet to express your continued interest in the project.

Thank you and we hope you will support WikiProject Emo! --IllaZilla (talk) 04:55, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Notes on "Nothing Feels Good" by Andy Greenwald

In looking at the sources that Cedars refers to in the above "Emo subculture" section, I wanted to discuss one in particular. The sources can be seen here, and most of them have been discussed ad nauseum in those archives as well as the ones for this talk page, but there is one that has not been much discussed that I would like to touch on, which is Nothing Feels Good: Punk Rock, Teenagers, and Emo by Andy Greenwald. This is really a great source for tracing the history of emo. It covers all the waves of the genre from its origins in early-80s DC to the book's publication date of 2003, as well as many of the cultural, fashion, and other aspects related to it (including several chapters exploring the relationship between teenagers and emo). (From the jacket:) Greenwald himself is a senior contributing writer at Spin whose writing has also appeared in The Village Voice and The Washington Post, and he has made numerous appearances on MTV, VH1, the BBC, and ABC Radio. He is definitely a reliable, published source in this field (his website is here). I've read the book 2 or 3 times in the last few years, and when I have more time on my hands I will certainly try to use it as a source to improve this article.

That said, the archived discussions focus on 2 passages from the book in an attempt to make the case that it is a source for emo being a "subculture", and I feel that this is taking the source out of context. The 2 passages referred to are:

• But over the course of getting to know them I discovered an entire subculture-and that's what I came to see emo as. It's not a genre. It's a subculture. (p. 37)
• ...what was once a subculture...is now something completely new and unexplored: a national subculture dominated by those too young to have their voices heard, but savvy enough to make their presence felt. (p. 58)

Now it's pretty obvious to me that someone who was looking to make the case for emo as a subculture simply did a Google book search for "emo+subculture" and found these passages. But in doing so they are being taken out of context, because in the book (which is sitting open in front of me right now) the first passage is not attributed to Greenwald but to a person he is interviewing, and the second refers not to emo but to punk rock. Here are the passages in context, somewhat abbreviated for length:

• Chris Ryan was 19 years old when he moved from Philadelphia to Boston in 1996 to attend college..."When I got to Boston," he remembers, "I was entirely by myself. Eventually, I met a couple of guys in classes and we bonded over music...I remember walking down the street one day and they were talking about the Promise Ring, who I had never heard of. They told me it was an emo band and I was like, 'What's an emo band?' and they didn't know! Even then you couldn't say what it was. But over the course of getting to know them I discovered an entire subculture–and that's what I came to see emo as. It's not a genre. It's a subculture." (p. 37)

Note that this statement cannot be attributed to Greenwald, but to Ryan, and that he is talking about 1996 rather than the present. However, according to the rest of the passage Ryan is now a rock critic in New York, so futher searching may be able to turn up more of his thoughts on emo.

• Punk rock has changed the internet and the internet has fundamentally changed punk rock. What was once a subculture, dominated by regionality, is now something completely new and unexplored: a national subculture, dominated and defined by those too young to have their voices heard, but savvy enough to make their presence felt. (p. 58)

This statement is attributable to Greenwald himself, but note that he is explicitly talking about punk rock, not emo. Now, the book as a whole discusses emo largely in the context of punk rock, but I think taking this passage to state that "emo is a subculture" is not entirely genuine. He is saying that punk rock as a whole, thanks to the internet, is a "national subculture" whereas it was previously defined by regional scenes.

Now, it's been a while since I read the book through so I'm not sure if it mentions "subculture" anywhere else, but i'm pretty certain that if it did then whoever did the Google book search originally would have found some more quotes to that effect. I still intend to use it as a source to improve the article (not right now, but when I have more time), and there may be more material in it that discusses emo in the context of a subculture, but I feel that using the 2 passages above to simply state that "emo is a subculture" is taking them out of context and is incorrect for the reasons I have explained. --IllaZilla (talk) 00:47, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I looked through the book again, and I found another reference to subculture right in the introductory chapter. This is pretty solidly against the case for labeling emo as a subculture, as Greenwald specifically says that emo is "too far-reaching to be a subculture":

In short, everyone has their own emo. It's too contentious, too stylistically and generationally diverse to be a genre, too far-reaching to be a subculture. Emo is an essential element of being a teenager. It is the sound of self-making. Emo—or whatever you call it—doesn't happen on the stage and it doesn't happen in the diary. It happens somewhere between the two. It is the act of reaching out towards something larger to better know yourself. It's the desire to make yourself bigger by making yourself part of something bigger. (p. 5)

Keep in mind this was published in 2003. If emo was "too far-reaching to be a subculture" then, I'm certain we can agree it's even farther-reaching now. It's kind of hard to argue for current emo being a subculture when the bands most often branded with the label—ie. Fall Out Boy and My Chemical Romance—are multi-platinum, world-reknowned acts. Even if you go back 6 years to the time of Greenwald's writing, Jimmy Eat World and Dashboard Confessional were platinum sellers (hence his whole impetus for writing the book). And if you're arguing it based purely on fashion & aesthetics, that's pretty shaky ground. I can't think of a mall (at least in the US) that doesn't have a Hot Topic in it, or a public place/event (school, concert, movie theater, stadium, theme park) that I've been to in the last couple of years where there haven't been at least a dozen people sporting the "emo look". But I digress...my point is that the book Nothing Feels Good is not a good source for claiming that emo is a subculture, because it in fact says the exact opposite. --IllaZilla (talk) 05:34, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Needs proofing & editing

This article needs serious proofing and editing. It is very poorly written. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.104.244.6 (talk • contribs) 14:03, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Could you be more specific (ie. give examples of which parts are poorly written)? I'm afraid this comment isn't very helpful. As you can see, the article is in the middle of a major expansion/revamp. I've been focusing on the lead & History section, and I feel that those are pretty well-written (sans the last 4 paragraphs of the history which I haven't gone over yet). The rest I can't vouch for. But it would help if you could be more constructive with your feedback. --IllaZilla (talk) 16:34, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, Illa. I'd actually go as far as to say much of the article is both outstanding, and well-sourced. (Albert Mond (talk) 01:04, 9 April 2009 (UTC))

Grunge?

I think emo was possibly influenced by grunge (or vice versa) - they both emerged from hardcore punk and they both have emotional lyrics, to name a few similarities. However, this may be inaccurate, and I fail at finding sources, so I am hesitant about adding this. Discuss? SobaNoodle^ForYou 01:17, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, without getting into too much detail, yes grunge had an influence upon emo, but not exactly in the way you're thinking of. There was a definite line of development from early-'80s hardcore to "alternative rock" and on through to grunge, encompassing musical style, lyrical themes, general aesthetics, touring routes, independent record labels, etc. There's a traceable evolutionary line from Minor Threat & Black Flag to Nirvana; in fact that's pretty much the whole thesis of Azerrad's book Our Band Could Be Your Life: tracing the lines of musical development from the end of first-wave punk to Nirvana's explosion into the mainstream. Because of that explosion, underground music was dragged into the limelight & that paved the way for the early-'90s emo bands to gain some national exposure (ie. Jawbreaker getting signed to Geffen & Sunny Day Real Estate getting their video played on MTV). Greenwald's book covers this.

However, I haven't come across anything suggesting that the 2 genres are related by lyrical themes. Yes they both have "emotional" lyrics, but on some level almost all music is "emotional" and the lyrics in grunge really aren't any more or less emotional (in an introspective sense) than those in punk or hardcore. The emotions in grunge are most often angst & anger, whereas the overriding themes in emo are the introspection (ie. "applying big questions to small scenarios"), the deeply personal suject matter, and the connection between the artist & audience on a very basic emotional level. You can see it by looking at some of the albums that were out at the same time: Superunknown, one of the definitive grunge albums, was released the same year as Diary, by the same label (Sub Pop), and both bands (Soundgarden & Sunny Day Real Estate) were from the Seattle area, but the lyrical themes are drastically different. See Superunknown#Music and lyrics...it deals a lot with substance abuse, suicide, and depression. Whereas Diary is about throwing torment to the winds & Jeremy Enigk subsuming himself in something greater. He sings about talking to angels & "losing myself in you" & "in the shadows buried in me lies a child's toy" (tellingly, this prefaces Enigk becoming a born-again Christian). In fact Greenwald's book has a really interesting bit about the members of Sunny Day being backstage at a Nirvana show & being totally bored & unimpressed. At the same time, while Pearl Jam was singing about the pressures of fame and dealing with the resulting loss of privacy (see Vitalogy#Music and lyrics), Jawbreaker was singing "Do you still hate me?" and about being "too old not to get excited about rain and roads, Egyptian ruins, our first kiss" on 24 Hour Revenge Therapy.

