emo history masterpost

hii ! i have a personal project of piecing together 40 years of emo history from what led to its creation in 1985 to the present day and i thought i'd share some of the stuff i've been looking at

this is a huge list of books about music history, regular books like novels (maybe literature if u prefer), and films

music history books

i've compiled a list of books relating to the history of emo, which spans the punk scene and it's developments into american hardcore, and then straight edge, before becoming emotional hardcore

this list covers a wide-array of genres that all should relate to the development of the subculture in some way ! i've tried to organise based on these genres, but with some books covering multiple years i would take the grouping with a grain of salt

pls feel free to suggest some others and/or correct any mistakes i may have made. as of 1st december 2024 i haven't read all of these yet so i may get things wrong

uk punk

- please kill me: the uncensored oral history of punk, by legs mcneil and gillian mccain
- no future: punk, politics and british youth culture 1976-184, by matthew worley
- ripped and torn: 1976-79 the loudest punk fanzine in the uk
- burning britain: the history of uk punk 1980-1984, by ian glasper
- i dreamed i was a very clean tramp, by richard hell

us punk
- lipstick traces, by greil marcus
- going underground: american punk 1979-1989 by george hurchalla
- dance of days: two decades of punk in the nation's capital, by mark anderson and mark jenkins
- see a little light: the trail of rage and melody, by bob mould
note: see a little light has been described as "30 years of life cramped into 385 pages" and advised to be avoided unless ur some sort of die hard bob mould fan
- songs only you know: a memoir, by sean madigan hoen
- mosquitos & whiskey, by chris walter
- gimme something better: the profound, progressive and occasionally pointless history of bay area punk from dead kennedys to green day, by jack boulware and silke tudor
- how to ru(i)n a record label: the story of lookout records, by larry livermore
- 924 gilman: the story so far..., by brian edge
- on the road with the ramones, by monte a. melnick and frank meyer
- just kids, by patti smith
- a wailing of a town: an oral history of early san pedro punk and more 1977-1985, by craig ibarra
- safety in numbers: my jounery with l.a. punk rock gangs 1982-1992, by adam wilson
- 1978: crashed memories, by ger-i lewis
- american hardcore: a tribal history, by steven blush
note: i've heard american hardcore neglects the existence of the new york scene, and acts as if hardcore died out completely? or something like that. many people dislike this and how it ends as a result
- disco's out...murder's in!: the true story of frank the shank and l.a.'s deadliest punk rock gang
- post: a look at the influence of post-hardcore 1985-2007, by eric grubbs

straight edge:
- straight edge, by tony rettman

grunge:
- everybody loves our town: a history of grunge, by mark yarm

indie:
- meet me in the bathroom, lizzy goodman
- our band could be your life: scenes from the american indie underground 1981-1991, by michael azerrad

commercialising punk/how the underground became mainstream
- sellout, by dan ozzi
- smash!: green day, the offspring, bad religion, nofx and the 90s punk explosion, by ian winwood
- bodies: life and death in music, by ian winwood

2000s emo
- from the basement: a history of emo music and how it changed the world, by taylor markarian
- nothing feels good: punk rock, teenagers, and emo, by andy greenwald
- everybody hurts: an essential guide to emo culture, by leslie simon and trevor kelly
- wish you were here: an essential guide to your favourite music scenes -- from punk to indie and everything in between, by leslie simon
- where are your boys tonight?: the oral history of emo's mainstream explosion 1999-2008, by chris payne
- rock bottom at the renaissance: an emo kid's journey of falling in and out of love in and with new york city
- top eight: how myspace changed music, by michael tedder

couldn't think of which grouping for these but alternative/underground subculture in general:
- subculture by dick hebdige
- sex, drugs and cocoa puffs: a low culture manifesto, by chuck klosterman

post punk
- rip it up and start again, by simon reynolds

also some gunk punk
- we never learn: the gunk punk undergut, 1988–2001, by eric davidson

and some ska (???dont even think this is massively related, it just came up and it sounded interesting to me)
- in defense of ska, by aaron carnes

films

some films mentioned in books, mainly about the 2000s scene, and what i could find online. again, pls correct any if wrong or provide more suggestions or even additional information on why these films may have been associated with the subculture ! =]

some of these r 90s and some span the whole 2000s, so i think this takes into account when the myspace era of the subculture was dying off and the small 2010s resurgance was happening

- sixteen candles (1984)
- the breakfast club (1985)
- pretty in pink (1986)
- beetlejuice (1988)
- say anything (1989)
- edward scissorhands (1990)
- the nightmare before christmas (1993)
- mallrats (1995)
- welcome to the dollhouse (1995)
- trainspotting (1996)
- rushmore (1998)
- american beauty (1999)
- cruel intentions (1999)
- the virgin suicides (1999)
- almost famous (2000)
- high fidelity (2000)
- amélie (2001)
- donnie darko (2001)
- the royal tenenbaums (2001)
- wet hot american summer (2001)
- igby goes down (2002)
- lost in translation (2003)
- old school (2003)
- anchorman: the legend of ron burgundy (2004)
- eternal sunshine of the spotless mind (2004)
- garden state (2004)
- napoleon dynamite (2004)
- the notebook (2004)
- elizabethtown (2005)
- little miss sunshine (2006)
- juno (2007)
- twilight (2008) but the whole saga could count tbh
- jennifer's body (2009)
- (500) days of summer (2009)
- coraline (2009)

directors

- john hughes
- tim burton
- wes anderson

books not about music history / literature

some novels and stuff that came up =]

- the perks of being a wallflower, steven chbosky
- the bell jar, by sylvia plath
- the catcher in the rye, by j. d. salinger
- invisible monsters, by chuck palahniuk
note: if u weren't aware, this is the book (and author) who inspired a lot of ryan ross' writing for panic!'s first album 'a fever you can't sweat out' =]
- a heartbreaking work of staggering genius, by dave eggers
- dress your family in corduroy and denim, by david sedaris
- the heart is deceitful above all other things, by jt leroy
- the rules of attraction, by erston ellis
- the picture of dorian gray, by oscar wilde
- dante's inferno
note: ???LMAO
- t.s. elliot's poetry
- notes from underground, by fyodor dostoevsky
- a people's history of the united states, by howard zinn
note: this one is apparently because a lot of ppl were into rage against the machine !
- for whom the bell tolls, by ernest hemingway

parts of the film and most of the book section came from 'everybody hurts' by leslie simon and trevor kelly, which, after reading, seems to be taking the mick out of emo. it seems it was found to be hilarious, maybe i just dont get it LMAO. but yeah, if u can get past that then there's some decent info about emo subculture. this is the only place where dante's inferno was mentioned, so i'm not sure how reliable that is, or if it's a joke or something. unless emos rly were reading that, which is super cool

but anyways,
thanks for reading !!
x- jack ^-^