the emo canon

ive been thinking a lot since bumping this thread/listening to these three albums yesterday:

Promise Ring - Nothing Feels Good // Braid - Frame and Canvas // Get Up Kids - 4 Minute Mile //

what else belongs in the emo canon?

in no particular order, i'd start with:

the promise ring - 30° everywhere
the promise ring - nothing feels good
the promise ring - very emergency
braid - frame and canvas
the get up kids - four minute mile
the get up kids - something to write home about
jimmy eat world - static prevails
jimmy eat world - clarity
jets to brazil - orange rhyming dictionary
piebald - when life hands you lemons
piebald - if it weren't for venetian blinds it would be curtains for us all
cap'n jazz - analphabetapolothology

on the far ends of the spectrum i'd add shit like sunny day real estate and saves the day??

please feel free to use this thread to argue over the meaning of the word "emo" and to indulge in cute nostalgia

rainer maria - past worn searching and/or look now, look again

neither are their best record but those are the emo ones

jejune - this afternoons malady belongs here too

if the hated had ever released an album i would be putting it here

personal faves:

knapsack - day three of my new life
sunny day real estate - how it feels to be something on
jawbreaker - 24 hour revenge therapy (too indie???)
jets to brazil - orange rhyming dictionary

there are a lot of albums that are in my personal ~emo~ cannon that i guess really arent, i half lump stuff like 'fevers & mirrors' and early songs: ohia, june panic, 'it's hard to find a friend' in with this stuff because i cared a lot about it around the same time

'poised to break' by sunday's best is another good one

interesting sdre pick, lamp-- feel like most ppl would go w/ one of the first two?

like 'em or not, SDRE has to be on any emo canon list. probably the first two (maybe three) albums, though I think the last one, The Rising Tide, is their best.

i always think of Saves The Day as more pop-punk, tho.

what about that one Texas Is The Reason album?

interesting sdre pick, lamp-- feel like most ppl would go w/ one of the first two?

yeah i think LP2 is probably the cannon pick here but i started listening to emo stuff after looking for more stuff like songs: ohia and like silver jews so ive always sorta gravitated towards the beardier, slower stuff? ive actually put 'how it feels...' on rn, very quiet, in my apartment and its even more mellow and jammier than i remembered but it still kills p hard even if some of it sounds like built to spill

"how it feels" came after a hiatus of a few years iirc?

always felt it and rising tide were more proggy and less emo-- both prob belong in any canon tho

saw them live when they toured in support of both those albums-- one time waiting outside a sold-out show at the metro for three hours watching ppl scalp tickets for $100 until finally getting one at face value minutes before sdre went on

do rites of spring count

yeah arent rites of spring the ~original~ emo band?

man i'm listening to Diary right now and if you swapped out the vocals this could be a pearl jam album almost?

rites of spring and embrace just sound like hardcore bands to me tbh

Jawbox should be here too. I remember an article on these 90s second-wave emo bands (Braid, Promise Ring, etc) in Guitar World where nearly all of them cited 'Grippe' as an influence.

Moss Icon was another band mentioned - their discography just got reissued.

Did the Hated not have an album? I bought some sort of LP thing of theirs in the late 80s, maybe it was just a mini-album/EP. Had a 2 x 7" too which was a lot better iirc, though ultimately still kind of annoying. Think I picked these up cos I read in MRR that Bob Mould had produced one of their records or something. I found out to my cost that this was by no means a guarantee of quality.

Another great, underrated emo band was Mock Orange (specifically their first two albums Nines And Sixes and The Record Play).

Should emo-hardcore-bands like Thursday be considered third- (or maybe fourth-) wave emobands?

The Hated had a mini-LP and a LP-length demo that got presed to vinyl

used to be p impressed in oldilx days that the singer from The Hated posted here

if I started posting like Mohinder and Angel Hair youtubes or whatever it would effectively ruin the thread right

used to be p impressed in oldilx days that the singer from The Hated posted here

oh shit, col1n m33der right? that was the same guy?? I had never made that connection before

not sure why i am g00gl3pr00f1ng him btw, just seems polite to

iirc he hardly ever posted about being in a band but yeah

today's amazing-to-me fact, thanking you djm

I was really into this stuff for a while and am still quite fond of some of it. Some others I liked:

The Appleseed Cast - Mare Vitalis
American Football - s/t
Christie Front Drive - Anthology CD
Elliott - False Cathedrals

I suppose Mineral deserve a place in the canon but I never liked them much.

Hmm... a mixtape within reach from this era seems to also contain (on top of Braid/Get Up Kids/Promise Ring/Piebald) the likes of Samiam, Jejune, Lifetime, Seaweed, Superchunk, Joan of Arc, Pedro the Lion, J Church, Avail... (some of those are obviously not 'emo' by any definition, but they could sit side-by-side).

Strictly Ballroom were a big band in L.A. at the time (and contained the people that became Beachwood Sparks and Dntel). They were really great and only put out one album (called "Hide Here Forever," which is about as emo as it gets - it's a great album, though). They were dubbed, by the press - or maybe the band themselves - "enocore," because they did lots of ambient soundscapes in between screamy stuff.

I remember this scene was always mocked by punks, but it really did reach a self-parody saturation point pretty quickly. I remember going to (the late, lamented, legendary) No Life in L.A. to see an instore by a bunch of emo bands and two of them were named after lyrics from other emo bands (December's Tragic Drive (an SDRE lyric) and something like Patient Boy, or some Fugazi thing!)

A surprising amount of it holds up well, though, as far as I'm concerned!

Another small band that didn't get a lot of national recognition but made scene waves was Ashes from Washington, D.C. - really pretty female vocals over palm-muted crunchy chords. They actually probably pre-dated the third-wave stuff, but their album is great. Wait - if RoS and Embrace were first wave emo, and Promise Ring et al were third-wave, what made up the second wave?

Lifetime! How could I forget them! One of my favorite bands EVER, though I personally they're a bit closer to straight up punkrock. All of their albums are great, including the reunion one from 2007.

@ Walter: about the emo-waves, this site might give you a clue:

http://www.fourfa.com/

Lifetime were great. I have Max to thank for introducing me to them iirc.

City Of Caterpillar - S/T

Hated officially released one full-length lp, the 2x7" ep, two album-length cassettes, and a 7" ep while they were still going. Tonie "Fucking Thief" Joy released a full-length lp and never listened to the test-pressing because he is a fucking moron, so it's at the wrong speed. Hated stuff was all self-produced, no Moulds in sight. Discography is coming and will blow the world away, but it's not coming on Troubleman. I may or may not be this M33d3r dude, but I sure didn't sing for the Hated. Did and do play a lot of bass.

rites of spring and embrace just sound like hardcore bands to me tbh

might be because 1st wave emo was hardcore. :)

The M33d3r person played bass, I mean. I don't know who I am or what I do.

