The Distinct Sound Of First Wave Emo (?)

“Real emo only consists of the DC Emotional Hardcore scene and the late 90s screamo scene.”

But what exactly is the Emotional Hardcore scene, or more importantly, how does it sound? We all know the godfathers of emo rejected the term—namely, Ian MacKaye and Guy Picciotto, both from Fugazi and their respective bands, Rites of Spring and Embrace. Besides, those bands are just a more tame version of hardcore, without going as progressive as Fugazi or as pop as the Descendents.

That brings me to the question: for the genre to evolve, it must have had a sound that stood out enough for it not to be just your standard hardcore subgenre stuck around as a movement and less as a sound (cough cough, straight edge). What does it really sound like? The easy answer would be to look at those album covers in black and white with just the name of the band, but once again, that’s just tamer, poppier takes on hardcore, which discards the whole point I previously made. Let’s move a little further in time. Bands like Braid, Sunny Day Real Estate, and The Jazz June all sound similar in an unconventional sense. Keep in mind we’ll ignore Cap'n Jazz’s math rock influence since it gained more relevance in later years and less so in the immediate 90s. I can’t really pinpoint anything, but once you listen to them, you’ll get my point.

As for now, let’s go back once again.

Moss Icon, Dag Nasty, and Rites of Spring must have a prototype of the sound I'm referring to? Yes, they do. Locket, By Design, and, ironically enough, The Godfather have similar guitar tones, riffs, and bass-driven melodies, but still, it’s not quite there yet. Moving forward to the early 90s, Indian Summer, Native Nod, Chino Horde, and Mohinder move aside from the groovier and clearly older sound of the earlier bands mentioned (shoutout to Gray Matter too), and instead get grittier and darker, almost pointing towards screamo, yet more melodic depending on the song. A midpoint: the angry son points to Saetia, yet the angel points to a real sunny day that would later destroy the idea of emo and breed TX2 a little less than half a century later.

Citing the song title of a lesser-known bedroom skramz band named Calendar Year, in retrospect, the first wave had two sounds—a tamer, Ramones-reminiscing hardcore that could’ve easily evolved into pop punk and post-hardcore, and then moving forward, around five years or so, the sound that would birth the second wave, being a more melodic, dissonant, darker, and at times tender sound. Also, forget the Kinsella brothers; they literally made a band that just came out of nowhere in the Midwest and then disappeared until American Football distorted the term emo in the 2010s so TikTok kids could call Alex G, Title Fight and a bunch of shoegaze bands “midwest emo.”

The next entry will be on the evolution from the 90s weird emo punk sound that Braid and Karate harnessed, which ended up evolving into Jimmy Eat World and later on, the pop-punk emo thing known as mall post-hardcore.

In case anyone asks for sources, USE YOUR GODDAMN EARDRUMS. Feedback is also welcome.