Originally posted by: crusades
Emo is originally a sub-genre of Hardcore; a coin termed so as to shorten "Emotive Hardcore" for ease of use in everyday speech. When it first started back in 1984, it was almost identical to DC hardcore except the lyrics were more emotion oriented, as opposed to hardcore lyrics being about society/politics. As time progressed, so did Emo, and revisions were made. There were bands like Indian summer, taking it in one direction, and bands like Heroin, taking it in the other. Indian Summer focused on the "Emotive" part, and Heroin focused on the "Hardcore" part, both were still emo, but now emo was a broader genre.

Emo is a type of music involving mostly screaming, with loud heavy distorted metal-like riffs, but usually more complex. The guitar seems to almost be not in key most of the time, due to the complexity of some songs. When not screaming, words are usually spoken, not sung, to add an atmosphere of disfunction. This all takes place in verse. Singing can, and often does take place in chorus, though.

Most emo lyrics are about emotional things, such as suicides, depressions, relationships etc. Quite frequently imagery or personification is used, and that's when it's hard to determine the difference between Metalcore, Hardcore, or Emotive Hardcore. Emo songs can be short, under a minute long; but still be played with the same complexity as 4 minute long songs. These are usually the very hard and fast ones. The softer, slower ones can get quite long(Indian Summer - Woolworm approaches 8 minutes).

The most famous emo label is Level-Plane records. The best known, and probably most listened to emo artists are Saetia, You and I, Orchid, Indian Summer, Embrace , and Rites of Spring.

There are bands that aren't emo persae, yet a number of songs by them will seem emo. These are bands like Fugazi and Husker Du(the band credited for creating the first emo album ever).

People's assumption of what emo is is totally distorted from the original definition. This is due to the fact that there are very little emo records on cds, most are on rare vinyls that were never re-released.This is also because a lot of people think "Emo" is just short for "Emotional", which means any band could be emo, since all music is emotion driven.

People often mistake pop-punk bands such as Taking Back Sunday and brand new as emo when in fact they are merely pop-punk. Their lyrics may seem "emo" at times, but in reality they possess none of the qualities emo represents. There is nothing "Hardcore" about them.

The mass-media has made up a screamo genre by composing bands like vendetta red and poison the well, which are pretty much just mall metal. If screamo were a real genre, a band like Orchid would fit in. Because "Emo" already contains screaming, the term "Screamo" is redundant and void.

People make the assumption that indie bands such as Alkaline Trio or Bright Eyes are emo. This is also false. Bands such as Dashboard Confessional, Rocky Volotalo and Homage To Catalonia are what is known as post-indie technically, or more simply, Acoustic Pop.

This really makes me sick. I saw some fucking cunt with two Xs at the start and end of his name yesterday. Correctly deducing that this was a trendy shit-bag, I decided to go in his profile to see exactly how straight edge he was, and holy shit was I ever right.

This fool had a picture of himself holding a beer (of course with the caption "LOL IM SO DRUNK IN DIS PHOTO, YO!", thanks ass hole) and a picture of a giant pot leaf in the likes section. I safely assumed that he enjoyed meat and sex too, because of the many mentions of "gurlz, LOL!" in his likes. This dumbass couldn't be any farther away from straight edge. But I guess putting Xs in you're screen name makes you cool, because everyone else is doing it, right?

Posi=Positive

Posi is the power of positive thinking. Ive learned to take a negitive situation, and turn it into a positive one. Being natural and an environmentalist is also very posi. Planting trees is a very posi activity. Posi people would rather have juice than pop. They would also rather have vegetables than meat, or no meat at all! Posi people are usually virgins, unless they are in love with someone, which is difficult because posi people love everybody!