Oh my golly

Feel bad about -ve comments now, but if it's any consolation, Hated got me in reading Rilke so props for that

TEXAS IS THE REASON

No prob. Hated people all still annoyed that the Joy-vandalized "What Was Behind" 12" is what most folks know.

what about that one Texas Is The Reason album?

Yes, definitely! Lots of people rep for the first EP, too, but I never really liked it. Do You Know Who You Are is classic, though.

Moss Icon was another band mentioned - their discography just got reissued.

― wronger than 100 geir posts (MacDara), miércoles 11 de julio de 2012 3:29 (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

reunion show in nyc october 25th and lpr

i feel a lot of bands would probably qualify for this thread.

if I started posting like Mohinder and Angel Hair youtubes or whatever it would effectively ruin the thread right

― if you are a false nine don't entry (DJ Mencap), miércoles 11 de julio de 2012 5:16 (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that's funny because i'm only in here hoping that the *core end of the spectrum rears its head

*october 25th at lpr

City Of Caterpillar - S/T

!

i mean if we're already that far along in the timeline (and that far out in terms of genre) i will totally not feel bad for pulling a

Majority Rule - Interviews with David Frost

lol forgive my porous memory 3WU

City Of Caterpillar LP is good but I shd get round to offloading it given it seems to go for £30 or so easily enough and I've not played it in years

I think Saves the Day's Stay What You Are should be included, because it definitely is a prime example of where the "emo" thing went in the early 2000s. I hesitate bringing them up because I know how loathed they are, but I would argue that Dashboard Confessional's The Place You Have Come to Fear the Most should be a part of the canon. Not because its a good record, but because, again, its a pretty solid example of the genre's evolution over time. For a better Carraba related album though, maybe Further Seems Forever's The Moon is Down.

I also might toss out Bright Eyes' Letting Off the Happiness.

1985. What did you do when you were 16?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePxcBXsmuuI

nice!

1988, and more heard (and therefore ripped-off) at the time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6DjkIloPpA

Late '89, unreleased, commonly bootlegged, the best stuff we did:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AevJDUQv8Mw

hey I remember that second song alright! the singing's not really my thing, but the music still stands up so kudos to that m33d3r guy

Jawbreaker - Bivouac
Sense Field - Building
Grade - Under the Radar (or is that to punk-ey/screamy)
Farside?

boy's life: departures and landfalls
still life: from angry heads with skyward eyes

oh also kudos to lamp for mentioning knapsack

oh yeah, also:

split lip/chamberlain: fate's got a driver

does hot water music count? can't remember the STICT emo definitions. lol what was that ridiculous website?

and if anyone wanted me to assemble a third-wave canon (say, saves the day on) i could

haha www.fourfa.com! xp

always loved how it labels pretty much all the bands everyone i've ever met would consider 'emo' as 'post-emo indie rock' #shotsfired

but yeah:

hot water music - no division

+ that get up kids coalesce cover

American Football - s/t

This is probably my favorite "emo" album ever, but/because it's like a post-rock version of emo.

i need to get that moss icon set when i have the money. will be niceafter only having mp3s all these years

small brown bike - dead reckoning

worse/'most emo' band name ever

well i did it anyway

cursive: domestica
the get up kids: four minute mile
the get up kids: something to write home about
saves the day: through being cool
saves the day: stay what you are
taking back sunday: tell all your friends
brand new: deja entendu
brand new: the devil and god are raging inside me
thursday: full collapse
fall out boy: take this to your grave
say anything: ... is a real boy

I was never personally all that into emo, but references to Small Brown Bike and Mock Orange are super-nostalgic for me b/c I had friends who liked/played basement shows with them in the late '90s.

Oh yeah, thats a good list of latter day emo albums. Good call on the first TBS record.

really loving that Words Come Back track, TWU!

I know I've said this elsewhere but I saw The Hated in an Indiana cornfield in 1989 and they were awesome. I even did an interview with them that is preserved on video. I will totally buy a reissue, glad to hear it's in the works. I used to have one of the tapes and both singles, but I sold them like a dumbass when I got really into noize.

Glad you dug it, Thermo. That song has been described as the Ur Document of emo, 'cause it was the first song of pain we did that didn't go druggy in the middle.

We played a Bloomington basement in August or September '88, sleeve, and that was our last show in Indiana -- are you thinking of that show? Or maybe an earlier one, without me (I don't mean "me" per se, I am using it as an abbreviation for "that M33d3r person" -- also by "we" I mean "the Hated", whom I feel like I know from their wonderful recordings) -- did the bass player have a Rickenbacker or a Yamaha headless?

Another small band that didn't get a lot of national recognition but made scene waves was Ashes from Washington, D.C. - really pretty female vocals over palm-muted crunchy chords.

let me also recommend Scarab (who partially went on to become One True Thing). You can download their whole discography here: http://porvidapunk.blogspot.com/2011/09/scarab-discography.html

Lamp wrt to:

ive always sorta gravitated towards the beardier, slower stuff

were you ever in to Three Mile Pilot?

I love Three Mile Pilot!

i'm glad saves the day and lifetime are getting mentioned-- i dont consider them emo canon but they are v v awesome and important

also thank you for posting The Hated-- how had i never heard of this band?

early At The Drive In also def belongs somewhere in or close to the canon:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIdkBqI6dhg

Sure, ATDI should fit in. What about Quicksand? They were a bit closer to the weird 1994-era alternative/metal crossover but are considered a major influence on a lot of bands. And if we consider Lifetime, than their spin-off band Kid Dynamite could also be a contender.

does hot water music count

i feel like everyone that was talking about braid back then was also talking hwm

Probably also Goddamnit and the self-titled singles comp by Alkaline Trio probably deserve a spot.

my missus is all about this stuff

find myself quite partial to braid frame and canvas

cant remember if it's save the day or get up kids i cant abide, probably both tbf

Has anyone agreed on when 3rd wave emo started? im not sure you can really say the get up kids are 3rd wave when they started the same time as some 2nd wave bands!

Anyway I'll rep for Something to Write Home About all day long. and promise ring too

im not sure you can really say the get up kids are 3rd wave when they started the same time as some 2nd wave bands!

eh i rope them in b/c take this to your grave is essentially a tribute to four minute mile

anyway at gunpoint i'd say third wave began with something to write home about and through being cool in '99

probably also an argument to be made for 2001-2002 with your favorite weapon and tell all your friends

i only ever dabbled in this stuff so i wont argue, but in my mind they were 2nd wave but it hardly matters.

i forgot how much i liked still life!

i should go listen to them again

van pelt y'all

were you ever in to Three Mile Pilot?

ive never even heard of them! this thread has been super informative cuz i was at best a dabbler in late emo i just had all the bright eyes cds i mean all the bright eyes cds

texas is the reason is otm i was trying and failing to remember them last nite

[if I started posting like Mohinder and Angel Hair youtubes or whatever it would effectively ruin the thread right

Not for me.

i will rep for the 1st 3 bright eyes albums and commander venus. And anyone who hates Desaparecidos can fuck off!