So yeah, grunge had an impact on emo, but mainly to the effect of making underground music mainstream. I don't think they were all that similar lyrically & I haven't come across any sources that'd make a strong case for that position. Of course the emo bands of the late '90s & early '00s, who grew up with grunge on the radio, may have drawn mroe influence from it. But I still doubt there are many lyrical similarities. I can't think of many lyrical themes from grunge bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam & Soundgarden that are terribly similar to those in emo bands like the Get Up Kids, Dashboard Confessional, Jimmy Eat World, or Taking Back Sunday. But that's just my own analysis; there may be sources that draw those connections. But if there are I haven't read them. --IllaZilla (talk) 03:48, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I second what IllaZilla said, though I'd also like to add that early emo had a notable effect on grunge acts like Nirvana (Kurt Cobain has openly cited Rites of Spring as an influence). In addition, both were primarily Seattle-based music scenes, with the first emo predating the first grunge by only a few years.(Albert Mond (talk) 05:21, 30 March 2009 (UTC))

"both were primarily Seattle-based music scenes"? The only Seattle-area emo band I've read about are Sunny Day Real Estate. Emo, or emocore, was DC-based & spread west from there. --IllaZilla (talk) 08:28, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Ah. Sorry. Guess I got my Washingtons mixed up for a moment there. Don't know what I was thinking.(Albert Mond (talk) 19:15, 30 March 2009 (UTC))

I disagree with what you have said. I see no grunge influence in any emo music that I hear. It has mostly Pop influence and Punk influence. Emo music sucks. Its so overrated --75.139.103.133 (talk) 12:53, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

In spite of the irrelevance of your last three sentences, in which you unknowingly stated that you've mistaken pop punk (or "emo pop") for emo, I'd like to repeat what I said previously, this time mostly for the sake of argument. Kurt Cobain listed Rites of Spring as the creator of one of his favourite songs. Indeed, there's a resemblance between Bleach-era material and material from Rites (particularly in vocal performance). (Albert Mond (talk) 17:07, 17 April 2009 (UTC))

More sources needed

Adding Greenwald's _Nothing_Feels_Good_ is a vast improvement of this article, but we need to include some other reliable sources by notable writers. Qu1et (talk) 00:16, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree, unfortunately Greenwald's book is the only comprehensive source I have available at this time. Can anyone recommend any other thorough sources? --IllaZilla (talk) 05:47, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

I noticed that the Bibliography mentions Our Band Could Be Your Life, but I don't see it actually cited anywhere. Is there any applicable material in there? Does Greenwald mention any other books in his bibliography? I'll keep my eyes and ears open, and let you know as soon as I come across anything! Qu1et (talk) 14:06, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

There is the book POST - A Look at the Influence of Post-Hardcore 1985-2007. I haven't read it yet (and I really want to), but hopefully if someone were to find this book it could fill in some of the other spaces in the article. Most likely it would have information pertinent to Post-hardcore as well. TheLetterM (talk) 15:36, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm going to add some stuff from Our Band Could Be Your Life once I finish adding from Greenwald, but with regard to emo it only covers the '80s DC stuff ie. Rites of Spring. It doesn't cover the later history. --IllaZilla (talk) 17:45, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Oxford English Dictionary

The OED is a reliable source. If you don't have a subscription, go to your local library; if they don't have a subscription (unlikely), they'll probably have the print version in their reference stacks. Also, it doesn't really contradict the other quotation at all. That source refers to when certain people remember *hearing* the term first used; the OED is only concerned with when a word first appears *in print* (even electronically).

If you can find earlier evidence of the term appearing in print, that can be reliably dated, feel free to cite it! I think lots of people (myself included) would be very interested in that video evidence you mentioned as well. Meanwhile, I can see no reason not to cite the OED in this article.

Respectfully yours,

Webbbbbbber (talk) 15:01, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

According to this the term does not appear in any form in the OED (that link was provided to me by User:Neon white), so I'm confused. In any case I think I'm going to reword it because where you put it it interrupts Greenwald's analysis of the term's origins. As for the video evidence, here is a clip of Embrace from 1986 in which Ian MacKaye talks about "emocore" and "emotional hardcore". He claims to have read the term in reference to his band in an issue of Thrasher. Unfortunately I don't think that's citeable, since it's on Youtube and we don't know the original source of the video, but some digging might be able to find a print interview w/ MacKaye from that period, or possible the Thrasher article he refers to. --IllaZilla (talk) 18:42, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Cool beans on the video find! Hopefully we can find a citeable copy somewhere. In regard to to not being able to find the term on askoxford.com, I went to that website and discovered that it searches the compact OED. You'll need to search the full-on OED to find the entries I found. Your local library should have access--if not, you might need to find a college student somewhere.  :-) You can also find it on the Merriam–Webster website here, but it doesn't provide any information on where they found it.

Hey, let me know if you unearth that Thrasher article! I'll bet the OED editors would be interested! Webbbbbbber (talk) 21:31, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm a grad student, so I'll see if I can check my university's access, or better yet a physical copy. I'd be interested to see that '93 NME article that they say is the first print appearance. Thrasher does have scans online of some of their old issues [16], unfortunately not the ones from '85/'86 which is where I imagine I'd find the article in question. However, here is an article, vetted by MacKaye, which supports the claim that Thrasher first called Embrace "emo-core" and cites the Youtube video as a source. Michael Azerrad also traces use of the term back to '85 in Our Band Could Be Your Life (p. 380), saying that "the term and the approach thrived for at least another fifteen years". He doesn't give an account of where it first appeared in print, but it's clear from these sources (Azzerad, Greenwald, MacKaye) that it was in use as far back as '85 (and had been in use for up to 7 years before the first print usages the OED is giving). --IllaZilla (talk) 22:05, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

I've rewritten/rearranged the paragraph, with additional citations to Azerrad & the MacKaye source. With all respect to the OED and Merriam-Webster, they appear to be incorrect in dating the terms to '92/'93. It's a term that's only come into popular usage in the last 8 or 9 years, so it's not hard to see how there could be confusion about its origins. However a number of primary and secondary sources date it to the mid-1980s. Some of the misconception on the OED end may be from the fact that for at least its first decade of existence the "emo" style was confined to the American underground music scene (at least according to every source I've read...they all place it squarely in the American underground and never mention the UK), so it probably would not have made print usage in the UK until later (Thrasher and other 'zines of the time being produced in limited quantites and now long out of print). Without access to these print media, it's easy to see how they could think its first use was in NME in '95. NME just happened to be a decade late to the game with that particular slang term. --IllaZilla (talk) 23:33, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for all your work! I'm actively hunting down that ellusive Thrasher article, but as you say, it's difficult to find issues from that time period. Webbbbbbber (talk) 03:24, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Hardcore Emo needs mentioning

The early to mid 90's mostly West Coast Hardcore Emo of Heroin, Antioch Arrow, Mohinder, See Saw (westcoast), Honeywell, Swing Kids, and others needs mentioning. Here's a quote from a website that seems to have a logical inclusion of the sub-genre (fourfa.com):

"Heroin, Antioch Arrow, Mohinder, Honeywell, Reach Out, early Portaits of Past, Assfactor 4, Second Story Window, End of the Line, Angel Hair, Swing Kids, Three Studies for a Crucifixion, John Henry West, Guyver-1, Palatka, Coleman, Iconoclast, some Merel, some Clikatat Ikatowi, etc.

-Hinted at in New Jersey in 1990 (Merel, Iconoclast). Starts for real in San Diego in 1991 with Heroin, comes to SF Bay in 1992 (Reach Out, Mohinder, Honeywell, Portraits of Past, John Henry West), hits Philly, Florida, New York, and the rest of the East Coast a little bit.

-Similar to punk vs. hardcore punk - faster, louder, harder, much more intense and single-minded. Most of these bands play extremely fast, and introduce the "chaos" concept to hardcore. This is extremely abrasive music, with vocals screamed at the physical limit of the vocal chords. The guitars are distorted to the point that notes and chords are hard to recognize - although often the guitarists don't even play notes, instead making piercing, staccato bursts of noise, squeals of deafening feedback, or a wash of strummed dissonance. The bass often has quite a bit of distortion as well, unlike straight emo. This is everything emo done more so - sometimes so totally over the top that the band 's songs are not even recognizable when performing live. Antioch Arrow, for instance, thrashed about so much on stage that they sounded less like a band than a giant amplified blender. After each song, they had to retune every string, and usually had knocked over a good fraction of their equipment. These shows tended also to be quite short for reasons of the band's physical endurance.

-All the other notes about emo records, shows, economics, etc. apply to hardcore emo too. It's very much simply a subset of emo. In my eyes, this was the ultimate expression of the form. There was a frantic, primal quality to a band like Heroin that could just reach through your ribcage and squeeze your heart like in the Temple of Doom. I never found that in any of the other types."

It is a very influential and important underground form of music. Basically the a dominant part of the underground soundtrack to DIY artists/writers/student youth of the period. Fused jazz, hard rock, even prog, and punk through emo. At times it sounds like the NYC "no-wave" of the 90's.

