| SheIsLegend |
12-02-2007 07:52 AM |
Eh, This is weird.
Okay, I may be young, but hear me out. Please.
Screamo is a musical genre that developed out of emo, more specifically hardcore emo, in the early 1990s. Characteristic of the genre are the screaming vocals (not growling). Other than that, it is fairly hard to classify (particularly since the rule about screaming vocals is bent fairly often). It is sometimes also mistakenly referred to as "emo violence", which is closely related (although bands in both genres borrow ideas from each other). The term has been co-opted by some mainstream publications to describe bands such as Underoath, Hawthorne Heights, Thrice, Thursday, and Taking Back Sunday. Screamo bands play a thrashy brand of emo often featuring harmonizing guitar riffing and anguished vocal screams. It is sometimes perceived that because of its sheer speed and brutality, screamo bands often border on grindcore, however what basis this has in fact is questionable. Many screamo bands play a slower melodic breakdown in songs. Lyrically, screamo topics are often times introspective, although it is not uncommon to see a screamo band with political lyrics. Most screamo songs use imagery and metaphors to speak of lost love or failed friendships.
In California in the early 1990s, Gravity Records from San Diego released many defining records of this style. Significant Emo bands from this time include Heroin, Angel Hair, Antioch Arrow, Universal Order of Armageddon, Swing Kids, and Mohinder. In the New York/New Jersey era, bands such as Native Nod, Merel, 1.6 Band, Rye Coalition and Rorschach were feeling the same impulse. The labels Gern Blandsten Records and Troubleman Records released many of the influential records from that region and era. Many of these bands were involved with the ABC No Rio club scene in New York, itself a response to the violence and stagnation in the scene and with the bands that played at CBGBs, the only other small venue for hardcore in New York at the time. Contemporary screamo bands include Circle Takes the Square and Saetia. There was an explosion of bands, some who influenced this were: Indian Summer, Evergreen, Current, Shotmaker, Portraits of Past, and Julia. These bands eventually became what is known as Emo, a style which intensified the dramatic aspects of vocal performances in order to achieve a cathartic breakthrough with the audience. Their music backgrounds differ, Julia and Evergreen both soft and deep produced some of the richest Emo sounds, while Shotmaker railed off hardcore punk and found their niches in the brutal honesty of the human voice. Done well, the result was powerful emotional release that often left Emo bands and their audiences crying or screaming or very quiet at the end of performances. While effective, such open displays of emotion made many traditional hardcore fans uncomfortable, and caused much friction between the two camps. In recent years, the internet has helped spread word of screamo through websites and through online distributions. Many fans of the genre have turned to eBay to expand their collections of rare and out-of-print records. This leads to very high prices on records that often cost a meager $10 or less when they were first released. Some members of bands who have broken up have expressed displeasure in these high prices and urge fans not to buy them, or buy a posthumously released discography instead. In recent years, the term "screamo" has been misused very commonly to describe emo, post-punk, alternative rock, metalcore, or hardcore bands with emo influences.
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