I think the easiest way to look at is hardcore in general changed drastically over the course of two decades, and emo changed commensurately with it. Genres do evolve over time and-- given enough time, tend to ultimately exclude, in pure criteria alone, that which created it. Emo is not a clearly defined genre to begin with. It's emotional hardcore, and since it was such a flavor-of-the-month designation for post-pubescent teens to designate the music they were listening to, it became even more vague. It's still quite vague.
I can assure you that if you took the time to search these boards you would stumble upon an epoch of Musicbanter history from about 5 years ago where you could cull enough discussion of this very topic to publish a fairly large book.
|