Emo is a rock music genre characterized by emotional, often confessional lyrics. It emerged as a style of hardcore punk and post-hardcore from the mid-1980s Washington, D.C. hardcore scene, where it was known as emotional hardcore or emocore. The bands Rites of Spring and Embrace, among others, pioneered the genre. In the early and mid 1990s, emo was adopted and reinvented by alternative rock, indie rock, punk rock, and pop-punk bands, including Sunny Day Real Estate, Jawbreaker, Cap'n Jazz, and Jimmy Eat World. By the mid-1990s, Braid, the Promise Ring, and the Get Up Kids emerged from Midwest emo, and several independent record labels began to specialize in the genre. Meanwhile, screamo, a more aggressive style of emo using screamed vocals, also emerged, pioneered by the San Diego bands Heroin and Antioch Arrow. Screamo achieved mainstream success in the 2000s with bands like Hawthorne Heights, Silverstein, Story of the Year, Thursday, the Used, and Underoath.
Screamo is an aggressive subgenre of emo that emerged in the early 1990s and emphasizes "willfully experimental dissonance and dynamics". San Diego-based bands Heroin and Antioch Arrow pioneered the genre in the early 1990s, and it was developed in the late 1990s mainly by bands from the East Coast of the United States such as Pg. 99, Orchid, Saetia, and I Hate Myself. Screamo is strongly influenced by hardcore punk and characterized by the use of screamed vocals. Lyrical themes usually include emotional pain, death, romance, and human rights. The term "screamo" has frequently been mistaken as referring to any music with screaming.
The Used is an American rock band from Orem, Utah, formed in 2000. The group consists of vocalist Bert McCracken, bassist Jeph Howard, drummer Dan Whitesides, and guitarist Joey Bradford. Former members include Quinn Allman, Branden Steineckert, and Justin Shekoski.
Usurp Synapse is a screamo band from Lafayette, Indiana. The group combines fast and frantic grindcore influenced drumming and guitar work, and raw screams.
Brenda Holloway is an American soul singer who was a recording artist for Motown Records during the 1960s. Her best-known recordings are the hits "Every Little Bit Hurts", "When I'm Gone", and "You've Made Me So Very Happy". The latter, which she co-wrote, was later widely popularized when it became a Top Ten hit for Blood, Sweat & Tears. She left Motown after four years, at the age of 22, and largely retired from the music industry until the 1990s, after her recordings had become popular on the British "Northern soul" scene.
Nicholas Joseph Zinner is the guitarist and record producer for the New York rock band Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Zinner is also an accomplished photographer.
Level Plane was an American independent record label based in New York City that was founded in early 1997 by Greg Drudy for the release of Saetia's first 7". Drudy ran the label until it ceased to exist in 2009. It released records in a variety of styles including those by many screamo bands.
Pg. 99 was a screamo band from Sterling, Virginia, a town on the outskirts of Washington, D.C. They are considered one of the pioneers of screamo. The band formed as a six-piece in late 1997 and broke up as an eight-piece in 2003; at their maximum capacity they performed with two singers, three guitarists, two bassists and a drummer and were known for their intense live shows.
The Plot to Blow Up the Eiffel Tower was an American four-piece punk/noise band from San Diego, California, United States, that formed in 2001. After disbanding in 2006, drummer Brian Hill now plays with The Soft Pack, while singer Brandon Welchez and Charles Rowell formed the duo Crocodiles.
31G Records, or Three One G, is a San Diego, California-based independent record label, started by musician Justin Pearson in 1994 and focusing on punk and experimental music. The label has released a number of albums and compilations in what has been described as "freak punk" and "spaz-rock." Musicians on the label frequently collaborate, creating supergroups such as Holy Molar, Some Girls, and Head Wound City. Three One G's roster has featured many noise rock bands.
Dissertation, Honey is the debut studio album by San Diego band The Plot to Blow Up the Eiffel Tower, released on the Happy Couples Never Last label on June 17, 2003. Note that the intro and outro songs, "Exhibitionism" and "Monotonous" are excerpts from one of poet Kailani Amerson's spoken verse sessions.
Love in the Fascist Brothel is the second and final studio album by San Diego post-hardcore band The Plot to Blow Up the Eiffel Tower, released on Revelation Records and Three One G on February 15, 2005, on compact disc and vinyl formats respectively. The album showed a significant change in sound from the band's previous full-length, focusing much more on the styles of noise rock rather than just jazz punk. The album's title, artwork, and lyrical themes act as political and social commentary on both the presidency of George W. Bush and punk subculture, which the band felt was "dead" by the time they recorded the album.
Love Lost But Not Forgotten was an American screamo band formed in 1997 in suburban St. Peters, Missouri, composed of ex-members of End Over End and The Paxidils. Known for their violence onstage and unique vocals provided by a lineup that sometimes included two main vocalists and a trio of guitarists. The group has performed many tours across the United States and has performed with the likes of Converge and Godflesh. Since their break-up in 2003, the group has performed three different brief reunion shows in 2005, 2008 and 2010.
The Dream Is Dead was an American hardcore punk band based in Indianapolis whose music contained many anti-authoritarian themes.
If You Cut Us, We Bleed is an EP by San Diego band The Plot to Blow Up the Eiffel Tower, released on the Happy Couples Never Last label on March 9, 2004.
Powerviolence is an extremely dissonant and fast subgenre of hardcore punk which is closely related to thrashcore and grindcore. In contrast with grindcore, which is a "crossover" idiom containing musical aspects of heavy metal, powerviolence is just an augmentation of the most challenging qualities of hardcore punk. Like its predecessors, it is usually socio-politically charged and iconoclastic.
"Best I Ever Had" is a song recorded by Canadian singer and rapper Drake for his debut EP So Far Gone. It first became prominent from the release of mixtape of the same name. The song is also included on Drake's debut studio album Thank Me Later, as a bonus track on the Japanese version of the album, and on iTunes in several countries.
Document #7 is the second full-length album by American screamo band Pg. 99, originally released in early 2001 through Happy Couples Never Last. The vinyl edition first came out on July 23, 2002, through Magic Bullet Records. There were four pressings of the album on vinyl, with a total of 1,902 vinyl copies pressed. The album's overall tone and sound is very different to other Pg. 99 releases, focussing much more on progression and atmosphere rather than energetic fury. Originally, the entire record was supposed to be the Pg.99 side of a cancelled split with Love Lost But Not Forgotten and The Hareste.
Jeromes Dream is a screamo band from Connecticut, originally active from 1997 to 2001, and again from 2018 onwards.
Disinformation Fix is the discography compilation album by Usurp Synapse, which was released as a double disc compact disc through the New York label Alone Records on July 29, 2003. The album collects every single recording made by the group during their initial run, including previously unreleased tracks.
