A Basic Bitch’s™ Guide to Emo.
So listen, before I start this ramble I want to be very clear -this is a background of how emo invaded the mainstream in the mid 2000s, for our Olivia Rodrigo-loving little honeys who didn’t understand why the millennials were mad that Good 4 U sounded suspiciously like Paramore’s Misery Business.
So those puritan emos from the early 2000s who will be wanting me to include the likes of Alexisonfire and Sleeping With Sirens, this ain't for you brootal dewd. (However to you delicious ‘lil things who like things on the heavier side, 10/10 recommend dipping your toes in.) This is all about the glory days of mainstream emo.
I was meant to write this piece, it is my destiny. I was heavily uncool with my emo-ness in high school, and to be honest I’ve kept going with it-- the fringe has remained for at least 15 years. At least. And I dj emo nights blah blah blah blah, so I know y’all are familiar with these artists and know for a fact that emo is not dead.
I think this was my 14th birthday? This fringe has seen some things.
Okay? Cool? Fab. Now I want to take you back to the five years that defined my musical taste for the rest of my life:
2004 - 2008: The five years that emo was mainstream
Emo started with one track and one track alone, My Chemical Romance’s I’m Not Okay. Us “elder emos” can not only sing this verbatim, but also quote the dialogue pre-video word-for-word. This song alone was undoubtedly the start of emo as we know it. There’s nothing further to say.
This song was VERY Okay (trust me).
This year, there was one other iconic song that will go hard on the dance floor at emo nights, which is Head Automatica’s Beating Heart Baby. While it’s not necessarily a huge part of the genre (and many may fight against this being included in a mainstream emo round-up), it was a banger that was inescapable on radio alongside I’m Not Okay.
I should state here before we dive in further, every song I’m mentioning was played on the likes of The Edge and ZM. Emo was EVERYWHERE.
2005: Emo is here to STAY baby!
Ahhh, sweet memories. In these days there was a free-to-air channel called C4, which as the name may suggest was a channel above Three (big shocking, wow journalism). Every day after school I’d immediately flick this channel on to catch their music video show Select Live, playing all of the popular hits. This is the year that emo truly invaded the mainstream, with the following hits getting heavy rotation.
My Chemical Romance came back strong the following year with two iconic anthems, their hauntingly beautiful Helena and what I feel is their most powerful music video Ghost of You. Along with I’m Not Okay, they truly established themselves as the true kings of emo.
However, this was also when Fall Out Boy and Panic! at the Disco came to show they were just as capable of the same crown.
Fall Out Boy’s iconic Sugar We’re Goin Down video featuring a young man with antlers confused many, what actually are the lyrics of this song? We’ll never know. (jk i know). This was followed by the video that made every teen everywhere have the biggest crush on Pete Wentz, Dance Dance, which presented him as an unlucky-in-love nerd at prom. As IF!
King handsome, Pete Wentz. Everyone had a poster of him on their walls from Girlfriend Magazine.
Panic! At the Disco’s first single was on radio-only, which I’m gutted about because I’d imagine this would be a fabulous music video. This was their first release, and is my favourite above their other very well known hit which came out the year following. While the name of the song doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, the song itself absolutely does, introducing the banger that is The Only Difference Between Martyrdom and Suicide is Press Coverage.
Around this same time, we were treated with the introduction of Jared Leto into the mainstream music scene. He was already a Hollywood actor (and has continued to be so), but 30 Seconds to Mars’ The Kill showed that his showmanship could absolutely transfer into some deliciously angsty music. This video remains iconic, and is paying homage to Stephen King’s horror novel The Shining.
Jared Leto in Thirty Seconds To Mars’ The Kill (Bury Me). Can we PLS bring back men with eyeliner thanks.
Also debuting in 2005 were two emo-looking twins from Australia that everyone was obsessed with, none other than The Veronicas with their powerhouse bop 4ever. Honourable mentions have to go to Taking Back Sunday’s MakeDamnSure, and of course All American Rejects’ Dirty Little Secret and by far their best song Move Along.
2006: Emo is love, emo is life.
Okay, here’s where My Chemical Romance pushed everyone else aside and took the KING EMO crown. It’s iconic, and it deserves its place in emo history, of course it’s Welcome To The Black Parade. This is the type of song you yell word-for-word at your sweaty side-fringe friends night after night.