These bands and their records need mentioning, is my point. Mostly instigated by Gravity Records with the "gravity sound" gravityrec.com I'm just a fan and not related to any record labels. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.252.244.97 (talk) 01:44, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Fourfa.com has been used in this article before. Unfortunately, it is not considered a reliable source by Wikipedia (or academic) standards because it's a personal website and does not have a reputation for fact-checking or accuracy. While it is an interesting read, it is nonethless merely a collection of the author (Andy Radin)'s opinions, and he is not considered an authority on the subject (I can find no record of any other music-related writings of his, nor any of his writings that have been published other than on that site; he appears to be mainly a photographer). Wikipedia has rules about using self-published sources (see WP:SPS, which is part of our verifiability policy). Fourfa.com does not pass the criteria for reliablity by these standards. I'm not saying that the bands, albums, etc. you are describing aren't important (as a San Diego native I'm particularly fond of the Gravity stuff myself, esp. Clikatat Ikatowi), but unless there are more reliable, third-party sources describing their significance to emo then this info can't be included. For more information, see Wikipedia:Reliable sources.

The "hardcore emo" tag, by the way, is simply what Mr. Radin is choosing to call it. You'd have to find at least several other sources describing it as such in order to be able to label it that. Emo originated from hardcore punk, after all...I think it would be rather silly to be calling similar bands only a few years later "hardcore emo". If anything, it's the later bands (mid-'90s etc) that moved it away from hardcore, so the phase you're describing is still the emotional hardcore, or "emocore" that originated in the mid-'80s. It's later on that the "hardcore" bit started to get dropped as the music moved away from HC and more towards pop. --IllaZilla (talk) 02:50, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

History is too long

The history section name-checks too many bands and just isn't interesting to anyone who wouldn't want to read an entire book on the subject.

Sure emo has a history, but it's still primarily a 2000s fad. we should focus the article more on emo's popularity, not its obscure indie phase.

Mimzy1990 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 23:01, 13 May 2009 (UTC).

Emo is not "primarily a 2000s fad". It has a history dating back to the mid-1980s, with important developments in the 1990s, and these deserve discussion in an encyclopedia article about it. You cannot focus only on the style's recent popularity; that is a ridiculous way to go about writing an encyclopedia (or any other academic treatment of the topic, really). "It just isn't interesting" isn't a valid reason for removing it. That's entirely your point of view and irrelevant to an encyclopedic treatment of the topic. We're not going to remove entire sections of the article just becaue you don't find them fascinating. --IllaZilla (talk) 23:46, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Seriously dude, how often did you hear about "emo" before 2002? only the most devoted hipsters would have any idea what is was before then. no other musical genre has such a detailed history than emo, and frankly, emo doesn't deserve to have such an extensive article about its obscure past. just imo. Mimzy1990 (talk) 03:45, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

"Seriously dude", there actually was emo before 2002. The term and the style have existed in various forms since 1985. Many reliable sources support this and illustrate that the style has a diverse history. You may need to accept the fact that emo does in fact have a history past Cobra Starship and Hellogoodbye. It's not only "devoted hipsters" who know this; entire books exist on the subject. Wikipedia relies on verifiability through reliable sources, not on editor opinion. Your point of view on the matter is irrelevant to an encyclopedic treatment of emo. If you continue to edit the article based on your own POV and original research, then your edits will be treated as vandalism and reverted. As for your claim that "no other musical genre has such a detailed history than emo", perhaps you need to check out the article on punk rock, which has been identified as one of Wikipedia's finest articles and is over 130K long. This is an encyclopedia; a detailed history is a good thing, and gutting it just because you don't care about anything before 2002 is wholly inappropriate. --IllaZilla (talk) 03:57, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Oh, and the answer to your question is "a lot". I graduated college in 2002, and I'd been hearing the term "emo" for at least 7 years at that point. I got hooked on it around 1999 with Something to Write Home About, which, by the way, is considred one of the key albums of the style. Jimmy Eat World, The Promise Ring, Jawbreaker, Sunny Day Real Estate, Rites of Spring, Embrace...these bands all predate 2002. Heck, even The Emo Diaries series goes back to 1997. --IllaZilla (talk) 04:43, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

I guess you must be one of those 5,000 people who WERE in the know, lol. But anyway, I have a suggestion - to end emo's mainstream popularity at 2008 - the style has considerably declined. Mimzy1990 (talk) 19:21, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

You might need to check your math. Nothing Feels Good sold in the mid-5 figures in 1997, the same year that Four Minute Mile sold over 15,000 copies. In 1999 Something to Write Home About was #31 on Top Heatseekers and Through Being Cool sold 50,000. Clarity sold over 70,000 copies between '99 and '01. New Found Glory was #107 on the Billboard 200 in 2000, Bleed American sold 30,000 copies in its first week in 2001. Hell, in the mid-'90s Jawbreaker were on Geffen and Sunny Day Real Estate were in rotation on MTV. Apparently quite a bit more than 5,000 people were aware of emo before it broke into the mainstream. Of course this all happened before 2002 so I don't expect that you were aware of it, much less care about it. As for your entirely POV-based claim that emo's mainstream popularity inexplicably ended last year, see below. Either find sources to support your claims or stop please stop making them. --IllaZilla (talk) 20:47, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

End Emo's mainstream popularity at 2008

I think we should change the range from "early 2000s-present" to "2002-2008".

the style has declined considerably, people don't even whine about emo as much as they used to.

Mimzy1990 (talk) 18:43, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Whether people "whine about emo as much as they used to" is totally irrelevant. There are still numerous bands described as "emo" that have high degrees of both mainstream & independent popularity (Jimmy Eat World, Dashboard Confessional, Taking Back Sunday, Saves the Day, My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy, Paramore, etc. etc.). Calling it dead in the water after just 6 years of popularity is entirely your point of view, and fortunately has no bearing here. Please stop insisting that the article should conform to your opinion of emo. Wikipedia relies on verifiability through reliable sources, not on editors' opinions. --IllaZilla (talk) 19:32, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

To be honest i'd support removing the field althogether, i've never liked it, it's always highly subjective and likely OR. What's counts as 'popular' and 'mainstream'? In my view this genre has never really ever been mainstream. --neon white talk 21:43, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that the style's major bands going platinum, being in heavy MTV rotation, and being cover stories on numerous music magazines counts as mainstream :-) Plus we have a specific, authoritative source (Greenwald) that flat-out says "emo broke into the mainstream in 2002". But as far as the infobox in general goes, I tend to agree with you. I've traditionally been against infobox fields that tend to be subjective or require additional context. --IllaZilla (talk) 22:25, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Great Criticism section

This article has a great criticism section, but it makes me wonder why other articles of other musical genres do not have criticism sections comparable to the one in this article. The criticism section in this article takes up approximately 40% of the space in this whole article! I suppose that someone should go onto the "alternative" article, and add a huge criticism section, which makes up at least 40% of that article?

If you do not get my sense of humor, I am trying to say that this article is EXTREMELY BIASED. I suggest that someone change this article to pertain to the views of all people, and not just those that hate this genre of music. --71.199.5.214 (talk) 13:28, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree that the criticism section needs an overhaul. I recently rewrote most of the history section, and planned to go through the rest of the article, but other projects/commitments/life got in the way. I plan on returning to work on it when I have ample time to spend on it. In the meantime, if you would like to work on it, please go right ahead. --IllaZilla (talk) 18:28, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

I disagree somewhat. The article most certainly has space that goes in favour of said genre. While some of the Criticism section seems unnecessary, I believe it is notable that a number of more recent bands to be called 'emo' so despise the term. Such a phenomenon is often common in first waves, and was present in first wave emo. Deep Purple rejected 'heavy metal', and I've read that bands such as Bauhaus and Sisters of Mercy rejected 'goth rock'.

However, you don't hear Metallica saying they were never a metal band, or (as far as I know) 69 Eyes saying goth is a "pile of shit."(Albert Mond (talk) 22:48, 1 May 2009 (UTC))

Many bands dislike being pigeon-holed, presumably simply because they don't like to be categorised and prefer to see their music as more original. Not just first waves too - e.g., Radiohead rejecting the "prog" label. I agree with the editor above - we have to be careful of WP:CRITICISM, and not give WP:UNDUE weight to just a few people's views. Mdwh (talk) 12:49, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Greenwald

I just would like to point out that Greenwald's book was mostly ment as a little joke, so it seems kinda dumb to use this as a reliable source. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.219.88.197 (talk) 07:02, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

That's ridiculous. It's a completely reliable source and this comment is obvious vandalism. --IllaZilla (talk) 16:22, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Epidemic

Should there be a mention anywhere in this article about this horrible ongoing problem of mistaking post-hardcore, pop punk, and metalcore bands for emo? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.222.232.134 (talk) 20:37, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Not unless you can find reliable sources to verify that claim, and I doubt you'd be able to. Sounds like your opinion, and probably irrelevant to an encyclopedia. --IllaZilla (talk) 21:32, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure a lot "true" Emo is Post-Hardcore and Pop Punk RKFS (talk) 00:25, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

an incorrect detail about emo

there is an incorrect detail in the wikipedia page on emo. being a part of the emo subculture does not require one to dye thier hair black. emo is a style of music primarily, and fashion secondarily. hair colour has nothing to do with it at all. —Preceding unsigned comment added by IsaacR rules (talk • contribs) 18:53, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

There is no "incorrect detail", because nowhere does the article say that it is "required" to dye one's hair black. It merely says "the term 'emo' is sometimes stereotyped with ... dyed black, straight hair". Note that it clearly identifies this as a stereotype; of course not everyone who's into emo has dyed black, straight hair. It's much the same as saying that punk rock fashion is frequently associated with spiked hair or mohawks: of course not everyone has them, but that's the stereotype and the popular perception. The section is clearly labeled as a description of the popular fashions and stereotype; it's not an "emo how-to". --IllaZilla (talk) 20:38, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Diversify sources?