I already knew and liked "Everysong" but I was glad for the other two Hated links!

AG otm, Desaparecidos is easily the best thing Oberst has ever done (and I'm likely more of his stan than anyone else on this board) and I keep hoping the rumors of another album come true one of these days.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZtgoTQRH4c

i was rocking dashboard in the car this week. saints + sailors, vindicated... no screaming infidelities tho, or hands down.

i like some of his more recent stuff too - belle of blvd is not bad, thick as thieves, get me right was a jam

(Angel Hair - Pregnant with the Senior Class = classic for me)

oh man Lampski you gotta hear this record:

http://i.imgur.com/w26gk.jpg

def too post-rock/post-hardcore/almost proggy to be emo canon but def of the same universe.

and they covered eno!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yzp7lszaO0

it's the dudes who went on to form Black Heart Procession

also big up Desciparecidos

On the very tip of the post-rock end of the spectrum I nominate Juno's This is the Way it Goes and Goes and Goes.

(for reference:)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvYLbCH08OI

+1 for saves the day - stay what you are
jawbreaker - dear you was also a pretty big album for me+my emo friends

i might also mention that i was getting some SERIOUS late 90s emo vibes from Abe Vigoda when i saw em live a couple years back

FAIRWEATHER!

their last album Lusitania was killer!

it's the dudes who went on to form Black Heart Procession

and Pinback too.

this song seems like your steez kind of:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcsWGydETxc

I missed the boat on all this stuff and knew a bunch of college radio guys who were like five to ten years younger than me (I just turned 38) who were way into a lot of the bands mentioned here.

I've since listened to a lot of these records out of curiosity as I respect the tastes of a lot of these people, but nothing ever really clicked for me though I don't really hate any of it. I think you had to be into it at a certain point in your life, probably like a lot stuff I loved when I was 18 or whatever.

This really isn't my wheelhouse, especially considering how vocal I was about my hatred for MANY of these bands at the time. Still, glad to see at least one person threw a bone to Samiam.

Man, Three Mile Pilot is another band that I ... like, totally would have checked out if the Internet in 1999 were like it is now. Heard their praises plenty. But yeah, I'm really digging that. I'm a Pinback fan, though, so.

Two more late Hated songs, because I underrepresented Erik:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OL1r4-_3c7M

That's "Lighthouse" and "Miggy's Delight". The Miggy's Delight take is a very early one where I am still learning the song and writing the bassline, and from the unstoppable 8th notes thing I have going on, Ken the drummer was probably smoked out at that session and I was mostly trying to keep the tempo from sloooooowing.

Oh damn that Promise Ring show I'm going to is next weekend not next month. I gotta brush up on some of this stuff before the show. It's been a while. Thanking everyone for The Hated vids btw.

i was hoping for more rainer maria love on this thread

x-post Or TWU specifically as it turns out - so good!

On the very tip of the post-rock end of the spectrum I nominate Juno's This is the Way it Goes and Goes and Goes.

― Simon H., Thursday, July 12, 2012 12:50 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

love this record

Just drumming up business for the reissue. My cat's gotta eat. :)

but not too much

Jejune, Lifetime, Seaweed, Joan of Arc, Pedro the Lion

Ha this is a fair summary of my download directory from the first month of finally getting on Napster in 1999 and typing in all the band names I'd picked up from the past couple of years of American magazines, webzines and mailing lists.

I think this stuff mostly just missed the time in my life when I would really have fallen hard for it, but I have much love for Jawbreaker still, and it led me to great not-emo bands such as Sweep the Leg Johnny (on an Emo Diaries comp!), Pele (on Polyvinyl), Pinback, etc. Looking forward to checking out all the youtubes on this thread later for a mix of 10% nostalgia and 90% "so that's what I missed"

violent femmes - s/t

Colin (or not Colin),

Can you confirm yet whether or not the discography's going to be on NumeroGroup? I understand they did a beautiful job on the Codeine box, so it's super exciting if true. I bought the home made discography cdrs from Ken (Spastic Rats cdr too) and while I'm glad he did them he put like zero effort into the packaging. Can't wait for the proper reissue.

I know the Crabtowne compilation cassette is like impossible to find, but is it worth seeking out? I like you guys and Spastic Rats and Christ on a Crutch, but I've never heard of the rest of the bands so they're a mystery to me.

Another great thing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eym7qbQHn-c

Man, I appear to have been more emo than I realized. Got to say I'm in the same camp as Lamp when it comes to Sunny Day Real Estate, that's a frickin great album and I still listen to it despite being a dance music dork for the most part. How about middle period At The Drive In, like Vaya?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyeRkWO9CY0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGj3g6f72Rg&feature=related

Also I can't believe how much I listened to this in high school.

Ixnay on the eventy-evensay, J.

Felldown: Can't talk about the label because the contracts aren't signed yet, but there are plans for a very fantastic and beautiful box set as well as a single-cd sampler for non-obsessives. The label is someone we are very happy to be dealing with. (If you would, as a personal favor to someone who may or may not be C0lin M33d3r, not copy and make available what Ken sent you, I would be much obliged. Many of those mixes will be cleaned up even more for the official release.) The Crabtowne comp would be worth looking and trading for, I think, but not worth paying big money for. The bands Strictly Prohibited and Images make it clear that Moss Icon didn't really come from nowhere, and the Hated tunes show our origins as a joke band.

re: angel hair

i loved (still love) anasarca - a dc band who's entire discog from 94-97 was like 7 songs (not the euro? metal band). whenever i mention i like them someone's all "blah blah blah angel hair was sooo much better" but i could never really get into angel hair, didn't think they were as melodic of what i heard and never saw a reason to compare them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gperskH7SM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qM36Cmfbrrc

Thanks Colin/Not Colin! I definitely won't share the cdrs. At the time Ken alluded to them being a placeholder of sorts, and I've always treated them as such.

Good call on the early ATDI - I'll add early Alkaline Trio and Smoking Popes

ha I used to love Smoking Popes. I think I first saw them open for Morrissey in 1998 ish.

