Getting very emotional about Emo

Gerry Wachovsky
On-line Forty-Niner

Across the course of time there have been many unanswered questions. What is life? If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one around to hear it, does it make a sound? Are we alone in the universe? Does anything happen after we die? Now, we can add another one to the mix: what is emo?

Emo, according to a definition at www.about.com, “is Hardcore Punk music with sensitive and emotional lyrics.” Simple enough, right? But wait, the plot thickens!

Also according to the Web site, “The music is epitomized by post-Grunge, edgy rock with explosive energy mixed with sensitivity. Emotional lyrics about sadness, love and even anger are common lyrical themes.” OK, now I am confused.

I was always under the assumption that all music is emotional. When you are listening to your favorite record, it evokes some sort of feeling, right? You might sing along to the words, you might pump your fist in the air, or you might play air guitar to it. Whatever you do, it symbolizes that you are definitely feeling some kind of emotion while listening.

Emo, which is short for emotional, is a bit of a musical anomaly. It does not quite follow the conventional “rules,” if you will, in that one person’s definition of it can quite often be totally different from another’s. Consider the Web site www.fourfa.com. This site is dedicated to emo, and in one section describes what the author believes to be the best emo records of all time.

Two 12-inch records by Fugazi, “Margin Walker” and “13 Songs,” according to the Web site, “showed us that sometimes there’s more depth and power in restraint and quietude than in full-power blasting punk. Sometimes you just need to all strum the same octave chord and shut up.”

That seems clear enough, but then the list seems to take a left turn when mentioning a hardcore band called Guyver. Call me crazy, but I always thought hardcore was reserved for such punk bands as Good Riddance, Thrice, and the great Death By Stereo. Judging from this Web site, I guess those bands would be considered emo. You see how this can get confusing?

In addition to the confusing nature of emo itself, there are also sub-genres of the sub-genre of emo. Among them are emocore, emo violence and screamo. Are these levels of emo somehow more emo than emo itself?

Do they dare to be more emotional than emotional music, evoking a sort of uber-emotionality? I can imagine emo fans considering themselves to be “more emo” than others, much like many punks consider themselves to be “more punk.” It seems to be a never-ending cycle of levels of emo.

Emo also has another aspect to it, besides whining about love and depression, which is expressed in the clothes that “emo kids” wear.

Web site www.ubersite.com describes this style best when the author of a certain piece recounted his inadvertently stumbling into an emo club that was appropriately called “Emo’s.”

“I was just looking for a place to get another beer,” he says. “I’ve always [hated] Emo, and my drunkenness had [led] me straight into the lion’s den…It was terrible. A bunch of idiots dressed in old striped shirts, cardigans all around me, stupid high water pants, ’50s style non-prescription glasses, studded belts...I wanted to punch each and every last patron of this establishment right in the gut.”

So, what have we learned here? Well, there are sub-genres of emo, which is a sub-genre of music itself, that much is true. But does the term “emo” really justify the name for the genre?

If you listen to classic rock religiously, it is probably emotional to you, just as someone who listens to rap every day probably find some kind of emotional attachment to it. There also appears to be emo styling in the clothes fans of the genre wear.

While this is not necessarily a bad thing, it does help us to easily identify the “emotional” ones around us. Better get your bottles of Prozac ready.