I just read the article (very good, by the way, with the exception of how it trails off near the end). However, the use of the Greenwald source is probably overkill. It's a great source, sure, but almost the entire article is based on it. Diversifying the sources some more would improve it a lot. 70.106.204.59 (talk) 22:04, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Additional sources are always welcome. I need to get back into this article & finish revising it. I trailed off somewhere in the "mainstream popularity" section a few months back. --IllaZilla (talk) 04:55, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Shift away from Hardcore influences? (and subculture?)

I think there should be some significant mention of the shift of style in Emo from its Hardcore roots to the more pop sensible, light, and melodic Emo of a number of bands in mid to late 90's which maintained little to none of the Hardcore Punk influences of earlier Emo bands, and was much more in tune with genres such as Power Pop and Pop Punk. Maybe this could be contrasted with the aggressiveness of styles like Screamo or "Emo-Violence"? RKFS (talk) 00:21, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Also, in the criticism section and throughout the there's reference to the "emo subculture", what is this subculture? If it's mentioned shouldn't there be more information about it here besides acknowledging its existence? RKFS (talk) 00:36, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

The criticism section really needs revamping, but I think your concerns about the shift in sound are easily answered if you read the "History" section. The changes in style are pretty well-described there and are accompanied by sound samples as examples. --IllaZilla (talk) 06:16, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Misogyny?

This article's notation of misogyny seems overly critical, and less noteworthy. The criticism is based on perceptions of the genre rather than cold hard facts. Certain lines seem outright critical. Wikipedia is not a place for personal opinion. I mean for instance the lines "most emo bands to relegate women to the role of muse or heartbreaker in their lyrics." Another example of this personal criticism seem more like original critique. "Some emo bands' lyrics go so far as to disguise violent anti-women sentiments in a veneer of pop music." This is also not noteworthy, plenty of music genres have explicit lyrics, this genre no more so than any other. This article needs the same fair treatment as every other on Wikipedia. I recommend combining all the criticisms into one section, or remove it altogether. This article needs immediate attention and rewrites, I mean the ENTIRE section is based on the work of a single source and a single quote by a band about its own audience, hardly refutable...PLEASE someone give this article the attention it deserves! Dreap 03:43, 25 August 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dreap (talk • contribs)

I agree the whole criticism section needs major work, but the misogyny stuff is pretty important. It's one of the major criticims of the emo style (as in, you know, weepy boys singing about how girls broke their hearts). Important enough that Greenwald devoted a whole section of his book to analyzing this aspect of the style. And he's not the only critic to note the gender bias in emo music, just the only one currently cited. There are plenty more similar critiques out there from other sources, they just need to be tracked down. I'm sure that some coverage of this will remain even in a rewritten section. --IllaZilla (talk) 05:26, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough, but the concern stands that the section needs immediate attention and diversified sourcing. If emo being misogynistic is a very common criticism, then surely it should be simple to find multiple refutable sources to support and hone the criticism. --Dreap (talk) 08:36, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Emo does not deserve a misogyny section at all. Rock/Country/Rap/Metal could all have a misogyny section in their articles--with all the same reasons (male centered/lack of female musicians). Ontop of that, all the quotes are Fallout Boy. They are more so accepted into the Pop music genre than actual emo circles. --Animation Liberation (talk) 00:46, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Reliable sources in the field of music analysis and criticism have analyzed and commented on the gender disparity within emo (very few girls in emo bands, majority of themes deal with guys' issues as related to male/female relationships ie. setting women on pedestals or lamenting broken hearts). Some of these sources are cited in the article. Since verifiability is our standard, this standard is satisfied. What your so-called "actual emo circles" think is totally irrelevant. --IllaZilla (talk) 07:53, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

The one blog post that seems to be the "reliable source" for at least two claims in that section is nothing more than an amateur reviewer's opinion of one song. I would argue that not only is one random reviewer's opinion not enough to "verify" some very significant claims made in that section, but that the section itself is of, at most, marginal relevance to the article since a far more authoritative source is very obviously lacking (there is no authority or first-hand source for those last two claims). This same review is also heatedly contested in the comments right underneath it. The counter arguments made are every bit as valid as the reviewer's original point given that *not a single person there is an authority on anything*. Not only that, but the line that mentions Fraser McApline is putting words in his mouth. He did not write the review and did not say what is being attibuted to him. This needs to be changed immediately. I would highly suggest that anyone working on this article remove the last two lines in that section. The quote is taken out of context to fill this section's purpose and the second is a random comment made by a reviewer who isn't actually directly quoting Pete Wentz. For all we know, he never said any such thing. Terrible, terrible sourcing. --S.Reemas, Sept. 1 2009 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.193.18.25 (talk) 13:33, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

I was referring to Andy Greenwald's book as the "reliable source" for the content on misogyny. I agree with you about the rest of it. Blog sources should almost always be dumped. --IllaZilla (talk) 17:12, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

I think there is indeed some revison in order for this section. It is ridiculous to label something "misogynistic" merely because songs feature men talking about their feelings about women they've broken up with. How is "weepy boys" singing songs about girls who broke their hearts necessarily mean that there is hatred of women going on? Even if you can construe it as such, be realistic: Whenever someone, a man OR woman, is emotionally attached to someone then suddenly they split, there's going to naturally be anger, frustration, hurt, etc. These are natural "emo"tional responses by men or women, and it's a common theme in the dating/mating ritual. Female artists frequently sing about their hearts being broken by men all the time—where's the criticism that they are misandric or gynocentric? In fact, criticising men who write and sing such songs while allowing female artists the complete and unchecked freedom to do so is as sexist towards men as anything ostensibly sexist towards women in the lyrics, precisely because of the double standard.

Well anyway, I know I can't add all that to the article since, I suppose, it is my own opinion. However, I will move to make some reasonable and neutral edits to this section which I find particularly non-sensical. The fact is this whole section seems the opinion of one person (Greenwald), and it should remind the reader of that.

Btw, referring to someone as your muse is actually quite complimentary—quite the opposite of hateful. I would LOVE to be someone’s muse! :P This is one example of the highly subjective selection of what is considered "misogynistic" in this section (that is, by Greenwald). Alialiac (talk) 06:47, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, I tend to agree that misogyny probably isn't the best title for the section, but neither is "attitude towards women". We need something more descriptive there (I suggest "gender bias" or some equivalent). The fact is that there is a gender bias in emo music, and it has been commented on by many critics (not just Greenwald, although again I acquiesce that the section needs further references to other sources). It's not just the "weepy boys" thing...I was being overly simplistic in my previous comment. It has a lot more to do with the fact that 99% of the viewpoint expressed in emo music is male, and thus the women are robbed of agency and, as Greenwald notes, typically reduced to the role of muse or heartbreaker. To put it in the words of Jessica Hopper (musician, writer, band publicist, publisher & editor of the 'zine Hit It or Quit It): "Emo just builds a cathedral of man-pain and then celebrates its validation" (Greenwald, p. 134). Obviously the whole broken heart relationship topic isn't specific to emo, and other genres like hair metal and hip-hop have definitely treated it on a level that many consider misogynystic, but with emo there's more of a (again, paraphrasing Greenwald & Hopper) celebration of perpetual adolescence. An analogy that really stuck out at me from reading Greenwald's book was something to the effect of "while many genres try to conquer the gender divide, emo bands run right up to the divide, set up camp, and lament about the distance". There's definitely a topic here worth discussing, and we need to find further sources to flesh it out. BTW, the viewpoints expressed aren't all Greenwald's; he interviewed many people for his book and some of the opinions expressed are theirs (ie. Hopper's).

Oh, and as to the muse issue, sure it might be complimentary if the person writing songs about you is saying nice things. But if all they're writing about you is how you broke their heart, how they want to "take my rusty spoons / and dig out your blue eyes" (Saves the Day lyric), "even if her plane crashes tonight / she'll find some way to disappoint me / by not burning in the wreckage / or drowning at the bottom of the sea" (Brand New lyric), or "you filthy whore / shut up and swallow my pride for me" (Glassjaw lyric), one might feel differently :P Notice any misogyny there? --IllaZilla (talk) 08:29, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

The funny thing about the section and the discussion as a whole is that it's all so subjective. In fact, of those examples you just provided, not a single one is "misogynistic" (and the last band's "emo" status is debatable). The word is now being misused. Expressing an emotional repulsion toward a person (even in a violent context) does not make it a show of hatred toward the entire sex. In fact, Saves the Day also uses similar lyrics against males who have done the song's speaker "wrong" on that very album. "The next time you see Nick / Tell him I'm gonna stick some needles in his face." Is this an example of misandry? Hardly. It happens to be a lyrical style that Chris Conley himself has stated in interviews is not really about violent intent at all (I'll find a source for this statement, if someone really desires it). The point is, portraying strong negative emotion toward someone (male or female) often has nothing to do with their sex. It's very silly to start counting the times women are mentioned and completely ignore that many of these artists are referring to males in the very same fashion. It's about the person in question, and their history with the speaker-- not about their sex. I won't say there aren't exceptions, but a handful of exceptions don't make for a note-worthy section; and ignoring which ones fit and which don't in an effort to expand the section only weakens it.