Perversely, I listen to both the whacked-out noisy end of 90s emo and commercial major label 00s emo-pop but never really got into the indie pop-rock stuff in the middle (most of the stuff on this thread). I should probably give it more of a chance. I remember Braid sounding all right.

aw man great thread

how has no one mentioned ALKALINE TRIO

esp give their key role as a bridge between 3rd (?) and 4th (?) wave. or as proto-screamo.

oh i see they were literally mentioned like 3 posts ago, carry on

i dont think lifetime, who fuckin slay, are emo, tbh.

also what about hey mercedes? everynight fire works is as good as any braid album imo/iirc. guess its not really 'canon'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLsDzmqoVrQ

their first ep was better than EFW. i guess "old" braid fans hated hey mercedes but i always thought they were great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-asJi57AQck

I mis-identified "Pride and Confusion" as "Lighthouse". Dudes who have a copy of the Everysong vinyl probably knew that already.

i dont think lifetime, who fuckin slay, are emo, tbh.

― max, Thursday, July 12, 2012 10:08 AM (1 hour ago)

I'm not one to get in debates about what is or isn't emo, but Background is one of the sweater-iest emo albums ever. The stuff from the last lineup was definitely poppier. Great band, regardless.

i dont think lifetime, who fuckin slay, are emo, tbh.

undue influence they had over saves the day makes me want to include them but i kind of agree

lifetime rules. they def added an emo vibe to new jersey hardcore.

I haven't really chimed in on this thread yet, and most (all?) of the bands I would nominate for canonization have already been mentioned, but can I just say HOW HAPPY I AM THAT THIS IS HAPPENING??

btw 4-minute mile gets my vote for emo-est emo in all of emodom. nobody, before or after, can touch those guys when it comes to non-threatening screaming

literally the only thing wrong with that album is that it doesn't have "I'm A Loner Dottie, A Rebel" on it, and if I want to hear it I have to go listen to the overproduced-but-still-decent second album

Owls!

dunno, I've tried regetting into all of the guk and it sounds kinda dated. can still hang with std.

I don't know if I would call Owls emo but that album is fucking great regardless.

xpost the only std I've successfully enjoyed in the last 5 years is the debut album—I think I burned out on the rest a loooong time ago

Are Squirrel Bait proto-emo?

xpost lol u enjoyed an std

guys the drums on this song!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6IOdBCeias

okay forgive me guys but I had to do this: hilarious pfork time capsule in 3, 2, 1...

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/3433-eudora/
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/3430-something-to-write-home-about/

hahahaha

(I can't hate tho, those reviews are masterpieces of the effortless old pitchfork hatchet-job style — "roughly infinitely" had me dying)

yeah tbf i was still reading pf then, stopped couple years later

not got a v comprehensive idea of how emo fits together but surely elliott wld fit in somewhere?

the first planes mistaken for stars album and ep = <3, plus a lot of the other stuff mentioned here

not got a v comprehensive idea of how emo fits together but surely elliott wld fit in somewhere?

someone mentioned false cathedrals upthread, which i had never heard before. listening on spotify now and it's tremendous!

if planes mistaken for stars is called for then so are ....the juliana theory (semi-lol)

oh man dare we broach boysetsfire, the matchbook ep at least

The Juliana Theory are not allowed in the canon! :)

bsf rules but i dont think theyre emo

certainly not anything post-after the eulogy. i guess "vehicle" is arguably emo/emo-ish?

bsf were easily emo, they were posterboys, i mean that ep was called "this crying, this screaming, my voice was being born". those shows were such cryfests. full confession they were the first hardcore band i liked.

but eventually got over them. "rookie" off of after the eulogy shows up in the boston phoenix' top 100 emo songs of all time not that that's a deciderer or anything.

yeah but theyre WAY to the hxc edge of braid or tpr or guk. like way way harder

i guess if were doing an all-inclusive rites-of-spring-inspired list then yah. but based on the selections in the op i dont think they fit

yeah early BSF is def emo

juliana theory is proto-third-wave bullshit at best

title track on after the eulogy way better than rookie

WHERES YOUR ANGER WHERES YOUR FUCKIN RAGE

w/e we already went emocore in thread re: moss icon, etc

the juliana theory's up in that phoenix list too though i didn't like august in bethany that they chose. understand this is a dream came out in 1999, there's stuff in this thread already from then or later. i played for evangeline out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIfrur2WQq0

It's not that The Juliana Theory came too late, they just weren't really that good!

lol ok

this is the song i always think abt when i think of them. its so bad its good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5vXuVrG08k

lol i can't remember what the exact scenario was but re: if i told you this was killing me, that lyric "now you`re drowning in your own saliva trying to speak yourself to the top of your empty world" i think there was a previous version that was less ridiculous, and for whatever reason "top of your empty world" then was "top of your hardcore world", still want to know what the change was about

who mentioned jejune

i've got a lot of thanks for you

man i almost forgot about Jejune

"this afternoon's malady" is a great album.

also:

i was hoping for more rainer maria love on this thread

― i've got a cock like the M79 (electricsound), Thursday, July 12, 2012 12:39 AM (10 hours ago)

otm.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USXbLvjilvI

listened to the first two rainer maria records this morning and man they were a haphazard band but so great

and then they transformed into a radically boring band

hi emo canon thread! i once sat through a solo performance by the dude from rainer maria and it was the worst thing ever. but i recall liking some actual rainer maria.

now that i think of it, mike kinsella was playing that show (as Owen, I guess) and that first record of his might be the only emo-y thing i'd want to hear these days.

Everything Falls Apart beat Rites of Spring by two years.

American Football
Promise Ring. Solid

No Dag Nasty. Or Gray Matter? Ground Zero? 76% Uncertain?

Rainer Maria - excellent. Mystery and Misery

i once sat through a solo performance by the dude from rainer maria and it was the worst thing ever. but i recall liking some actual rainer maria.

guy got gradually more and more "rockstar" / ridiculous with each rm show

crowd singalongs to this were crucial:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntUFNYKr0oU

torn between giving all these bands another shot or continuing to loathe based on the heartbreak of finally getting to college and finding out the cool kids only cared about this shit and not what i'd studied for years in spin (plus white belts, wtf)

also what was that other band that always got compared to rm or at least the rm crowd seemed to also like them with guy from salute your shorts? i didn't really like them.

i just wanted to dress like a middle-aged man from dayton and play sloppy power chords was that so wrong

i went on a blind-date once to a show where rainer maria opened for ...and you will know us by the trail of dead

I am a middle aged man who likes some Sense Field.

Undertones Buzzcocks. Charlie Feathers

Emogasm

also what was that other band that always got compared to rm or at least the rm crowd seemed to also like them with guy from salute your shorts? i didn't really like them.

i love you

I'm not really convinced that, aside from the Juno recs, emo ever spawned a better album than Brand New's The Devil and God...

the devil and god is the only third/fourth-wave emo record that i think everyone would like

everyone in the world

who likes dark riffy things

And it's only their second best album! Well, I'll always stan for Deja Entendu

and then they transformed into a radically boring band

;_; the last two RM albums are a couple of my favourite records ever!

