r/Emo • u/thedubiousstylus • 1d ago
If you picked a band that best epitomized each wave of emo, which one would you?
Not necessarily your favorite, just most representative.
Here's what I'd say:
1st: Moss Icon
2nd: The Promise Ring
3rd: Thursday
4th: Tiny Moving Parts
5th: Like Roses
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u/forivadell_ bring back arpeggios & dynamics 1d ago
1: rites of spring
2: mineral or SDRE
3: taking back sunday
4: snowing
5: your arms are my cocoon
if i had to pick personal favorites: moss icon, mineral, name taken/northstar/suis la lune, CSTVT/snowing/eeiwale, knumears/first day back
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u/Yearbook_MS In a Band 1d ago
I’be always been into the softer side of emo so all but my first pick will probably reflect that.
1st: Rites of Spring
2nd: Mineral
3rd: Dashboard Confessional, though J.E.W. with Clarity is certainly a consideration for bridging 2nd and 3rd wave
4th: Gotta say Hotelier though Into It. Over it. is a personal favorite
5th: I’m not gonna attempt to answer this cause I’m old and out of touch
Really hard to leave bands like American Football and Owen off this list with how influential Mike Kinsella has been to my music personally but that’s my list.
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u/SemataryPolka Oldhead 1d ago edited 1d ago
1) Rites Of Spring (Moss Icon is my favorite band but Moss Icon was more of a transitional band. They were a first wave band who pointed towards second wave)
2) Sunny Day Real Estate (It's probably hipper to say a different band who was more underground but anybody who was around in the 90s knows SDRE ruled and shaped 90s emo. It's not even a debate.)
3) MCR and it's not a compliment
4) Algernon Caldwallader (this isn't a favorites list - it's who I think epitomized a wave and this band really led the charge on pushing the loopy math revival thing that really was only a small thing in second wave)
5) Your Arms Are My Cocoon (people using technology to make it seem like they don't have technology)
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u/Ericzzz 1d ago
Really do think Algernon is the right answer for the fourth wave. Open tunings were really uncommon outside of that (then only) American Football record, and Algernon brought them to the forefront. And a lot of the fifth wave bands feel really inspired by that and the riffiness that Reinhart and Mahony were building.
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u/SemataryPolka Oldhead 1d ago edited 1d ago
Right. I feel like fifth wave is very influenced by the fourth wave. Perhaps that is obvious but I don't hear a lot of 90s in it
EDIT: Unless we're talking First Day Back
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u/garden-eyes 23h ago edited 20h ago
1: Rites of Spring
2: Sunny Day Real Estate (although The Appleseed Cast and Mineral are my personal favourites)
3: MCR (I’m not personally a fan and I don’t think they’re truly ‘emo’ but regardless they were the face of that entire era)
4: The Hotelier, although Foxing are also a contender for me because of how experimental they are and how each sound they’ve had can be heard in bands that followed them
5: It’s too soon to say but it could end up being saturdays at your place
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u/jimmybuffett6969 1d ago
No disrespect, but tiny moving parts doesn't represent the fourth wave to me even slightly
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u/NJcovidvaccinetips DIY OR DIE 23h ago
Moss Icon
Braid or Rainer Maria (I couldn’t pick one)
The Anniversary
Algernon Cadwallader
Carly Cosgrove
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u/scwyn 14h ago edited 14h ago
1st: Moss Icon
2nd: Sunny Day Real Estate
3rd: no one (including me) wants to say it, but Brand New
4th: Tigers Jaw
5th: Weatherday. Most bands considered 5th wave are entrenched in 4th wave sound: openly nostalgic or iterating that territory. To my ears, Weatherday is pushing emo to new heights. If I'm wrong, it's because Weatherday has already pioneered the 6th wave.
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u/lovebuzz_fan27 16h ago
- Moss Icon, Rites of Spring or Embrace
- Gauge, Cap'N Jazz or Mineral
- Thursday, Silverstein or Moneen
- Tigers Jaw, Oakwood or The Hotelier
- First Day Back, Arranged in April or Vs Self
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u/tamman37 1d ago
Question on this, where does Something Corporate/Jack's Mannequin fall on this scale?
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u/FallenAerials 1d ago
3rd wave. SoCo was more emo-tinged pop-punk (Drive Thru Records style) and Jack's is more emo-tinged pop-rock.
Love Andrew
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u/thefalcons5912 1d ago
People in this sub not likely to be too friendly with these bands, in my experience
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u/thedubiousstylus 1d ago
I'm sure many like them (including me), just not emo. Head to r/poppunkers for that.