You were on to something when you mentioned a "perpetual adolescence." If you really wish to have a working section, I might focus on this. It's very different to say that angry songs about heartbreak lack emotional maturity (they often do), than to say they show a hatred for all women. One works, the other one doesn't. You will then find that you have room to even address the often juvenile degree of anger shown toward other males. The real issue here is the overly dramatic emotional outbursts that manifest in violent sounding lyrics, not the attempt to pin it down as being directed toward one sex in general or as a whole.

I will repeat what I said in an earlier post: The last two lines of that first section contain a quote that is wrong attributed and a completely unsourced quote. This is in violation of wikipedia policy and is a liability. Whoever is working on this section, please clean that up. If you wish for that section to be taken seriously, it would be good to work on issues such as those. --S.Reemas, Sept. 16, 2009 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.193.18.25 (talk) 20:40, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

You're referring to the sentences about Paramore & Fall Out Boy? While I agree that they are of questionable relevance & that they are sourced to a blog, and so should probably be removed on the basis of WP:RS, I don't exactly see how one is "wrongly attributed" and the other is "completely unsourced". Both statements are sourced to this, and the relevant quotes are:

• Pete Wentz has mused openly about why girls would choose to sing his lyrics at Fall Out Boy shows when he acknowledges they are frequently derogatory to their gender.

The line in the article says "Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy questioned why girls sing along to their songs at concerts when the lyrics are often derogatory to women." I don't see how this is misattributed. It's sort of a one-degree-removed attribution, but the opinion is still Wentz's and not McAlpine's.

• Hayley gets touted as a feminist icon in a male-dominated genre when in this song at least, she seems one of the worst offenders.

The article's line is "In his BBC chart blog, Fraser McApline criticised Paramore singer, Hayley Williams for the lyrics to her song Misery Business naming her "one of the worst offenders." I don't see how you can call this "completely unsourced".

Basically I'm saying I agree that these bits need to be reworded or removed, as part of a complete overhaul of the "Criticism and controversy" section (which I fully intend to devote time to at some point ... life and other Wiki activity has simply diverted my attention from it), but not for the same reasons you're seeing. I assume these are the lines you're referring to (you said "The last 2 lines of that first section").

As to the rest, as I said earlier I agree that the viewpoint is not misogyny per se, as it's not exactly "hatred of women". But there is a gender issue worth discussing with regard to the "perpetual adolescence" viewpoint and how it's expressed in the attitude towards girls and the gender divide. I think that the bulk of the "Gender bias" section (notice how I retitled it from the previous "Misogyny"), sourced to Greenwald, discusses this concept rather well. I'm certain that with a little more work and searching that additional sources can be found to develop and expand that topic, and I'm definitely talking about high-quality sources here, not blog stuff like what's used for the Fall Out Boy & Paramore bits. That stuff I'd be just as happy to get rid of. --IllaZilla (talk) 00:02, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

I now see why we we're not seeing the same thing. The review you have linked (and which is the source for both those lines) is not written by Fraser McAlpine. He says so repeatedly in the comments section and the actual reviewer (whose name is at the bottom of the review) also comments and confirms this. He actually has nothing to do with that review other than hosting it on the site on which he is a moderator/administrator. Hazel Robinson is a contributor with no credentials of any sort posting her personal opinion. Pete Wentz might have actually said that. I'm not going to take her word for it. This is exactly how false quotations and rumors begin. It is poor sourcing. As for the second quote, like I just explained, McAlpine never said any such thing (this is the wrongly attributed one). I hope that clears my position up. I'm glad you agree both of those quotes really fit poorly into the section.

If you seek a gender divide through lyrics, you'll find it. Cherry-picking songs will get you very far. The same can be done for any genre of music or any topic. Should anyone attempt to find a slant from males again males, they would find that too. Very easily. I stand by what I said in the rest of my comment. I think you would have a much stronger position and far more compelling section if you focus on the perpetual adolescence as a whole and in and of itself rather than as a pathway to the "gender" issue.

Good luck with work on the article. --S.Reemas, Sept. 18, 2009

Semiprotection review

This article was semiprotected on 20 May 2007 by Majorly (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), because of heavy vandalism. Is this still likely to be the case, or is semiprotection an unnecessary hang-over from earlier days? I've also contacted Majorly on his user talk page. --TS 00:53, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

I would say that, given the length of time since protection (over 27 months), we could unprotect and see what happens. But from my experience cleaning up the archives and also watchlisting List of emo artists I can say that these articles are heavy targets for vandalizing IPs and SPAs, and generally POV magnets. I wouldn't be surprised if vandalism started up again pretty quickly, but I'm willing to put it to the test. --IllaZilla (talk) 01:30, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree that this type of article may be a magnet for vandalism. I'm prepared to watch closely if we decide to test it. --TS 01:45, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

I have no opinion on the matter (as the admin who protected originally). Majorly talk 14:03, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I always favour giving unprotection a go, even though this probably is a vandal magnet. Let's do it. Cedars (talk) 02:07, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

This sounds good enough for me. I've requested unprotection. --TS 02:35, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Well that didn't work out too well. I've requested the restoration of semiprotection. --TS 15:43, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, it didn't take long for that to go south. I'm counting about somewhere around 20 vandalisms from about 16 different IPs in the last 4 days. I imagine the rate would continue to increase if left unprotected. --IllaZilla (talk) 16:47, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

I was under the impression that most people stopped actually caring about emo one way or the other in late 2007 or 2008. (Albert Mond (talk) 02:35, 4 October 2009 (UTC))

Clearly not, since here we are writing an encyclopedia article about it. And since anons apparently care enough to continually vandalize the article. --IllaZilla (talk) 09:46, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I was referring to the vandalism, of course.(Albert Mond (talk) 19:54, 4 October 2009 (UTC))

Orphaned references in Emo

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Emo's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "allmusic":

• From Thursday (band): "AllMusic: Thursday Biography". AllMusic. Retrieved 2008-05-26.
• From The Cure: Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "The Cure". Allmusic.com. Retrieved 2007-04-22.
• From Post-hardcore: "Post-Hardcore", allmusic.
• From Weezer (1994 album): "The Blue Album" Deluxe Edition Overview at Allmusic.com;retrieved on September 6, 2006
• From Pinkerton (album): Erlewine, Stephen. "Weezer: Pinkerton: Reviews". Allmusic. Retrieved 2007-09-25.
• From Dookie: "Dookie Review". AllMusic. Retrieved 2007-07-16.
• From Smash (album): "Smash". Allmusic.com. Retrieved 2008-02-02.
• From Blink-182: John Bush (2006). "blink-182 - Biography". allmusic. Retrieved 2009-02-15. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |coauthor= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• From Coheed and Cambria: "Coheed and Cambria Biography". Allmusic. Retrieved January 25, 2008.
• From My Chemical Romance: "My Chemical Romance". Allmusic.
• From Post-rock: "Post-Rock/Experimental". Allmusic. Retrieved 2008-07-08.

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 15:48, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Another Reference

For the early fashion of emo the straight edge FAQ has a section called what is emo that backs up and expands the section. --Guerillero (talk) 19:29, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

That doesn't look like a reliable source to me. More like a blog. --IllaZilla (talk) 21:48, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Isn't used for the straight edge page? --Guerillero (talk) 21:44, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

after cheching the page its only an external link.--Guerillero (talk) 21:46, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

It shouldn't even be used that way. Wikipedia isn't a collection of links, and we have guidelines on what links are appropriate to have in articles. This fails all of those. --IllaZilla (talk) 09:46, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Subculture

How come cosplay gets its own article when emo subculture doesn't? Emo subculture has significantly separated from emo music, enough to warrant its own article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.111.11.39 (talk) 11:11, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Verifiability and notability are our barometers for inclusion, not "this other article exists, so this one should too". --IllaZilla (talk) 14:46, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Plus, I think this article covers emo subculture fairly well, anyway. (Albert Mond (talk) 21:16, 17 November 2009 (UTC))

I think the IP's (badly worded) point is that Emo fashion and subculture is much more notable than cosplay fashion, a point on which I agree. But apparently there are too few reliable sources about the subculture. Hypershock (talk) 14:21, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

This article needs a photo.