185 messages in and no-ones mentioned the "big three of emo" circa 1995: Indian Summer, Current & Ordination Of Aaron.
Honestly I haven't listened to any of those bands since at 1998 but at the time they were the touchstones.
Uaing the term loosely, the shit that meant most to me at the time: Rites Of Spring, Embrace, Moss Icon, The Hated, Universal Order Of Armageddon, Clikatat Ikatowi, Heroin, Antioch Arrow, Angel Hair, Merel, Native Nod, Jawbox, Jawbreaker, Hoover.
I stuck around for a while when The Promise Ring, Braid, Texas Is The Reason 2nd wave started but that scene ultimately bummed me out and I spent way more time listening to Throbbing Gristle & The Normal.

my trinity was always really saetia, you & i, and joshua fit for battle

amusing that so many seem reluctant to include first wave emo in the emo canon.

No wait the word im looking for is 'baffling'

*Goes off to listen to the non sick mouthy approved Embrace*

well you're just assuming we're all on-board with the first/second/third wave paradigm

i kind of prefer to think of rites of spring etc as "proto" and MCR etc as "post"

the damn stuff was called emo at the time!

yeah but we get to change the names of things when we talk about history

Oh yeah, you're American.

Cant wait for the Texas History of Emo schoolbooks!

I doubt I'm much older than the OP and when I was first hearing about/listening to/arguably playing "emo", it was this noisy mathy screamy music (the stuff that fourfa guy writes about) with roots in Rites of Spring etc. I think I just thought of these bands as "pop" or "indie rock", actually. I've got no problem with ALL of this stuff (including MCR) being included as "emo" but it seems bizarre to me to restrict the definition to these bands.

(Four Minute Mile sounds more post-Superchunk than anything to me, btw. Also, I think I feel less perverse now: Angel Hair and Fall Out Boy were both really tight bands while GUK seem to be going for a loose, sloppy aesthetic.)

Clikatat Ikatowi

yes

Hoover

YES

gonna go d/l The Lurid Traversal of Route 7 right now

well you're just assuming we're all on-board with the first/second/third wave paradigm

i kind of prefer to think of rites of spring etc as "proto" and MCR etc as "post"

― ♆ (gr8080), Thursday, July 12, 2012 4:20 PM (48 minutes ago)

I don't even listen to emo and I though the whole first/second/third wave thing was pretty standard? I was a freshman in college for second wave emo... I mean thats what we fucking called it - second wave.

So where do Straylight Run and Taking Back Sunday fit in? And Jimmy Eat World? Is Glassjaw emo? And how come in this entire thread there's only ONE mention of Sunny Day Real Estate (that I can find)?

Methinks some of ILM is confused about Emo...

(Also, I'm curious what da croupier was studying in Spin to try to be cool.:P)

http://i.imgur.com/J6H5v.jpg

OTM

Just listened to Rainer Maria Look Now Look Again thanks to this thread. So good!

tbs + glassjaw fit in under mallcore lulz

was cursive?

on the rites of spring issue

i agree they are basically a hardcore band

but back then it was like are you "emotional" compared to like thick necked boston dudes that wanted to beat you to death with lock in a sock and drink budweiser out of your skull, so, different times

Early Cursive certainly must count as emo. The more recent stuff is more straight-up indie rock imo.

lol M@tt that should be a poll

It came a little too late and was a little too weird to count as canon, but the first Lovesick record is absolutely outstanding and pushes all the same buttons for me:

http://www.youtube.com/v/W8HHPU-clXA&fs=1&hl=en

lol @ Juliana Theory being mentioned in this thread -- i heard about them a lot in high school from a friend whose cousin was in that band. there was definitely a point in the late '90s where suddenly all my friends were listening to early Jimmy Eat World and At The Drive-In and i would turn up my nose at that stuff and half-heartedly try to get them into whatever vaguely emo thing i could stand like Joan of Arc or the Dismemberment Plan. and then by the end of senior year i was playing drums in a screamo band because they were the only guys i knew who wanted to do anything remotely punk.

man the guitarist from embrace was really something else. never heard an 80s hc dude playing like that, the guy was def in a league of his own at the time. a fucken hero!

it occurs to me today how many bands the anniversary invented

i went on a blind-date once to a show where rainer maria opened for ...and you will know us by the trail of dead

― ♆ (gr8080), Thursday, 12 July 2012 21:50 (Yesterday) Permalink

could go either way

I'll throw up 'These Are Not Fall Colors' by Lync up for consideration, too.

indian summer and saetia are good calls imo

did anyone mention i hate myself?

wow that's a real band name!

those guys rocked

man the guitarist from embrace was really something else.
love mike hampton so much. happy by his band the snakes is one of my favorite dischord-related obscurities - a kinda indefensible parody record with that happens to have some really amazing anglo-pop songs on it. it isn't remotely emo but, um, check him on that one last wish upthread!

POX EMO BANDS

indian summer
moss icon
current
policy of 3
mohinder
hoover
rites of spring
embassy
assfactor 4 (do u count them as emo? i count them as emo, or punk rock i guess.)
native nod (dave from this band, along with his girlfriend, just put out a really good roots-pop rekkerd with killer harmony vox. the band is called trummors. i love it.)

one time i went to a piebald show and ppl were shouting for "grace kelly" and travis was like "yeah we don't really play that anymore" and that's when i knew the scene was over #emorecollections

ha i think that happened at a fugazi show where a guy was threatening to kill them if they didn't play minor threat.

yeah some things never change

btw a funny thing that happened -- someone my wife entirely missed this scene -- we were watching tv the other night and an ad came on for dashboard confessional playing somewhere huge (msg?? idk) and she was like "what?? what the hell is this awful music??" and i O_O and felt that she was so lucky, in a way.

there was a time when, along with beck's midnite vultures' album, i would hear dashboard confessional ALLTHETIME anytime i hung out with anyone from high school. /exaggeration

yeah i liked i hate myself.

my trinity was always really saetia, you & i, and joshua fit for battle

― fauxmarc, jueves 12 de julio de 2012 19:04 (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

wow that was a lie, i didn't even get into jffb til after the fact. it was saetia, you & i, and ORCHID. orchid ruled.

trying to remember some of the other bands that had members of those like the assistant (female on vocals!) and there was another big one with primarily you & i people but i can't remember the name.

forget how much i was into yaphet kotto too

oh wow and THE SADDEST LANDSCAPE

european: suis la lune, the death of anna karina

Lync was sooo goooood.

Were smoking popes considered emo?

