How is Emo Not Pop Music?

Question

I'm confused because I thought pop music was just music that is very popular at the time. Emo claims to be anti-pop or whatever but its on the radio all the time and everyone listens to it. I dont intend to upset emo fans, I'm just curious.

Answer 1

Maybe some definitions will help:

Pop "is designed to appeal to everyone" and "doesn't come from any particular place or mark off any particular taste." In musical terms, it is essentially "conservative" in that it attempts to resonate with a large segment of its target demographic rather than pushing artistic boundaries. It is "provided from on high (by record companies, radio programmers and concert promoters) rather than being made from below..." (Frith 2001, p.95-96). But over time, pop has gone from "popular in general" to "a genre" described as sounding musically similar to rap, but with singing. This is due to radio stations labeling themselves as "pop stations" taking heavy preference over certain sounds, tossing other popular bands who don't fit into the sound or other categories like rock into the "alternative" label.



Emo is a subgenre of hardcore punk music. Since its inception, emo has come to describe several independent variations, linked loosely but with common ancestry. As such, use of the term has been the subject of much debate.

In its original incarnation, the term emo was used to describe the music of the mid-1980s Washington, DC scene and its associated bands. In later years, the term emocore, short for "emotional hardcore", was also used to describe the DC scene and some of the regional scenes that spawned from it. The term emo was derived from the fact that, on occasion, members of a band would become spontaneously and strongly emotional during performances. The most recognizable names of the period included Rites of Spring, Embrace, One Last Wish, Beefeater, Gray Matter, Fire Party, and, slightly later, Moss Icon. The first wave of emo began to fade after the breakups of most of the involved bands in the early 1990s.

Starting in the mid-1990s, the term emo began to reflect the indie scene that followed the influences of Fugazi, which itself was an offshoot of the first wave of emo. Bands including Sunny Day Real Estate and Texas Is the Reason put forth a more indie rock style of emo, more melodic and less chaotic in nature than its predecessor. The so-called "indie emo" scene survived until the late 1990s, as many of the bands either disbanded or shifted to mainstream styles.

As the remaining indie emo bands entered the mainstream, newer bands began to emulate the more mainstream style, creating a style of music that has now earned the moniker emo within popular culture. Whereas, even in the past, the term emo was used to identify a wide variety of bands, the breadth of bands listed under today's emo is even more vast, leaving the term "emo" as more of a loose identifier than as a specific genre of music.


As you can see - - they are two distinctly different styles of music.

Answer 2

Emo is a subgenre of Punk
and punk is known for not being mainstream.
The stuff you hear on the radio is simply Pop/Rock music. Record Labels promote that these bands are emo, when in fact they are not. An important aspect of the genre is that it's not mainstream, so these bands can't be emo for that fact alone.

Answer 3

Emo is pop music. Bad pop music. All you need to have the emo label is a scowl, a floppy emo fringe (bangs), wear eye make up, be real whiny and play derivative, mindless music. It will be over in six months.

Answer 4

I consider Pop music to be the kind of generalized music that a lot of people listen to--hence the name "pop" for popular. Emo seems to be the type of music only a much smaller margin of people seem to listen to.

Answer 5

I think Emo is what's popular right now, therefore it is pop music. No question about it in my mind.

Answer 6

I don't really know about where the name "pop" music came from, but what's classified as "emo" and what's classified as "pop" are a world of difference, e.g pop is like Jessica Simpson, emo is like....Bright Eyes, if you don't know who Bright Eyes is, search on wikipedia.com.

Answer 7

Isn't Emo under the "I hate my father music" catagory?

Answer 8

what's new is old and what's old is new, In my high school days Disco was Pop, and Rock was Pop. Did you know that Rap is Pop?

EMO is just whiny teen angst crapola, it will pass, give it time.

Answer 9

if it sucks, it's pop music, and emo sucks, therefore, it's pop music

Answer 10

well i think emo is like emotional rock or gothic i guess , im not for really sure , google it?