Discuss. --RyanTee82 (talk) 06:46, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

I think the most obvious choice for a photo is the picture of Rites of Spring performing. (Albert Mond (talk) 08:37, 26 November 2009 (UTC))

Unfortunately that won't do as it's fair-use, so per WP:NFCC "minimal use" we can really barely even get away with having it in the RoS article. I'm sure there are suitable free images of latter-day emo groups we could use (Jimmy Eat World, Dashboard Confessional, etc.). Unfortunately, free images of '80s & early '90s acts (RoS, Jawbreaker, SDRE) are much harder to come by. --IllaZilla (talk) 08:56, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

huh

"The band signed to major label Geffen Records and released Dear You in 1995, touring with Nirvana and Green Day, but the album sold poorly and they broke up soon after, with Schwarzenbach later forming Jets to Brazil.[25] Their influence lived on, however, through later successful emo and pop punk bands openly indebted to Jawbreaker's sound.[26]"

Nirvana broke up in 1994 after Cobain's death. How could they have toured with Nirvana in 1995? 203.184.2.62 (talk) 04:44, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

By golly, you're right. I'll take a stab at rewording it to fix the error. --IllaZilla (talk) 08:51, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Criticism

Does anyone really believe these parts of the article NEED to be noted. Such as suicide, crticism, etc. Almost no other(if any) music genre article has it. And its just a useless filler. I mean look at the intro to suicide "Emo music has been blamed for the suicide by hanging of teenager Hannah Bond" is that truley a nessicary add to this article? Wikipedia isnt just about sources it also has to be notable and singleing out a single genre when many others should also has a criticism section, especially when they are far more credible. I could say more points, but I think you all understand what I mean. 173.65.125.179 (talk) 21:50, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree that the section needs a major cleanup. Many of the trivial bits (ie. the Hannah Bond business) are not relevant to the topic of emo as a whole. --IllaZilla (talk) 22:20, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I think the criticism and reaction from popular culture are worthy of being in this article. But, yeah. The Hannah Bond thing is just one incident, and emo was blamed for a bunch of things. Wasn't there actually a string of young friends in the UK who killed themselves, which was blamed on emo? (Albert Mond (talk) 08:20, 3 December 2009 (UTC))

Found it. Bridgend suicide incidents. (Albert Mond (talk) 08:29, 3 December 2009 (UTC))

Acctually If I remember correctly it was blamed on Bebo, but yeah, Emo is blamed for more than it should, I know a large group of emos, & every single one of them are happy, funny, & quite nice, this whole emo's are depressed, suicidal & anti-social is an incorect stereotype, & other music should have criticism sections, Rap for example, the lyrics in rap music are essentially "I'm hard, I'm cool, I've had a lot of women, I'm better than you", where I live Emo's are usually picked on, just because they're different, & because the majority of people are chavs, I even remember that, becaus I have an Emo fringe, a chav once asked me if i 'cut myself with my laptop charger' reffering to the fact I have a laptop, but how someone could cut themself with A plastic wire that isn't remotly sharp enough to pierce skin is stupid.

Another thing about the stupidity of self harm emo hate is that not once Has anyone who follows the emo scene I know has ever cut themself, but Rap fans where I live have, Have you guy's ever heard of a chicken scratch? Where someone scratches themself hard & violently enough to acctually cause a cut into the skin, it was common when I was younger & people were even suspended for it, also there was the sharpener name-thing where chavs kept writing their names into their arms with a broken sharpener blade, my chav cousin actually seriously hurt himself doing it. --86.178.105.74 (talk) 16:35, 4 December 2009 (UTC).

My beef with this page

First of all, I think it focuses too much on the VERY obscure history of emo between 1985 and 2001, while it SHOULD focus on the years 2002-2009, when emo was actually a relevant genre.

I'm glad it covers the early history, but it doesn't need to basically say everything an article on the history of emo would tell you.

Second, I think it should be changed from "early 2000s to present" to 2002-present or 2002-2009. it's pretty clear 2002 was the year emo broke through, just like it's clear 1991 was the year Grunge broke through. there were some major releases around that time, and 2002 was really the EARLIEST you could say emo was a commonly used term outside the circles of the very hip. DriveMySol (talk) 02:33, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm glad you're taking this to discussion, but I disagree. First wave wasn't that obscure. Kurt Cobain was influenced by Rites of Spring, and Fugazi (who are now hotly debated) did fairly decently. In addition, Rites of Spring, Gray Matter, and other early emotional hardcore groups (which the source you've used in your revisions never so much as mentions) came out of the DC Punk Scene, which itself has a lot of historical relevance. If we're only going to focus on what's popular, why do we have articles on Grindcore, Death-Grind, Zeuhl, etc? The reason is that Wikipedia does not function on popularity, and those genres have about the same following now as emotional hardcore did during its genesis and rise. Plus, according to the article (and the source used for this claim) the term "emo" as it is effectively entered more into the mainstream in mid 2001. Bleed American went gold the same year. This article is about emo, and it covers emo. (Albert Mond (talk) 02:48, 10 December 2009 (UTC))

Yes, Bleed American was a 2001 album, but it didn't become platinum successful until The Middle was released as a single in 2002. Fugazi and Rites of Spring aren't really emo so much as they are inspirations for emo. Same with DC punk ... did it inspire the Fall Out Boys and MCRs of the emo era? yes. but few if any people talked about emo in the 1990s. you can't really call it the same genre as what is known as emo today. i guess it's confusing, kinda like the term "new wave". means different things when you're talking about different eras. the fact is, while it does have something of a history, it is still primarily a 2000s trend. --DriveMySol (talk) 03:03, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

There were a number of emo albums that experienced lower levels of mainstream success before Bleed American went platinum, as sourced in the article. "Early 2000s" is a better summation of emo's entry into the mainstream. Rites of Spring are nearly universally recognized as the first "emotional hardcore" or "emocore" band, and there are several sources in the article to that effect. "Few if any people talked about emo in the 1990s"??? Please read the "history" section of the article again, you'll see that a number of emo acts had plenty of mainstream exposure in the '90s (Jawbreaker, Sunny Day Real Estate, The Promise Ring, The Get Up Kids, etc.). Your logic is of the typical "if I haven't heard of it, it wasn't important" variety. As the sources in the article verify, emo has a long history going back to the mid-'80s, and that history includes a lot of evolution, redefinition, and change. Calling it "primarily a 2000s trend" is recentism and entirely your personal opinion. Yes, it broke into the mainstream in the 2000s and experienced its greatest commercial success during that period, but its history is rich and goes back 25 years. By your logic we should trim almost all of the pre-1990s information out of the punk rock article, on the basis that punk was "primarily a 1990s trend" because it had its greatest commercial success and mainstream exposure during that decade. Of course, this would largely ignore a history dating back to the early '70s and would be entirely inappropriate. It's the same case here. There are plenty of sources in the article to support the history and evolution of emo as a term and style, and there is no justification for marginalizing the first decade and a half of its evolution. What needs to happen instead is that we need to expand and reference the information on its recent years, from 2000 to the present. The article is improved by adding information to it, not by subtracting from it. --IllaZilla (talk) 03:45, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

As IllaZilla said, Rites of Spring is nearly universally recognized as emo. I'd also like to add that Fall Out Boy and my Chemical Romance are not. Both bands have explicitly rejected the term (which is usually rare in 3rd waves) and there are very likely still emotional hardcore groups playing in the vein of RoS and other early emo groups (remember that 'emo' is inherently short for 'emotional hardcore'). Many fans of the bands reject its application to them (FOB and MCR), as do many fans of emo, and they very likely wouldn't be listed as such on Wiki had we not had extensive sources. I've never heard of MCR or Fall Out Boy acknowledging influence from those groups (DC post-hardcore), and I wouldn't be too surprised if they weren't directly influenced by them at all. (Albert Mond (talk) 04:12, 10 December 2009 (UTC))

Whether bands like Fall Out Boy and My Chemical Romance reject the term "emo" is immaterial; what's significant is that they are popularly categorized as emo by music critics, journalists, etc. That's really another discussion, and one that's already been had here several times. Most of the current "emo" artists aren't directly influenced by the original DC emocore movement, just as most current "punk" groups aren't directly influenced by the Sex Pistols or Ramones, and most current "ska" bands aren't directly influenced by the Skatalites or Specials. The point, which is largely ignored by recentists as well as those who cling to the past, is that musical genres, like most forms of art, grow and develop and change over time. The term "emo" has been affixed to bands in various forms for 25 years; it's hardly surprising that the current acts tagged with the label don't sound much like the ones who were called emo 25 years ago. As discussed in the article, one of the hallmarks of emo as a term and style is its nebulous, ever-fluctuating definition, which has led to it encompassing a variety of disparate artists over the years. There is room for it all in a comprehensive encyclopedia article, where we can discuss the style's history and evolution in detail. --IllaZilla (talk) 04:53, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Sorry if I wasn't clear, but what I was trying to say was simply that DriveMySol's examples of emo groups are frequently debated, in stark contrast to Rites of Spring, who -as you pointed out- are nearly universally considered emo. It's kind of like someone saying that Poison was the first true metal band. (Albert Mond (talk) 05:39, 10 December 2009 (UTC))

Ah, I see. Good analogy :) --IllaZilla (talk) 09:37, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Requested edit

There is a line of Information I would like added on, Specifically to help distinguish Emo style

The emo fashion is also recognized for its hairstyles. Popular looks include long side-swept bangs, sometimes covering one or both eyes. Also popular is hair that is straightened and dyed black. Bright colors, such as blue, pink, red, or bleached blond, are also typical as highlights in emo hairstyles. Short, choppy layers of hair are also common. This fashion has at times been characterized as a fad. In the early 2000s, emo fashion was associated with a clean cut look but as the style spread to younger teenagers, the style has become darker, with long bangs and emphasis on the color black replacing sweater vests. This slight change has started a common belief that Goth style and Emo style are the exact same thing; resulting in a mass confusion of the two styles.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Fronglokey1 (talk • contribs) 21:53, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

The URL for the first source doesn't seem to work. Could you try posting it again? Some of this (particularly the last 2 sentences) seems like your own synthesis, where you're combining sources to advance a position that the sources don't explicitly advance themselves. --IllaZilla (talk) 22:11, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Entire list?