Orchid? fuck yeah. Jerome's Dream anyone?

Amazingly, the links here still work: http://fugitiveequilibrium.blogspot.ca/2009/02/okara-revisited.html

I don't know how many people from outside Ottawa have any memory of Okara but I loved them.

i tried getting into jd but it never really happened

On the extreme weirdo screamo end:
Antioch Arrow - In Love With Jetts

On the indie poppier side:
No Knife - Hit Man Dreams

Seam - The Pace is Glacial
Seam - Are You Driving Me Crazy?

Yes, Walter - definitely - good addition.

Sense Field - Building, Tonight And Forever
Christie Front Drive - Discography
Mineral - The Power Of Failing, Endserenading
Samiam - Soar, Billy, Clumsy

Navio Forge sums it all up.

two candidates I didn't see mentioned, from the pop-punk and screamo sides of the spectrum, respectively

midtown - save the world, lose the girl
finch - what it is to burn

midtown discography particularly interesting now bc of the success of cobra starship

i think i saw midtown like 3 times! i'm positive i had that album too.

I was big on midtown but that second album totally turned me off, I remember it being really sterile and charmless compared to LTWSTG. revisiting now out of curiosity

whoops STWLTG rather, acronym butchery

ha how could i forget the opening hook

I remember kinda liking their third album, Forget What You Know, at the time it came out, but I'm fairly certain I haven't heard it in 7 or 8 years now.

I find the preponderance of chill beard dudes on emo threads fascinating

After I saw the ridiculously po-faced song titles I couldn't bring myself to even give the third midtown album a try.

"Armageddon" – 0:45
"To Our Savior" – 2:47
"Give It Up" – 3:39
"Is It Me? Is It True?" – 3:08
"God Is Dead" – 1:04
"Whole New World" – 3:38
"Empty Like the Ocean" – 4:27
"Nothing Is Ever What It Seems" – 3:37
"The Tragedy of the Human Condition" – 1:09
"Waiting for the News" – 2:59
"Until It Kills" – 3:51
"Hey Baby, Don't You Know That We're All Whores" – 2:37
"Help Me Sleep" – 3:04
"Manhattan" – 2:39
"So Long as We Keep Our Bodies Numb We're Safe" – 13:13

can we get some love for the Don't Forget To Breathe comp?

esp the fireside, promise ring, drive like jehu, and hot water tracks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzpTHJTt0VI

god sunday's best is the best

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yelDVLLeG0U

^loooove that album

every little thing they do is magic.

the OP is a troll post right?

i went on a blind-date once to a show where rainer maria opened for ...and you will know us by the trail of dead

the ellipsis here really had me waiting for something surprising

last summer i listened to the first rainier maria record while driving alone at night 25 miles to lake superior, with the quieter parts during the 35mph parts in town and the anthemic shit hitting when I got out to the middle of nowhere with no cops and a five mile straight shot where I was singing along with the windows open and drinking a leinenkugel, it was the best

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zB3Ugvc1QQ

ooh that sunday's best song is dope, very early brand new

obviously they predated brand new but that's my limited-experience reference point

shudder to think (+tuscadero!) playin the black cat in dc for it's anniversary thing in sept

acceptance: phantoms

rs put together a list of the top 40 emo albums that's both encouraging and baffling, so i made a counter list and i'm pretty happy with both it and the playlist i made out of it https://open.spotify.com/user/unbornwhiskey/playlist/3ktgSgWrciPMS9GvE20s5x

of course i forgot acceptance phantoms but what can you do

post yr list plz! i'll make mine (i think you've already seen my top 6) and post it if u do!

1. brand new: the devil and god are raging inside me
2. texas is the reason: do you know who you are
3. paramore: paramore
4. fall out boy: folie a deux
5. saves the day: in reverie
6. cap'n jazz: burritos whatever etc. tippy-toed over
7. jimmy eat world: clarity
8. at the drive-in: relationship of command
9. the anniversary: designing a nervous breakdown
10. driver friendly: bury a dream
11. jejune: this afternoons malady
12. split lip/chamberlain: fate's got a driver
13. thursday: no devolucion
14. brand new: deja entendu
15. lifetime: jersey's best dancers
16. elliott: false cathedrals
17. johnny foreigner: vs. everything
18. braid: frame & canvas
19. sunny day real estate: lp2
20. knapsack: day three of my new life
21. sunday's best: poised to break
22. saves the day: through being cool
23. mewithoutyou: brother, sister
24. say anything: ...is a real boy
25. jawbreaker: bivouac
26. straylight run: straylight run
27. boys life: departures and landfalls
28. my chemical romance: three cheers for sweet revenge
29. taking back sunday: louder now
30. the promise ring: very emergency
31. the jazz june: the medicine
32. the get up kids: something to write home about
33. thrice: vheissu
34. i hate myself: 10 songs
35. fall out boy: take this to your grave
36. desaparecidos: read music/speak spanish
37. coheed and cambria: second stage turbine blade
38. still life: from angry heads with skyward eyes
39. rainer maria: look now look again
40. further seems forever: the moon is down

many of these are questionably emo and i included zero screamo on purpose (it always feels like at that point i should include, like, converge)

Humph.

the texas is the reason and get up kids albums on that list were my favourite albums when I was 15/16.

Brad, your playlist is a dream. Those Straylight Run and Coheed albums are my favourite. Might have to make my own one of these...

real lack of hot water music on these lists imo

theirs is a long discography I've never made up my mind about

they came up a few times in various discussions of that rolling stone article between friends & I

for my personal emo canon, their first few albums are up there... wheels kind of came off circa a flight and a crash, but that's true with a lot of bands. if I made the list, this would likely be on there:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1zGBXPhecY

I don't know Hot Water Music, but listening now. This is amazing!

i'm embarrassed bc it seems v conventional + lame but after 15 min here's what i've got:

1. Brand New - Deja Entendu
2. Thursday - War All the Time
3. Dashboard Confessional - The Places You Have Come to Fear The Most
4. Braid - Frame & Canvas
5. My Chemical Romance - Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge
6. Jimmy Eat World - Bleed American
7. Taking Back Sunday - Where You Want to Be
8. Fall Out Boy - Folie à Deux
9. The Promise Ring - Nothing Feels Good
10. Thursday - A City By the Light Divided
11. Coheed & Cambria - In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth
12. The Academy Is… - Almost Here
13. A.F.I. - Sing the Sorrow
14. Pretty Girls Make Graves - Élan Vital
15. Something Corporate - Leaving Through the Window
16. Cursive - The Ugly Organ
17. Bright Eyes - Lifted or the Story is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground
18. Thrice - Artist in the Ambulance
19. Motion City Soundtrack - My Dinosaur Life
20. blink-182 - Take Off Your Pants and Jacket

28. my chemical romance: three cheers for sweet revenge ha i was right in chat :p

Mine (in progress) has plenty of those too. I'm so glad Bright Eyes counts!

