Type of site | Music, comedy, search engine |
---|---|
Founded | 2014 |
Founder(s) | Tom Mullen |
URL | isthisbandemo |
Current status | Active |
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 accompanied by 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 .
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]
"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."
The 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] Similar websites, Is This Band Punk? , and Is This Band Indie? were also created by Washed Up Emo to help differentiate and educate music listeners about these genres. [10] [11]
Rock is a broad genre of popular music that originated as "rock and roll" in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of different styles from the mid-1960s, particularly in the United States and the United Kingdom. It has its roots in rock and roll, a style that drew directly from the genres of blues, rhythm and blues, and country music. Rock also drew strongly from genres such as electric blues and folk, and incorporated influences from jazz and other musical styles. For instrumentation, rock is typically centered on the electric guitar, usually as part of a rock group with electric bass guitar, drums, and one or more singers. Usually, rock is song-based music with a 4
4 time signature and utilizing a verse–chorus form, but the genre has become extremely diverse. Like pop music, lyrics often stress romantic love but also address a wide variety of other themes that are frequently social or political. Rock was the most popular genre of music in the U.S. and much of the Western world from the 1950s to the 2010s.
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.
AFI is an American rock band from Ukiah, California, formed in 1991. Since 1998, it consists of lead vocalist Davey Havok, drummer and backing vocalist Adam Carson, bassist, backing vocalist and keyboardist Hunter Burgan, and guitarist, backing vocalist and keyboardist Jade Puget. Havok and Carson are the sole remaining original members. Originally a hardcore punk band, they have since delved into many genres, starting with horror punk and following through post-hardcore and emo into alternative rock and gothic rock.
Alternative rock is a category of rock music that evolved from the independent music underground of the 1970s. Alternative rock acts achieved mainstream success in the 1990s with the likes of the grunge subgenre in the United States, and the Britpop and shoegaze subgenres in the United Kingdom and Ireland. During this period, many record labels were looking for "alternatives", as many corporate rock, hard rock, and glam metal acts from the 1980s were beginning to grow stale throughout the music industry. The emergence of Generation X as a cultural force in the 1990s also contributed greatly to the rise of alternative rock.
Pop-punk is a rock music fusion genre that combines elements of punk rock with power pop or pop. It is defined by its fast-paced, energetic tempos, and emphasis on classic pop songcraft, as well as adolescent and anti-suburbia themes. It is distinguished from other punk-variant genres by drawing more heavily from 1960s bands such as the Beatles, the Kinks, and the Beach Boys. The genre has evolved throughout its history, absorbing elements from new wave, college rock, ska, hip hop, emo, boy band pop and even hardcore punk and metalcore. It is sometimes considered interchangeable with power pop and skate punk.
Ska punk is a fusion genre that mixes ska music and punk rock music. Ska punk tends to feature brass instruments, especially horns such as trumpets, trombones and woodwind instruments like saxophones, making the genre distinct from other forms of punk rock. It is closely tied to third wave ska which reached its zenith in the mid-1990s.
Screamo is a 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.
Brand New was an American rock band formed in 2000 from Long Island, New York. Consisting of lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Jesse Lacey, lead guitarist Vincent Accardi, bassist Garrett Tierney and drummer Brian Lane, the band earned critical recognition as one of the most influential emo bands, and was acclaimed for their musical development and artistic innovation compared to other groups in the scene which they originated from.
Post-hardcore is a punk rock music genre that maintains the aggression and intensity of hardcore punk but emphasizes a greater degree of creative expression. Like the term "post-punk", the term "post-hardcore" has been applied to a broad constellation of groups. Initially taking inspiration from post-punk and noise rock, post-hardcore began in the 1980s with bands like Hüsker Dü and Minutemen. The genre expanded in the 1980s and 1990s with releases by bands from cities that had established hardcore scenes, such as Fugazi from Washington, D.C. as well as groups such as Big Black, Jawbox, Quicksand, and Shellac that stuck closer to post-hardcore's noise rock roots. Dischord Records became a major nexus of post-hardcore during this period.
My Chemical Romance is an American rock band from New Jersey. The band's current lineup consists of lead vocalist Gerard Way, lead guitarist Ray Toro, rhythm guitarist Frank Iero, and bassist Mikey Way. They are considered one of the most influential rock groups of the 2000s and a major act in the pop-punk and emo genres, despite the band rejecting the latter label.
Deja Entendu is the second studio album by American rock band Brand New, released on June 17, 2003, by Triple Crown Records and Razor & Tie. It was widely praised for showing the band's maturation from their pop punk debut Your Favorite Weapon, and critics described the album as the moment when the band "started showing ambition to look beyond the emo/post-hardcore scene that birthed them."
Tell All Your Friends is the debut studio album by American rock band Taking Back Sunday, released on March 26, 2002, through Victory Records. Forming in 1999, the group underwent several lineup changes before settling on vocalist Adam Lazzara, guitarist and vocalist John Nolan, guitarist Eddie Reyes, bassist Shaun Cooper, and drummer Mark O'Connell. Taking Back Sunday released a five-song demo in early 2001, after which they toured the United States for most of the year. They rented a room in Lindenhurst, New York, where they wrote and demoed songs. In December 2001, the band signed with Victory Records; they began recording their debut album with producer Sal Villanueva at Big Blue Meenie Recording Studio in New Jersey.
Your Favorite Weapon is the debut studio album by American rock band Brand New, released in 2001. Recorded and released a year after the band's formation, the album consists of pop punk songs about the highs and lows of teenage life. Your Favorite Weapon received positive reviews from critics and sold over 315,000 copies.
Emo pop is a fusion genre combining emo with pop-punk, pop music, or both. Emo pop features a musical style with more concise composition and hook-filled choruses. Emo pop has its origins in the 1990s with bands like Jimmy Eat World, the Get Up Kids, Weezer and the Promise Ring. The genre entered the mainstream in the early 2000s with Jimmy Eat World's breakthrough album Bleed American, which included its song "The Middle". Other emo pop bands that achieved mainstream success throughout the decade included Fall Out Boy, the All-American Rejects, My Chemical Romance, Panic! at the Disco and Paramore. The popularity of emo pop declined in the 2010s, with some prominent artists in the genre either disbanding or abandoning the emo pop style.
AbsolutePunk was a website, online community, and alternative music news source founded by Jason Tate. The website mainly focused on artists who are relatively unknown to mainstream audiences, but it was known to feature artists who have eventually achieved crossover success, for example, Blink-182 and Fall Out Boy. The primary musical genres of focus were emo and pop punk, but other genres were included.
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.
The Hotelier is an American indie rock band from Worcester, Massachusetts, currently signed with Dreams of Field Recordings. The band's second album, Home, Like Noplace Is There, has been featured on Spin's "The 101 Best Albums of the 2010s" list and is considered an "essential emo album" by AltPress. The group has performed at the Pirate Satellite Festival, the Pitchfork Music Festival, and the Primavera Sound festival.
Emo rap is a subgenre of hip hop with influence from emo. Originating from the SoundCloud rap scene in the mid-2010s, the genre fuses characteristics of hip hop music, such as trap-style beats with vocals that are usually sung. The most prominent artists in the genre were Lil Peep, XXXTentacion, and Juice Wrld.