The entire list of sub genre's points to yes? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.27.23.222 (talk) 11:17, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Fixed. --IllaZilla (talk) 15:31, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

emo-cutters?

This is not true-not even most of the time and needs to be changed ASAP —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.16.164.205 (talk) 16:45, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Not really. Self mutilation/depression/whatever and the 2000s-emo thing really go hand in hand. Obviously, not everyone who associates themselves with this subculture self-mutilates, but there's a very clear stereotype and image around it. (Albert Mond (talk) 17:56, 4 December 2009 (UTC))

Mr. Mond, why must you be so ignorant? That's like saying "Not all black people have big lips and eat watermelon but there is a clear image and stereotype around it." The truth is, very few emos cut. RedBarney (talk) 12:54, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

No it's not. As I said on my talk page: "Black people are not a subculture. They're a '[racial group]'. Not all goths wear white makeup, I'm sure. However, because it is an integral part of the imagery associated with that subculture, we include notation of it in the [goth subculture] article. Another example is the [hippie] article. There's an entire section on drug use. Some hippies could be offended. It doesn't matter, as Wiki does not simply cater to the interests of these subcultures. Suicide and self-mutilation have for some time been common themes in 'emo,' and have gotten significant media attention."(Albert Mond (talk) 14:58, 12 January 2010 (UTC))

"The truth is, very few emos cut." "No it's not." You joking? If even a sizeable amount of self-described "emo" people cutted, the backlash would be way huge. As one, and no doubt, you not being one, I don;t think you have an idea on this. And i agree with Redbarney, if your talking about the "clear stereotype and image," thats like saying all Italians (myself included) have huge noses and make pizza. Whether they are part of a subculture or culture has no bearing- you definitivel referred to stereotyping, and then tried to claim it as fact. 72.199.100.223 (talk) 07:00, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Though its degree of accuracy is clearly up for debate, there is most definitely an association drawn in the popular media between emo and self-mutilation (or "cutting"). A thorough enclyclopedia article on emo cannot completely ignore this; it is covered in far too many sources to be considered a fringe view. At the same time, we must not give undue weight to the topic as it is but a small part of a much larger discussion of a musical genre and its accompanying culture. Albert Mond is right to compare this to hippies/drugs and goths/white makeup: though they are certainly not essential or overwhelming characteristics of the movements, they are too inexorably linked to be completely ignored. --IllaZilla (talk) 07:14, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Andy Greenwald

It would be nice to have more references besides Greenwald's. It makes the article onesided. It has to be more sources about this not only one smartass eminence. --Locopunkie (talk) 01:57, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

The "one smartass eminence", as you're calling him, is a very reliable source who happens to have written one of the few books that covers emo in-depth from its inception until the early 2000s. While additional reliable sources are of course very much welcomed, that's no reason to deride what is a perfectly authoritative source in itself. Further, I've reverted your changes to the article as they were full of point of view issues, unreferenced claims, and original research, and removed perfectly valid, cited material in favor of a number of biased personal opinions and the unreliable source "emotivehardcore.com". I'm sorry, but your edits lessened the quality of the article. Please familiarize yourself with our core content policies and guidelines that I have linked, and try to find more reliable sources to add to the article rather than making edits based on your own opinions. --IllaZilla (talk) 06:34, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

i move for deletion - this is almost entirely copied from various sentences published by Greenwald 86.28.152.165 (talk) 09:30, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

There are a perfectly reasonable number of quotes, and quite a bit of paraphrasing. As previously stated, the addition of more reliable sources to the article would be quite welcome, but that is no reason to delete the reliably sourced material it already has. If you're talking about deleting the entire article, the notion is frankly ludicrous and doesn't have a snowball's chance of happening. --IllaZilla (talk) 09:43, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

External link suggestion

Emofwendz - a mobile social network for emo kids —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rabbitseatit (talk • contribs) 04:24, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a directory of links, and this link clearly fails our guidelines for external links. --IllaZilla (talk) 07:08, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Screamo

A sentence from the intro reads: 'Emo broke into mainstream culture in the early 2000s with the platinum-selling success of Jimmy Eat World and Dashboard Confessional and the emergence of the subgenre "screamo".', yet the Screamo intro reads: 'Screamo is a genre of music which predominantly evolved from hardcore punk, among other genres, in the early 1990s'. There is no consistency here; 'emergence' means creation not popularization so how can Screamo have emerged in the early 2000's. I have reverted that sentence, if anyone disagrees please comment here first. Zarcadia (talk) 18:47, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

"Screamo" is a portmanteau of "scream" and "emo". It evolved from both post-hardcore and emo. The screamo article itself describes it as an "offshoot of emo" and provides no evidence of the term's use before the early 2000s. It makes some claims that there were "screamo" bands going back to the early 1990s, but does little to verify this claim (all of the citations attached to those bands are dated 2002 or later, so even if they do describe the acts as "screamo" they are doing so retroactively). I've got a number of music magazines including Spin and Alternative Press from the early 2000s that claim the term, and the style, as new and describe it as a combination of post-hardcore and emo. It's definitely verifiable that "screamo" was popularized in the early 2000s, and I'm very skeptical that it's verifiable that it "emerged" in the early 1990s. --IllaZilla (talk) 19:34, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your constructive comments, I will leave the intro as you have reverted it, I was simply looking for consistency within the articles, maybe the Screamo article should be changed? Zarcadia (talk) 20:30, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Criticism Is Still Inadequate

The "criticism" section is LITERALLY 5 sentences, two of which are statements by bands claiming to not even be Emo. This article is solid until it get down to the criticism article, and then it just stammers into a pile of hearsay, finger pointing, and name-calling. If someone does not fix this article soon, we might as well just tear out the entire section!!! Dreap 21:44, 13 December 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dreap (talk • contribs)

I disagree. (Albert Mond (talk) 22:31, 13 December 2009 (UTC))

"I disagree" is not an argument that proves 5 sentences is adequate! Dreap 23:19, 13 December 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dreap (talk • contribs)

You could call the entire article inadequate. I would disagree. This is a matter of opinion vs. opinion. The "Criticism and Controversy" section is properly sourced. It's a section that covers negative reactions to emo. I feel that that part covers it fairly well, and it's not really taking sides so much as it is documenting. If you would like to add something to make it seem less biased, and have sources to back it up, then go for it. Merging all the sub-sections of the criticism bit wouldn't hurt, either. (Albert Mond (talk) 23:43, 13 December 2009 (UTC))

Theres a difference between a lengthy criticism, and a good one. This one touches all the bases I feel, so I too disagree. If you have anything to share Dreap, then go ahead, be bold. 72.199.100.223 (talk) 07:02, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Dreap has a point. Some of these bands aren't really considered "EMO" bands. There are several other bands to look at. For instance, Alesana, Asking Alexandria, Saosin, Chiodos, Rise Against etc. They're screamo bands that are emo bands. If you ask most people if Green Day was an emo band they would probably think your dumb, just for the simple fact that they're more of a punk/pop band. I do think it is a pretty good outline of what emo means, considering I claimed to be one at one point in my life. I can say this though emo has changed a lot, it used to be just the music, and of course the infamous hair cut of short spikey hair in the back and long bangs in the front. It never gets old. This music genre can be hard to explain, it's not like goth where you actually know where it originated from. Also people that might help you get a better understanding of emo is Alex Evans & Chris Dakota. There are a couple of other guys but I cant remember their names. --Estheliita (talk) 07:17, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

This isn't a place to debate which bands are/aren't emo. We leave that up to the sources. If reliable sources describe an act as emo, then that's all that's required from the standpoint of an encyclopedia. I don't know who Alex Evans or Chris Dakota are, but I doubt they are reliable sources (they sound like names of your buddies or something). We go by secondary sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. --IllaZilla (talk) 08:36, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Can someone help me with the referencing bit. I tried editing it, but I messed up with the inline citations, anyone mind helping me out? Dreap 22:14, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Done. if you could just check those are the right pages that would be great.--SabreBD (talk) 22:36, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Edit request

{{editsemiprotected}} Emo is a label used towards people wearing dark make up (eyeliner mascara etc.), extreme or outrageous hair, listening to hardcore or 'screamo' (bring me the horizon, chelsea grins etc.), wearing black clothes, mainly skinny jeans or 'stovepipe jeans', converse chuck taylors, studded belts and/or piercings and being in general suicidal or depressed. Emo means Emotional, so usually 'Emos' cry alot, write songs and poems and belong to tight cliques.