I almost put leaving through the window on mine, and honestly I should have a motion city soundtrack record on there, probably even if it kills me

i can hear the argument that bright eyes isn't emo and i for some reason i wouldn't vote for i'm wide awake or digital urn however i feel like lifted was v much a part of 'emo conversation' when it came out

i mean i included desaparecidos bc they are oberst's straight up emo band but i'm not mad at including bright eyes

thought for a lol second about including seven's travels

for some reason i wouldn't vote for i'm wide awake or digital urn however i feel like lifted was v much a part of 'emo conversation' when it came out

These were my thoughts too. I remember writing a review of it for the emo section fake magazine I made in school...

My list would look similar to these, but my sleeper picks would be the One Last Wish record, which is secretly even better than the Rites of Spring LP, and that last Hotelier record, which feels more and more classic every month

oh yeah i considered both of those!

13. thursday: no devolucion

Totally the best Thursday album. Everyone says Full Collapse but it's not, it's this.

yes!!!!

I wouldn't say that I'm proud of this list (there are an awful lot of classics I've just never even listened to), but I do love it unconditionally.

1. Bright Eyes - Lifted or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground
2. Rilo Kiley - The Execution of All Things
3. Weezer - Pinkerton
4. Coheed and Cambria - The Second Stage Turbine Blade
5. The Starting Line - Say It Like You Mean It
6. Biffy Clyro - Blackened Sky
7. Dashboard Confessional - A Mark, A Mission, A Brand, A Scar
8. Brand New - Deja Entendu
9. Fall Out Boy - Take This to Your Grave
10. Taking Back Sunday - Tell All Your Friends
11. The Movielife - Forty Hour Train Back To Penn
12. The Get-Up Kids - Guilt Show
13. Desaparecidos - Read Music/Speak Spanish
14. Straylight Run - Straylight Run
15. The Early November - The Room’s Too Cold
16. Chumped - Teenage Retirement
17. Sugarcult - Start Static
18. Death Cab For Cutie - Transatlanticism
19. Rilo Kiley - Take Offs and Landings
20. Funeral For A Friend - Casually Dressed and Deep In Conversation
21. Saves The Day - Can’t Slow Down
22. Brand New - The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me
23. Sunny Day Real Estate - The Rising Tide
24. Further Seems Forever - The Moon is Down
25. My Chemical Romance - Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge
26. The Juliana Theory - Emotion Is Dead
27. The Academy Is… - Almost Here
28. Thursday - War All the Time
29. Jimmy Eat World - Bleed American
30. Senses Fail - From the Depths of Dreams
31. Dashboard Confessional - The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most
32. New Found Glory - Sticks and Stones
33. At the Drive-In - Relationship of Command
34. Paramore - Riot!
35. Panic! At the Disco - A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out
36. Thrice - The Artist in the Ambulance
37. Matchbook Romance - Stories and Alibis
38. The Used - The Used
39. Rites of Spring - Rites of Spring
40. The Get-Up Kids - Something To Write Home About

And if anyone is interested, playlist here

great list! reminded me that one of my favorite abrupt emo shapeshifts was from the first matchbook romance album to voices (a record i love a lot)

I was so invested in the Stories and Alibis sound that I really couldn't get into Voices when it came out. I'd probably like it a lot more now.

My favourite emo metamorphosis was Sunny Day Real Estate's move into weird emo-prog.

i spent a lot of time with the rising tide recently and what a massive record

i really like the guitar and drum sounds on this stuff.

mare vitalis by appleseed cast is probably my favorite in this genre. beautiful melodies, great sound.

Mare Vitalis has two of the best opening tracks of any emo album.

lol I was listening to clarity the other day and thought "wow the drum sound on this record rules"

My favourite emo metamorphosis was Sunny Day Real Estate's move into weird emo-prog.

How It Feels to Be Something On is my favourite emo-related album bar none.

many killer albums mentioned here

My favorite emo album which no one seems to acknowledge is an emo album is Juno's This Is the Way It Goes and Goes

i had never listened to the indian summer comp before that rs list and i regret it!

i do love how every cd and mp3 copy of this record was made by someone holding a microphone next to a turntable (i assume)

i forgot armor for sleep!

My favourite emo metamorphosis was Sunny Day Real Estate's move into weird emo-prog.

How It Feels to Be Something On is my favourite emo-related album bar none.

― Gavin, Leeds, Saturday, March 5, 2016 1:16 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Just hearing this for the first time, loving it!

Cool! It really is a unique record I think.

9. the anniversary: designing a nervous breakdown
10. driver friendly: bury a dream

I gave these two from Brad's list a go over the weekend, had never heard either of them before, both great.

I eventually fell in love with Joan of Arc's A Portable Model of

I gave these two from Brad's list a go over the weekend, had never heard either of them before, both great.

Ha, I just came here to say essentially exactly this. Also had not heard any Jejune before. Listening now and dying. There is so much joy in this playlist.

My favorite part of ilx is getting recommendations like this

Another of my favorites, hopefully along these lines:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cx0P6Ef015I

I tried to make a top 40 over the weekend and kept getting sidetracked, I hope to post one eventually.

i forgot armor for sleep!

― HYPERLINK TO RAP GENIUS (BradNelson), Sunday, March 6, 2016 3:28 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Would have a hard time picking between their first two albums. Always loved the loose concept of WTDWYAD.
favs off both albums:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkJ-lKbdrR0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sEptKoWMeM

i'm not one to be like "wow x album is y years old! wow now i too am old" but louder now being 10 years old nearly gets me there

That was very much my summer before uni album. So many aggressive seaside strolls...

i didn't put boys night out's trainwreck on my list upthread which was a huge mistake imo

emo's fantastic planet

Attention all bookmarkers: Are you aware of
This POLL Will Become the Anthem of Your EMO Voting Thread / You're Two Floors Down CAMPAIGNING in the Back Room.

question: did The Anniversary's "Designing A Nervous Breakdown" actually influence other bands? Or do I just think/wish it did/should've?

I heard the contemporary band Slow Mass' album 'On Watch' and was shocked how good it is--and how much it completed the thought of the sort of music I listened to when I was 16-19 and then thoroughly abandoned and left behind.

