(Isn’t all music supposed to be emotional?) So if the supposed forefathers of the genre didn’t come up with the word “emo,” who did? Was it Thrasher magazine, who first committed it to print in 1986? Haters jealous of the cultish success of bands like Rites of Spring and Embrace? Just some guys Mike and Dan, as someone hypothesizes in Andy Greenwald’s 2003 book on emo and pop-punk, Nothing Feels Good? Ultimately, some people there at the beginning felt it didn’t even matter. Neither did Embrace, another pioneering D.C. But Rites of Spring didn’t embrace the term. music scene, where the band Rites of Spring is credited with introducing a new kind of hardcore that focused on the personal instead of the political. Why is the word “emo” so hard to define? At first, “emo” was short for “emo-core,” which itself is short for “emotional hardcore.” The term was born in the D.C. Grab your Telecasters and Manic Panic and join us in the Black Parade. Welcome to Emo Week, where we’ll explore the scene’s roots, its evolution to the modern-day Fifth Wave, and some of the ephemera around the genre.

In case you haven’t heard, emo is back, baby! In honor of its return to prominence-plus the 20th anniversary of the first MCR album-The Ringer is following Emo Wendy’s lead and tapping into that nostalgia. My Chemical Romance is touring again, Paramore and Jimmy Eat World are headlining a major festival this fall, and there’s a skinny, tattooed white dude with a guitar dominating the charts.

Drummer the expanse