King Emos.
Also released this year was the song everyone knows Panic for and for good reason, I Write Sins Not Tragedies was their first music video and the first opportunity for teenagers everywhere to fall in love with Brendon Urie’s face.
Hello u.
The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus also came to the stage with a song that has an incredibly heavy topic, Face Down (TW: domestic violence), which was supplemented by the sweetness of Your Guardian Angel. They’re emo’s good boiis.
Also an iconic song of 2006? AFI’s Miss Murder. I remember this music video playing on TV when I was in year 8 and had just recovered from a nasty cold, it was clear I was going back to school the next day when I was dancing around the lounge uncontrollably when this came on.
2007: It’s Hayley Williams’ year.
Honestly, I had to double check this didn’t come out earlier because Paramore were such an integral part of my emo experience. A kick-ass female vocalist that doesn’t subscribe to the typical norms of “popular girls” (and tbh probably inspired Taylor Swifts’ You Belong With Me), yes please. A warm welcome to Misery Business.
Every girl strongly considered dying their hair a form of red thanks to Ms. Williams.
This is the song that I’m sure you’ve heard of as “the one that the cheugy millennials said Olivia Rodrigo stole to make Good 4 U”, to the point where Olivia added Paramore’s Hayley Williams and Josh Farro to the track’s songwriting credits. They’re undeniably similar as TikTok proved very quickly, but both are emotional bangers in their own right.
While Hayley Williams was the girl we undoubtedly rock’s it-girl for years, she’s inspired a wave of new female musicians such as Olivia and Billie Eilish to try and blur the lines between pop and rock with emotional and sometimes dark lyrics. I’m obsessed with them both.
This immediate success was quickly followed up by two more singles by the female-fronted band, crushcrushcrush and Hallelujah. All three of these singles came off their second studio album Riot!, every song of which is a must-listen for anyone who loves pop-rock done right. An iconic album song-for-song.
2007 also saw a significant and somewhat forgotten part of emo’s history… Kim Kardashian almost kissed a monkey in Fall Out Boy’s Thnks fr th Mmrs music video.
No, I’m not kidding at all.
Another notable banger from this year that just hits every time is Good Charlotte’s I Don’t Want To Be In Love (Dance Floor Anthem), and of course The Veronicas’ Untouched. I don’t have too much more to say on these two in comparison to my TED talks on the above, apart from the fact that they are two of my favourite songs from this era.
2008: Wrapping up the angst
Pop was well and truly making its comeback, and pushing any sense of rock aside. Your song has guitars in it? Yeah, it’s probably not making the radio again anytime soon.
So the emos had to get creative… so what an opportunity for emo to latch itself onto the biggest pop culture phenomenon since Harry Potter, of course I’m talking about Twilight you lil’ Twihards. That’s right, Paramore wrote what many consider to be their best song, as Decode became the theme song for Twilight’s long-awaited first movie.
I promise you Twilight was actually cool at one point. #TeamHayley
While all of the iconic artists mentioned above absolutely continued to deliver hit-after-hit for many years to come, these five years were truly the glory days of mainstream emo. What we now consider to fit into the emo category would undoubtedly be considered as pop back in the day, such as the very, very iconic DON’T TRUST ME by 3OH!3. (Special mention to STARSTRUKK ft. Katy Perry which I didn’t vibe with at the time, but love it now).
For those who want to see what types of artists are paying homage to the good emo days, I thoroughly recommend you dip your toes into the following recent songs.
I’m calling it now, 2022 is playing a part of the next mainstream emo revival. Read up, huns:
Bring Me The Horizon
YUNGBLUD
Side note, he’s coming to Auckland on 20 July 2022!
Machine Gun Kelly
Avril Lavigne
Avril Lavigne - Bite Me (with Travis Barker! He’s the drummer of the iconic Blink182, he’s kind of a big deal.)
Paramore
The whole entire After Laughter, it’s honestly its own genre– depression-pop. I know for sure that Billie Editor Fleur completely agrees with this rec.
Watch this space! The band has teased new music in 2022!
And hey, if you wanted to listen to my band I’d love u for that too. Here we are: The Not Okays - Better Days
And of course we put together this awesome lil playlist for when you’re feeling a little bit emo 🥲