So it compelled me to listen again to the music I'd really loved back then (circa '96-'99) and I ended up making a mix that really surprised me. The title and artwork style come from an internet radio station I had from my dorm room my freshman year of college...

https://musicophilia.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/musicophilia_00_various_-_a-boy-his-pet-heart_1994-1999_cover-a.jpg?w=1024

https://musicophilia.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/musicophilia_00_various_-_a-boy-his-pet-heart_1994-1999_cover-b.jpg?w=1024

Various – ‘A Boy & His Pet Heart’
1994-1999

SIDE A

01 [00:00] For Carnation – “On the Swing” (‘Marshmallows’ 1996)
02 [02:00] Ida – “Tellings” (‘I Know About You’ 1996)
03 [06:20] Hum – “Stars” (‘You’d Prefer An Astronaut’ 1995)
04 [11:30] Everyone Asked About You – “Last Dance” (‘Let’s Be Enemies’ 1998)
05 [14:15] The Promise Ring – “Red & Blue Jeans” (‘Nothing Feels Good’ 1997)
06 [17:05] Cap’n Jazz – “Oh Messy Life” (‘Schmap’n Shmazz’ 1995)
07 [19:05] Don Caballero – “Room Temperature Suite” (‘What Burns Never Returns’ 1998)
08 [24:30] That Dog – “You Are Here” (‘That Dog’ 1996)
09 [29:00] Karate – “This, Plus Slow Song” (‘In Place of Real Insight’ 1997)

SIDE B

10 [31:15] Rainer Maria – “Breakfast of Champions” (‘Look Now Look Again’ 1999)
11 [34:45] Rodan – “Bible Silver Corner” (‘Rusty’ 1995)
12 [41:35] Red House Painters – “Summer Dress” (‘Ocean Beach’ 1995)
13 [44:25] Sunny Day Real Estate – “J’Nuh” (‘LP2’ 1995)
14 [49:15] Pedro The Lion – “Almost There” (‘Whole’ EP 1996)
15 [52:20] Low – “Don’t Understand” (‘Secret Name’ 1999)
16 [59:05] Versus – “Thera” (‘The Stars Are Insane’ 1994)
17 [63:50] Beekeeper – “Two Men” (‘Ostrich’ 1998)
18 [66:15] Jejune – “Regrets Are Unanswered Dreams” (‘This Afternoon’s Malady’ 1998)

[Total Time: 1:11:40]

Download/stream: https://musicophilia.wordpress.com/2020/05/25/a-boy-and-his-pet-heart-1994-1999/

Whoa, that Slow Mass album is really good! Thanks for the recommendation.
Well recorded, good riffs/songwriting, really nice heart-wringing Low-y/Rainer Maria-y M/F harmonies--aspects of them also remind me a bit of Helms Alee in terms of contemporary bands coming at that sensibility more from the metal realm.

(This mix looks great too--was always at a very slight remove from late'-90s emo, but I still hold a good chunk of it close to the cardigan, har)

Yeah, the Slow Mass album really threw me for a loop. 1st, because it's a type of music I thought I didn't care about in the least (or at least, hadn't in 21 years); and 2nd, because it's a "revival" of a style, and yet, to my ears, it's honestly better than all but the very best "original" exemplars of that style, and as good as the best. As a sum-total album, I think it's probably the best post-hardcore/emo album I've heard.

https://slowmassmusic.bandcamp.com/album/on-watch

For 1992 this was pretty ahead of the curve:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2DTvKGZXaM

Seaweed is so primed for a Greatest Hits comp, their albums were all pretty uneven but there were at least 2 bangers on each release.

Can't say I expected to see City of Caterpillar reunite for a new album on Relapse in 2022...

https://cityofcaterpillar.bandcamp.com/album/mystic-sisters

https://thehardtimes.net/lists/we-put-on-a-sweater-vest-and-a-pair-of-thick-rimmed-glasses-to-rank-the-top-50-emo-songs-of-the-90s-while-we-looked-up-our-ex-from-high-school-on-facebook/

decently solid list imho

that is a pretty solid list!

thought this revive might be about Billy Corgan complaining about not being included in a book about emo:

losing my mind at the idea that Billy Corgan is mad Smashing Pumpkins are “left out” of emo history pic.twitter.com/CpM8Kalb0z

— Leor Galil (@imLeor) July 17, 2023

something for you emo-heads to chew on

Brooklynvegan 50 Best Punk & Emo Albums: 2015-2019
https://www.brooklynvegan.com/50-best-punk-emo-albums-2015-2019/

At the tail-end of 2019, we published a list of the 100 Best Punk & Emo Albums of the 2010s. Making a best-of-the-decade list at the end of a decade is standard practice but the timing does have a few drawbacks. How do you compare an album that’s just a few months old to albums you’ve lived with for most of the decade?

Now that we’re halfway into the next decade, we thought it’d be a good idea to look back on the 50 best punk & emo albums of the second half of the 2010s (2015-2019), the ones that are all now five to nine years old, like the ones from the first half of the 2010s were when we first made that list. As you’d probably expect, there are some albums near the top of this list that were also near the top of our original decade list, but there’s also so much that’s different about this list. Not every album reveals itself immediately (most don’t), and our perspective on the late 2010s continued to change and grow throughout the first half of the 2020s. This list includes stylistic departures that were divisive upon release but became growers over time, and it also includes albums by some now-widely-loved artists whose greatness became much more obvious throughout the early ’20s than it was in 2019. Albums themselves are set in stone once they come out, but impacts of albums are always evolving. Similarly, lists are helpful and fun tools but they’re also built to be updated and revisited. Most best-of-the-’90s lists that were created in 1999 probably didn’t include American Football and Duster. Best-of-the-’80s lists created in 1999 probably didn’t include Bleach. So on and so forth.

It says “punk & emo” in the headline, and for the purposes of this list, that includes punk, pop punk, emo, hardcore, post-hardcore, metalcore, ska, and various forms of punk/emo-adjacent music. Some of these albums could also be on a metal list, and others could also be on an indie rock list. Genre definitions can be just as subjective and debated as music taste.

Representing five years with 50 albums isn’t easy, and there were a lot of others I wished I could’ve included on this list but had to draw the line somewhere. (It’s also one album per artist, to make room for as many artists as possible.) I’m 100% sure that if I revisit the list in another five years, it’ll look different then too. As for the ranking, that would probably change if I revisited the list in another five weeks; at a certain point, the ranking just gets a little superfluous when you’re dealing with 50 albums that are all super important. As far as I’m concerned, lists like these aren’t about establishing a concrete canon; they’re about having a constant conversation.

Read on for my picks of the 50 best punk & emo albums of 2015-2019…

I had forgotten about that Fiddlehead record, it was really good. A lot on here I need to check out.

4. Paramore – After Laughter (2017)

do ppl really rate this one higher than the s/t? i remember being pretty disappointed at the time, might need to revisit

OMG i just realized that it was 2015-2019, not 2010-2019 IGNORE ME

some people do prefer after laughter to the s/t tho, they’re out there. i get it