Ironically I am posting here because I found some, slightly Loved-Ones esque, music on Pandora – from a friend’s account whose closest seed band to emo is the Cure! Which tells me Pandora might not be the first place to look for these things.
I am looking for, basically, straight up punk with slight emo stylings like The Loved Ones. Not hardcore. Not pop punk. Something in between, but grungier than The Promise Ring (although their 30° Everywhere is considered by most to be emocore.) Like the Riddlin’ Kids, but less adolescent. Slightly less melodic than Fall Out Boy (I NEVER thought I’d be saying that in an emo thread :))
Btw I already have heard some stuff by Juliana Theory, which would fit into this category, too, but don’t like most of their stuff. Just something about them and the Loved Ones makes me not really like them.
Not really sure if this fits the bill (the music predates the “emo” label by at least a decade), but I’d recommend Husker Du. Anything they did '85 and after avoids hardcore.
I’ve seen them in concert a couple times as openers and they were pretty good – indeed good enough to go to them as headliners if it weren’t for a wedding – but never found any of their stuff in used CD bins (which means they must be pretty good indeed.)
I’ll search for them and for the others y’all recommended in the used CD bins (still the cheapest legit means of buying music.)