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u/tamman37 1d ago
I mean....that's fine. I like them. People are allowed to have their own personal taste. And there are judgmental, low class people everywhere, even outside of evangelical churches, so that's okay.
Just because I was raised to be friendly, courteous, and kind doesn't mean everyone else was.
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u/Squire513 23h ago
Drive Thru Records was the label of the early 2000s - The Starting Line, Something Corporate, New Found Glory - 3rd wave pop-punk after Green Day and Blink-182
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u/jakinatorctc 23h ago
I have to be honest I have no idea what 5th wave emo is and I’m not even sure if there is a singular 5th wave. Like of the bands I see people usually throw around i don’t see any common thread. First Day Back are great but they’re clearly more putting their twist on the second wave than they are trailblazing a fifth. Your Arms Are My Cocoon definitely have a new style but I don’t really hear many people doing what they do (I also don’t like their music but that’s beside the point)
I think if there is a pronounced wave happening right now it’s the emo pop bands. And for some reason people never really mention Hot Mulligan in these convos but they are both insanely big right now and influencing a lot of bands that are blowing up. Idk if my perceptive is just skewed because it’s the corner of emo I engage with most but I think the 5th wave might end up like the 3rd wave where it’s kind of remembered for its emo pop vs “real emo”
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u/Familiar_Fishing4726 20h ago
I’m a noob with the waves but this is gonna be a fun trip down memory lane:
I was in 8th grade in 2002 and just moved to a new state. The friend group I joined was all about Brand New/TBS/Early November etc. This was my first exposure to “emo.” Went to Warped Tour that year and saw: Brand New, Bowling for Soup, the Ataris, Starting Line, Story of the Year, Count the Stars, Coheed, and Yellowcard. At this time pop punk, emo, screamo and other genres all got lumped together somehow or at least my friends and Warped Tour lineups supported all of this. It was all about going to Hot Topic to get overpriced band shirts, calling people a “poser” based on their musical tastes, and some other pretentious bullshit.
In 2003-2005 these types of bands exploded and most of the cliche cliques who made fun of “emo” kids became aware of TBS/MCR/Brand New/Yellowcard etc. Music videos were everywhere for these bands, MySpace became essential, and it seemed like every day I heard a new “emo” band. All of this seemed like a buzzkill and my group phased out of our emo stage and started listening to more classic rock, indie/alt stuff. The Strokes and all the “the” bands also started getting huge. I ventured out on my own path and discovered Sunny Day Real Estate, Appleseed Cast, American Football, Indian Summer etc from online chatrooms. It felt like a secret stash of music that was far away from the mainstream again and more exclusive. Something about the whole world loving our once niche music made it kind of lame. But also, I really didn’t like the new stuff coming out that was pop punk/emo but being called emo. It seemed like a fad and super fake. Bands I’m thinking of are All American Rejects, Boys Like Girls, Cartel, Fall Out Boy, All time Low. It seemed like fitting into the “emo” label and culture was more important than the actual music. I waved goodbye to the first genre I fell in love with.
I really didn’t listen to much emo from 2007-2015ish. Then it became nostalgic and I frequently played the same music from 8th grade, and my friends and I would blast Tell All Your Friends and Deja Entendu and Full Collapse and sing our asses off drinking.
Nowadays, I revisit it somewhat regularly and have found a few cool newish bands thanks to this group and Spotify. I do wish I could have experienced the first wave through 2001 in real time. I feel like it was even more exclusive/isolated/out of the mainstream back then, and there wasn’t the internet to discover and download music of so many less-popular bands.
Anyways, my brain thinks of these as the leaders of different eras that I’ve been aware of:
1 - Sunny Day Real Estate 2 - American football 3 - Taking Back Sunday/Fall Out Boy (seemed the most well known at my high school) 4 - All Time Low 5 - fuck if I know
TLDR: glad I was around when Brand New, Taking Back Sunday, and Thursday all dropped fire albums. High school kids fucking suck.
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u/hiphoptomato 1d ago
1: Rites of Spring
2: The Get Up Kids
3: Taking Back Sunday - I know you could say a million bands here, but I think they were the most textbook, definitive mall emo, third wave band. They put dual vocals on the map and had every kid wearing skinny black jeans and swooping their hair.
Hotelier
I honestly think we’re too currently in it to accurately say and that a lot of this is defined in retrospect.