Is This Band Emo?

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Is This Band Emo?
Itbe logo.svg
Screenshot
Cayetana Is This Band Emo%3F.png
Is This Band Emo's page when searching for the band Cayetana
Type of site
Music, comedy, search engine
Founded2014
Founder(s) Tom Mullen
URL isthisbandemo.com
Current statusActive

Is This Band Emo? is a website that classifies various bands and musicians based on whether they are included in the emo music genre, with some responses interspersed with comedic comments. Created by Tom Mullen, founder of the Washed Up Emo podcast and website, it is intended to inform about the history of emo music. It has been featured in various music publications such as Alternative Press , Consequence , and Rolling Stone .

Contents

Origins

The emo genre formed in the Washington D.C. music scene as a subgenre of hardcore punk in the 1980s, before reaching mainstream popularity in the 1990s and 2000s. [1] [2] Tom Mullen, who had discovered the genre through the underground punk scenes, first created the blog Washed Up Emo in 2007 in response to its increasing mainstream prevalence. [1] [3] Likening emo's popularity in the 2000s to the "hair metal" genre, Mullen lamented what he perceived as the shifting legacy of the genre, noting how the mainstream press often emphasized and covered the genre's popularity and aesthetics in the decade, while overlooking the genre's hardcore punk origins and Midwest developments. [1] [3] Mullen later created the Is This Band Emo? site with various friends, musicians and writers around the world, facetiously called the Emo Council. He designed the logo for the council "in five seconds" based on the United Nations logo, and spent several months including bands with jokes on the site. [1] The website launched in late 2014 and crashed on its first day, according to Mullen. [1]

Content

"What I try to do with the site is remind people that if you came in through MCR, if you came in through Armor for Sleep or Fall Out Boy, there's more… There's more for you to experience, and let me show you where."

Tom Mullen discussing the purpose of the website. [1]

The Is This Band Emo? website functions as a basic search engine that generates a response on whether a band or musician is classified as emo or not emo. [4] [5] As opposed to an algorithm or artificial intelligence models, the decision for the bands is manually determined by the Emo Council, who collectively discuss and vote for their inclusion. [1] [5] [6] Several of the responses include explanations on why a particular artist is or is not classified in the genre, often containing humorous and ironic commentary. [6] [7] Bands listed as emo on the site include Dashboard Confessional, Death Cab for Cutie, Jawbreaker, Taking Back Sunday, and The Promise Ring. [2] [4] [7] [8] Bands such as Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, and The Used are listed as not emo on the website, despite their association with the Third Wave of the genre; [1] [8] [9] searching My Chemical Romance yields the result "Unlike high school, emo has a history longer than four years" as of 2022. [1] Bands not listed on the site may be requested through Twitter/X. [7] The website also contains several Easter eggs and references, such as a reference to a Saturday Night Live sketch upon searching Weezer, Bernie Sanders listed as emo among indie and punk, and basketball players such as Kevin Durant. [1] The site has received notice from Alternative Press, [4] Consequence, [5] and Rolling Stone, [7] along with musicians such as Phoebe Bridgers. [1] A similar website, Is This Band Punk?, was also created by Washed Up Emo for researching punk bands. [10] [11]

See also

Related Research Articles

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Emo is a 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-to-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.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Screamo</span> Aggressive subgenre of emo

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<i>Tell All Your Friends</i> 2002 studio album by Taking Back Sunday

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scene (subculture)</span> Youth subculture

The scene subculture is a youth subculture that emerged during the early 2000s in the United States from the pre-existing emo subculture. The subculture became popular with adolescents from the mid 2000s to the early 2010s. Members of the scene subculture are referred to as scene kids, trendies, or scenesters. Scene fashion consists of skinny jeans, bright-colored clothing, a signature hairstyle consisting of straight, flat hair with long fringes covering the forehead, and bright-colored hair dye. Music genres associated with the scene subculture include metalcore, crunkcore, deathcore, electronic music, and pop punk.

The emo revival, or fourth wave emo, was an underground emo movement which began in the late 2000s and flourished until the mid-to-late 2010s. The movement began towards the end of the 2000s third-wave emo, with Pennsylvania-based groups such as Tigers Jaw, Algernon Cadwallader and Snowing eschewing that era's mainstream sensibilities in favor of influence from 1990s Midwest emo. Acts like Touché Amoré, La Dispute and Defeater drew from 1990s emo and especially its heavier counterparts, such as screamo and post-hardcore.

Emo rap is a fusion genre of hip hop and emo music. Originating in the SoundCloud rap scene in the mid-2010s, the genre fuses characteristics of hip hop music, such as beats and rapping, with the lyrical themes, instrumentals, and vocals commonly found in emo music. Lil Peep, XXXTentacion, and Juice Wrld are some of the most notable musicians in the genre.

References

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  2. 1 2 Sayles, Justin (July 25, 2022). "The (Slightly Abridged) Dictionary of Emo". The Ringer . Archived from the original on July 25, 2022. Retrieved February 6, 2024.
  3. 1 2 Burleson, Ryan (April 28, 2015). "The Medium: How Tom Mullen Took a Stand for Emo". Paste . Archived from the original on March 4, 2024. Retrieved March 4, 2024.
  4. 1 2 3 Sharp, Tyler (December 9, 2014). "This website will tell you if your favorite bands are "emo" or not". Alternative Press . Archived from the original on August 11, 2017. Retrieved February 6, 2024.
  5. 1 2 3 Coplan, Chris (January 22, 2015). "Is your favorite band emo? This website has the answer". Consequence . Archived from the original on January 23, 2015. Retrieved February 6, 2024.
  6. 1 2 Mack, Emmy (January 23, 2015). "Is Your Favourite Band Actually An Emo Band? This Website Knows". Music Feeds . Archived from the original on January 24, 2015. Retrieved February 6, 2024.
  7. 1 2 3 4 Broicher, Fabian (January 23, 2015). "Ist meine Lieblingsband emo? Website klärt endlich auf" [Is my favorite band emo? Website finally clarifies]. Rolling Stone (in German). Archived from the original on February 6, 2024. Retrieved February 6, 2024.
  8. 1 2 Gerstein, Julie (December 30, 2015). "This Website Will Tell You If Your Favorite Bands Are Emo Or Not". BuzzFeed . Archived from the original on December 31, 2015. Retrieved February 6, 2024.
  9. Haskoor, Michael (December 10, 2014). "There Is A Website That Tells You If a Band Is Emo". Diffuser.fm . Archived from the original on December 18, 2014. Retrieved February 6, 2024.
  10. Dickman, Maggie (December 9, 2014). "This website will tell you if your favorite bands are "punk" or not". Alternative Press . Archived from the original on February 13, 2019. Retrieved February 6, 2024.
  11. Hughes, Josiah (June 9, 2017). "There's Finally a Website to Tell You Whether Your Favourite Bands Are Punk or Not". Exclaim! . Archived from the original on June 9, 2017. Retrieved February 6, 2024.