[Tobias]I just blue myself[/TF]
OK, that got a laugh. 
I remember reading that Malcolm McLaren used the Sex Pistols (and other bands he managed) to drum up business for his clothing shop.
DCfC is emo? I agree, their songs occasionally have that angst-ridden whine of an emo band, but that’s hardly enough to qualify. The indie hipsters and shoegazers far outnumber the emos in their fan base.
Now, My Chemical Romance… they’re as emo as it comes.
Also, note that emo also has its own store these days (Hot Topic)
The problem with trying to identify Goth is that there is a large fanbase crossover between Goth and Industrial. This confuses things.
I thought Hot Topic was goth.
Yeah, I may not know exactly what emo is, but DCfC is definitely not a band that’s ever been associated with emo to my knowledge. DCfC is just whiny, bland indie rock/pop/twee. Emo has at least some balls to it.
Also, shoegazers? I like a lot of shoegaze, but I fail to see what DCfC and shoegaze (My Bloody Valentine, Ride, possibly Galaxie 500, etc.) have in common.
Good morning to you too, sunshine. I thought the contrast with “puddle of wussiness” made it clear I don’t actually associate goths with ritual sacrifice, but whatever.
Actually, it’s my understanding that Emo is not Goth or “weepy emotional music”.
“Emo”, as a musical genre is defined by Allmusic.com as "…an arty outgrowth of hardcore punk, emo became an important force in underground rock by the late '90s, appealing to modern-day punks and indie-rockers alike. Some emo leans toward the progressive side, full of complex guitar work, unorthodox song structures, arty noise, and extreme dynamic shifts; some emo is much closer to punk-pop, though it’s a bit more intricate. Emo lyrics are deeply personal, usually either free-associative poetry or intimate confessionals. "
Commercially, it just seems to be the latest wave of “post-punk pop” (or “pop-punk” ) bands, including, but not limited to:
Jimmy Eat World
Fall Out Boy
Panic at the Disco
All American Rejects
My Chemical Romance
etc
in other words, more pretentious versions of Blink 182, Sum 51 and Green Day.
Marilyn Manson is really more Industrial, similar to Nine Inch Nails or Ministry. And I generally associate “Goth” with bands like The Cure or The Smiths.
We didn’t really have emo or goth kids when I went to college in the 90s. Everyone was pretty much baseball cap wearing frat guy Dead heads who listened to Phish and Dave Mathews and other jam bands with a bit of hip hop thrown in for irony. Except for this one girl and her friend who used to hang out at my fraternity house who looked like a cross between Natalie Merchant and MTV’s Karen Duffy, wore a tongue ring and dressed all in black. Except that they were really too adorable and social to be true “goths”.
You can be emo without dressing goth.
You’re closer than anyone and by that I mean essentially right. Although I’d consider Descendents hardcore rather than punk. But that’s neither here nor there.
The first emo band was more than likely Rites of Spring.
Punk started mid 70’s. In the late 70’s, hardcore formed, which was a much more abrasive style of punk, very aggressive and so forth. From the early 80’s and on until the 90’s, punk, and most of hardcore, followed the path it had taken and got more and more agressive, to the point that it became almost a testosterone fest. A show would be a bunch of guys with their shirts off doing very agressive things that to the outsider seemed vaguely homosexual.
In the mid 80’s, in DC, once hardcore kids stood around and said “What the hell are they doing? That’s not cool at all.” For example, the Descendents are such a seminal band because they were one of the first to be both hardcore and lyrically sensible, lyrics not about death or destruction but of everyday girl problems.
Anyway.
Rites of Spring gets credited for starting emo, but there were a few other bands out there that contributed things as well. Moss Icon, Julia, Indian Summer, etc.
That’s how it began. Emo was hardcore like hardcore was punk, emo started as hardcore then developed into several different factions. Hardcore started as punk then evolved on it’s own.
In the early 2000’s, this whole “emo kid” thing started. I believe, but these are just my theories, that instead of this decade having a boy band fad like every decade before it, we went through a pop punk boy band fad. So all the kids who listened to the above mentioned pop bands like My Chemical Romance and kids who wear skinny jeans and tight shirts and lopsided haircuts got labeled emo kids. Somewhere in there it got confused with singer songwriters, namely Chris Carraba. Most likely people went from emo > emotional, then assumed anything that had outward emotions was emo. It’s not.
Any other examples, further explanations, whatever on request. Way too tired to type more.
That explains a lot. It seems like such a popular thing these days, but there were no kids like this when I was in high school or college (from 1991-99).
Wiki has a non-inclusive list of emo bands here, though I think some of them fit more into other genres than Emo. This might be because the bands are ones I rather like 
Out of curiousity, what do you guys think of At The Drive-In as a possible precursor to the latest emo bands? I was listening to “One Arm Scissor” with someone unfamiliar with the band a few days ago, and they asked if it was “early emo.” Hmm. The only thing I’ve ever mentally compared them to before is their singer’s voice to Rush’s.
I would go so far as to say that “emo” doesn’t mean anything anymore. It’s just a label that hipsters/the cool kids slap on a band they think is getting a little too big for their britches.
For example, see Death Cab For Cutie. Sorry pulykamell, I’ve heard Death Cab called emo so often that it makes me want to scream.
Emo bands are rarely connected by any kind of similar musical style and I honestly have a hard time hearing what is so emotional about the lyrics to say, an All American Rejects song, that wouldn’t also qualify dozens of bands all the way back to the birth of rock.
Wow. That is weird. Looking online, it does seem that some people have called DCfC “emo,” almost to universal protests. Which make sense, because of what vague idea of emo I do have (bands following in the footsteps of Fugazi, Rites of Spring, and the like), I don’t see how Death Cab for Cutie could possibly fit in.
Whiny indie pop != emo. (I don’t seem I have to convince you, but I’m just surprised DCfC gets branded as emo.)
I guess Rites of Spring gets credited as the first emo band, though they get mad if you call them that. I think emo took a slide from RoS, which really did take punk in a new direction, to the hundreds (thousands?) of emo bands out there now, which sound pretty stale, at least to this aging punk’s ears.
That’s just not right. The Smiths are the classic indie band. Not Goth at all - although Goths often like them, which kind of (and I got lots of other examples) discounts ultrafilter’s “A band is […] goth if goth kids like it.” theory
Nah. Hot Topic is black
Of course, as you’ve read above, emo goes way deeper than that, but it gave me a giggle so I decided to include it here