Emo. This word sticks out like a sore thumb in the world of punk music. Excuse me, I meant to say new punk music. Some people still associate punk music only with bands that are or sound exactly like Rancid and Greenday. Let me just say, that those bands are not the symbol of today's punk music. So sit down with a coke and some vegetarian snacks while you enjoy the article.

A website, What the heck *is* emo anyway?, defines emo as "short for 'emotional.' Emo is a broad title that covers a lot of different styles of emotionally-charged punk rock." This definition of Emo is very basic yet informative. Mainly, Emo is a form of punk rock and there are more than one type of emo. Yes, more than one type! It seems people are just so amazed by creating new labels constantly. The main Emo music styles are: Emocore, Emo, Hardcore Emo, Post-Emo Indie Rock, Post-Emo Hardcore, and ScrEmo (scream-o).

Emocore bands consisted of a basic assemblage of people who had been in hardcore bands in the earlier 80's but got burned because hardcore had very limited forms. These bands made the guitars the main instrument in the music. Strummed in duo unison, some bands added more "pop-like" elements in to later songs.

Emo bands, the older ones anyway, never lasted very long because of lack of money and little promotion. Emo lyrics were not the lyrics of any normal song. Emo lyrics were always written abstractly in poetic form. Singing, also, was not quite "the norm". Some bands had normal singing parts during quite music sections, all the way up to gut-wrenching screaming, and even to completely authentic sobbing and crying. Most current-day Emo bands have taken the crying away and replaced it with more screaming (An extra large amount of screaming coined the ScrEmo style). Even covers (for vinyl, LPs and CDs) were different. Normally, Emo bands had CD covers portraying old rusty machinery and black and whiter pictures of small children or old men. Needless to say, Emo was and is dramatic in all ways.

Hardcore Emo. At first I thought Emocore and Hardcore Emo would be the same. I was wrong. Hardcore Emo is Emo with a few adjustments. First off, a lot of thrashing around (on stage) and fast, screamed lyrics. Second, Guitars sometimes played no notes, rather, they let out high-pitched noises and such. As you can imagine the guitars used a lot of distortion. Basses used some distortion, but never as much as guitars. Some songs were not even noticable when performed onstage.

Post-Emo Indie Rock which is sometimes called "Midwest Emo" because most bands came out of Nowheresville, Midwestern States. Lighter singing and "poppy" guitar music with light drumming made this "brand" of Emo so much different than original Emo. One of today's most recognizable Post-Emo Indie Rock bands is Jimmy Eat World, which gets regular rotations on MTV (or atleast MTV2).

Post-Emo Hardcore is what people seem to call today's most recent bands. I disagree with this because they describe this as bleeding, screaming lyrics, with a wall of noise. Oh, well. Not much I can do.

My friends commented on emo.
Kim said, "Emo is awesome."
Joe said, "Most suck, but I like Thursday and Juliana Theory."
Tom said, "It's ok"
Dorman said, "I think it's a persons emotions and inspirations put into a musical form. That's what all music is; feeling. Emo's tye same as any other type of music. It's a band playing they're emotions out and giving people something to relate to and listen to."
Later, Dorman added, "Emo's feeling, and feeling is music. If you can't feel then it's not real."
Finally, Meg said, "All I have to say about Emo is that it is emotional. You change one letter and you've got Emu. Emu's are often mistaken for Ostriches, which is a tragedy because Emu's are far superior."

For more info on Emo, go to What the heck *is* emo anyway?