Let's go back 5 or 6 years (Perhaps even less), emo was starting out in it's latest 'wave' of musical evolution. And around this time, maybe one or two years later, social networking sites where beginning to bring in vast amounts of traffic and it became cool to be somewhat geeky (As opposed to the times that if you knew how to navigate the internet it was an instant beatdown from your school jocks, who obviously were yet to master their hand eye co-ordination enough to control a mouse), now everyone seems to know how to do your basic html coding. Anyway, around this time 'emo' bands began popping up on myspace and purevolume and suddenly the rest of the internet took hold of this new craze. The problem with these bands is that a large number of mainstream emo bands have gone about making majority of their money by dressing emo and riding the wave of money that emo brought them, but then at the same time those bands try to seperate themselves from the emo genre as to be sure that those who are against emo still like them as a band. And will continue to listen to their music without the fear of being called emo.

Even though at this time many forums, social networking sites and imageboards were talking about 'emo', it hadn't made it's appearance onto the mainstream circuit. It remained a relatively underground movement for over 20 years before finally breaking through into the mainstream in the mid 2000s. And as can be expected with a genre which already had enough negative misconceptions online by 2005, once it became more popular those internet rumors as to what emo consisted of and the general hate it has recieved by other genres began to spready in the real world. We will be going over which bands broke through the underground scene and into the mainstream, creating emo into one large hate magnet.


#1
My Chemical Romance

This band is loved by plenty of scene and emo kids around the world. But before they became what they are today (An MTV overplayed Pop-punk/Alternative band), they used to be emo. Let's look back to 2002 when they released the album 'I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love', this album was heavily influenced by the alternative rock and emo genres. I doubt you will find many people who disagree that this album was infact 'emo'. This album recieved very little media attention as MCR was still signed to a smaller record label at the time.

In 2004 they released the album 'Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge', which had a rather post-hardcore/emo feel to it and one could probably go as far as to say that album also fell within the third wave emo genre. At this time (Between 2004-2006) emo was already slowly creeping beyond the door of the underground and up onto the mainstream, and with this MTV snapped up the video for 'Helana' as well as 'I'm Not Okay (I Promise)' which ended up being played on the hour. At this time large radio stations were doing the same, playing the bands singles.

In late 2006 - early 2007 the band released their album 'The Black Parade', and while their style had actually taken a slight turn from the actual emo genre people were stuck with the idea that the band was an emo band and they remained known as one through out 2007 and 2008 by the majority of people. And through all the negative publicity emo had been getting since 2004 the band publicly stated that emo was 'shit', a statement I'm sure a lot of emo kids don't know was said. They denounced the genre and tried to seperate themselves from the now already mainstream genre.

#2
Fall Out Boy

This Emo/Pop-Punk band made it's breakthrough onto the mainstream fairly late, in the latter months of 2006 with the music video for the song 'This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race' taken off their album 'Infinity on High' being debuted on MTV with regular airing.

Where My Chemical Romance had brought more of an alternative sound, reeling in those interested in the rock side of things into emo, Fall Out Boy on the other hand reached into Pop-Punk for it's sounds, and thus had tapped into another market with it's sounds. Which made the emo genre even larger with more exposure.

As if it wasn't bad enough the band had broken through onto the mainstream circut and created more trendy high school kids into 'emo kids' for the popularity they then went and collaborated with some huge hip-hop stars such as Timberland and Kanye West.

Now before you get ready to correct me. This band isn't really an emo band as such and rather a Rock/Pop-Punk band. But with all the confusion and huge buzz with 'emo' breaking through onto the mainstream people seemed to pile P!ATD right up there with Fall Out Boy and My Chemical Romance and was ultimately labeled emo by numerous fans of the band. Not to mention they were marketted as an emo band.

Their breakthrough came around the same time as Fall Out Boy, perhaps a bit earlier. With the release of their album 'A Fever You Can't Sweat Out', this album was fairly underground when it was released with majority of fans remaining those on myspace. But a good few months after the bands album release and after the media found that their music was so very popular online they decided to promote them up onto that dreaded mainstream arena. The music video for their song 'I Write Sins Not Tragedies' became a huge hit on mtv and radio stations alike, and they too were adding fuel to the fire which was emo, and more importantly mainstream emo.

This Post-Hardcore/Screamo band released their album 'The Silence In Black and White' in mid-2004 and while it was recieved well online it, it had minimal mainstream media play-time. Though the song 'Ohio Is For Lovers' was quite popular and the media did on occasions play the video for the song.

Their bigger break came in 2006 with the media popularity of the song 'Pens and Needles' from their album 'If Only You Were Lonely', the media seemed to play this song more often than 'Ohio Is For Lovers' and since emo was peaking around the time of the release of 'Pens and Needles' it is also just what the media wanted