P3bbl3-sc3n3--x (talk) 04:13, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

 Not done You have provided no sources to back up your suggested text. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 04:16, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

It's also rather stereotypical.  fetchcomms☛ 04:19, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Samples

Is it just me or does this page have way too many audio samples? Seems a bit unnecessary, in my opinion. 97.118.197.60 (talk) 08:39, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Judging by punk rock, which is a featured article and has 22 audio samples (and is one of only 2 music genre FAs), I don't feel that 12 in this article is excessive. --IllaZilla (talk) 08:48, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Emo Pop?

[17] [18] There is a mention of Emo Pop, but it just leads to a general Emo. Why not have a smaller section dedicated to Emo Pop on the Emo page? It would be similar to the melodic metalcore section on the metalcore page. On All Music there is a description of Emo Pop and the bands that belong to this genre. [19] NoremacDaGangsta (talk) 06:24, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Makes sense to me. The Emo-Pop tag has become increasingly accepted and notable, and I don't see a reason why we shouldn't adopt it. (Albert Mond (talk) 08:27, 18 April 2010 (UTC))

This would presumably go after the mainstream popularity section? I am generally in favour as long as it is sourced. It might helped readers understand why bands like Paramore and Fall Out Boyre described as Emo in the press, although they owe very little to hardcore punk.--SabreBD (talk) 08:53, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I have to disagree. Though the more pop-leaning emo certainly bears description in the history section (within the "mainstream popularity" subsection, inasmuch as it can be reliably sourcedd), I don't think it merits its own section. I doubt there's enough to say about it that it would warrant its own header, and I also doubt that it's a widely-enough used tag to be considered a subgenre (unlike, say, pop punk, which has been in use since at least the mid-'90s). Even the Allmusic entry gives no author credit, so there's no way of knowing who wrote it. Again, I'm not averse to describing emo's almalgamation with pop music within the existing "mainstream popularity" section (admittedly the current history trails off after about 2002...I never did finish working on it), I just don't think quote-unquote "emo pop" merits its own section. --IllaZilla (talk) 10:06, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Then perhaps the best thing is if someone adds a section to mainstream popularity and we see how much properly sourced material there is. If it is only a few lines then a sub-section is hardly warranted. I would quite like this not to be me, but if nothing is done for a while I will have a go when I get some time.--SabreBD (talk) 16:58, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

A.V. Club article

Just saving this here as a source to use later for citing more content in this article. --IllaZilla (talk) 04:10, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Bad Citation

The "backlash" section below cites two articles relating to the Saudi Arabian emo girls, but the second quotes the first. They're not independent sources. 98.216.244.201 (talk) 13:56, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

It's one thing to delete article edits, it another to censor discussion

I knew a lot of these people. Dag Nasty, Picciotto, Ian McKaye, Jenny Toomy, Minor Threat, Fire Party, Velvet Monkeys, Jeff Nelson and his brother Brian "King" Nelson, etc. Some chick named Amy with a swordcane.

No one said the word "emo" in those days. Therefore the [[[article]]] is simply [[[wrong]]] and poorly sourced at that. Emo is a 90's term that is being retrospectively applied in this article to bands that were not emo. This article is simply an attempt to reframe the recently deleted "Revolution Summer" article.

None of the bands the article mentioned were Emo, emo didn't exist then, therefore the article, which depends heavily on one source, is bogus.

Also, the article perpetuates the illusion that there was some sort of conclave of punk rockers that came together and decided to all pursue a different musical direction. I'd like to see some documentation of that that would meet Wikipedia standards, but I won't because it never happened, therefore there are no secondary sources documenting that. I was there, or more precisely I wasn't because it never happened.

Being a poor sport by deleting discussions is not a classy move, and in fact violates the following Wiki directive:

"Discussions on this page may escalate into heated debate. Please try to keep a cool head when commenting here. See also: Wikipedia:Etiquette." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.171.176.190 (talk) 17:43, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

"Being a poor sport by deleting discussions is not a classy move, and in fact violates the following Wiki directive:

"Discussions on this page may escalate into heated debate. Please try to keep a cool head when commenting here. See also: Wikipedia:Etiquette."

I'm fairly sure that it doesn't. It's also interesting that you should be so quick to point out said directive considering that part of your previous comment is strangely absent from this version.

"Also, the article perpetuates the illusion that there was some sort of conclave of punk rockers that came together and decided to all pursue a different musical direction. Bullshit. I was there."(Albert Mond (talk) 05:52, 21 May 2010 (UTC))

Congratulations on "being there". No one cares. This is not the place for you to rant about your own opinions on the origin or usage of the term "emo". Wikipedia is not a forum, and if you can't keep your comments relevant to the task of building an encyclopedia, then they have no place here. Contrary to your assertion, this article is not "an attempt to reframe the recently deleted 'Revolution Summer' article." I know this because I wrote ~85% of the current emo article, yet I never read any article about "Revolution Summer", had no idea it was deleted, and certainly didn't try to "reframe" it (my complete rewrite of the History section of this article predates the deletion of the Revolution Summer article by over a year). As you can see I used many sources in writing the majority of the current article. Also your assertion that "No one said the word 'emo' in those days...Emo is a 90's term that is being retrospectively applied in this article to bands that were not emo" is completely wrong. The link in the discussion immediately above this one shows Ian MacKaye, in 1986, commenting on a Thrasher article describing his band Embrace as "emocore" or "emotional hardcore". Clearly the term was being used, even if it wasn't readily accepted by those in the scene. Both Andy Greenwald and Michael Azerrad (in their respective books) trace the origins of the term "emo" back to the mid-'80s. Since Greenwald and Azerrad are both professional, published writers and journalists in the field of music history, we're going to go ahead and consider them much more reliable sources than some anonymous person on the internet claiming "I was there". Also, Wikipedia:Etiquette is not a "directive", it's a guideline; and it advises to assume good faith and to remain WP:CIVIL...calling the article "bullshit" and accusing its writers (myself included) of having some agenda and pushing a point of view demonstrates neither civility nor an assumption of good faith. You might also want to familiarize yourself with the talk page guidelines, since you seem so concerned with Wikipedia's "directives". At any rate, contrary to your "I was there" assertions, there are plenty of reliable sources tracing the origins of the term "emo" to the mid-'80s, and they all point to the Washington, D.C. hardcore scene. The standard on Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth, and the statement that the term's origins have been traced back to the '80s is not only verifiable, it is verified by several sources. Even Jenny Toomey, who you claim to have known, is quoted in this very article as saying: "The only people who used it at first were the ones that were jealous over how big and fanatical a scene it was. [Rites of Spring] existed well before the term did and they hated it. But there was this weird moment, like when people started calling music 'grunge,' where you were using the term even though you hated it." How could she have been using a term that, as you claim, didn't exist? Or be referring to a musical scene that, as you claim, "never happened"? The very people you claim never said the word "emo" in those days are quoted—right here in the article—using the term "emocore" in that period. Your argument is refuted by numerous sources. If you disagree with those sources, then write your own book and get it published. --IllaZilla (talk) 07:34, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Aye, there's something of a disconnect between Guy Picciotto and Pete Wentz, isn't there? I guess, etymologically, IllaZilla is correct. But in terms of cultural context, and the lyrical content of the music, I'm not sure I see the relationship. Particularly with regards to Minor Threat and Fugazi, who always had a very keen, political, external outlook and advocated presence of mind. Emo bands these days are more introspective (if not narcissistic, surely) and more committed, in the mental sense, to oblivion. I'll believe that the word "emo" was handed down in that chain, but not the music, nor the culture, nor the ideals. This isn't the same as saying, "Kraftwerk led to Daft Punk." There's no such connection between "Repeater" and whatever the hell My Chemical Romance are publishing. 98.216.244.201 (talk) 14:18, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

FWIW I don't think anyone is making the claim that Minor Threat or Fugazi were, or have been called, emo. In fact Greenwald specifically says that Fugazi aren't and never were emo. I've read a number of other books (Our Band Could Be Your Life, American Hardcore: A Tribal History, etc.) covering these bands and none of them refer to Minor Threat or Fugazi as emo. Minor Threat is universally recognized as hardcore, and Fugazi usually as post-hardcore or indie rock. Embrace and Rites of Spring, on the other hand (and which existed between Minor Threat & Fugazi), are most often referred to as the originators of "emotional hardcore" or "emocore". So no, there isn't really a connection between "Repeater" and My Chemical Romance, but there is a historical and stylistic trail to be followed from Rites of Spring to Jawbreaker & Sunny Day to Jimmy Eat World & The Get Up Kids to bands like Fall Out Boy & My Chemical Romance. --IllaZilla (talk) 02:05, 2 July 2010 (UTC)