Emo

I take a small risk in bringing up this topic. It's a risk because it is a very polarized topic to rock lovers, punk in particular. This is much like various genres in electronic music, with the wrong group it invokes a varying degree of disdain to opposing parties. It's a small risk because I'm pretty sure nobody I deal with daily even really cares or possibly even knows about emo rock. Okay so the questions are who what where when and why. Who exemplifies it? What is it and what are its roots? Where did it come from? Why is this genre required?

Emo is something I've recently (last year or so) become aware of myself. Okay maybe that's sad, apparently it has been around a while...tough. Wikipeida calls it subgenre of hardcore punk out of DC in the late 80's. I'll buy the punk sound very easily but I can see where calling it hardcore punk is going to draw some controversy. Where's the political overtones...the spunky (that word going to draw some ire) rebelling against a system? Isn't that the definition of punk? Granted they weren't exactly working with system (until recently but hey...so's punk) but rebelling against it? In reading for this post I did come across a nice little history of emo page.

Okay so those sites will get you a good history now what's a good cross sampling of music to learn more about it....a la Apple's iTunes and another site with some samples. My guess is the most popular is My Chemical Romance though this may be a little unfair since they don't seem to classify themselves that way. Okay so that answers the who what where when and maybe even why....now do I like it? Don't know yet I'll have to analyze the sites myself and get back to you on that one.