Welcome back to my blog! Today, we’re going to discuss two of the most misunderstood music genres: Emo and Goth. Unfortunately, due to the commercialisation and bastardisation of emo and goth, there’s many misconceptions of both music genres. Since they’re both music genres and NOT subcultures like many like to believe, I’m going to dive into it. Most of the stereotyping and mislabeling came from the MSM (mainstream media), neolib/radlib/shitlib (neoliberal) bias Wikipedia, crappy search engines like Google, MTV, and Hot Topic (despite me loving Invader Zim stuff, the bands you label as emo and screamo aren’t emo and screamo lol).
Goth music is a subgenre of punk that came around the late 1970’s to early 1980’s. Many of the famous bands include Siouxsie Sioux and the Banshees, Alien Sex Fiend, The Cure, Bauhaus, Specimen, and Christian Death. Joy Division was proto goth band, which shaped many of the bands known for gothic rock, deathrock, no wave, and post punk. Goth music is a very dark sound but you can also hear many 80’s and punk sound as well. Absolutely love this style of music! I also have heard plenty of underground bands from numerous sources out there.
The only similarities TRUE AND HONEST emo and goth have is that they’re both a subgenre of punk music. Emo, short for emotional hardcore, emocore, and emotive hardcore is a music genre that formed in 1985 in Washington D.C. Famous bands from that era are Moss Icon and Rites of Spring. Rites of Spring is pretty much the first emo band ever formed. Of course, there’s midwest emo and known bands like Braid, The Promise Ring, Sunny Day Real Estate, Cap N’ Jazz, and The Get Up Kids are good bands if you ever want to listen to them. Then, there’s skramz (used ironically) aka *screamo, and one of the first skramz bands are Orchid, Pageninetynine (pg.99), and City of Caterpillar.
*Screamo now is mislabeled to mean any band that has screaming, growling or any unclean vocals in it so a lot of metalcore, deathcore, and post-hardcore bands get mislabeled as screamo.
Professor Snape and Pageninetynine in a meme? Lol yes!
Bands that are commonly mislabeled as emo
- My Chemical Romance (More pop punk but I brought you my bullets, You brought me your love was the closest they got to emo, and it is a good album!)
- Falloutboy (again, pop punk)
- Panic!At the Disco (sounds poppy to me not like in the way midwest emo sounds, but like radio pop)
- Green Day (lol see the theme here?) once again, pop punk
- Black Veil Brides (hard rock, once a really hated band back in the early 2010’s)
- Blessthefall (post-hardcore)
- Pierce the Veil (post-hardcore)
- Eyes Set to Kill (post-hardcore)
- Sleeping with Sirens (post-hardcore)
- and many more….
Bands that are commonly mislabeled as goth
- Marilyn Manson (a well known celebritycow around lolcow circles and is shock rock)
- Cradle of Filth (metal)
- HIM (idk what they are, but they’re not goth)
- Evanescence (rock and alternative)
- Rob Zombie (industrial metal some shock rock)
- Rammstein (industrial metal)
- Mushroomhead (industrial metal)
- Type O Negative (doom metal, but they do have a song I like to listen to from time to time)
- Fear Factory (industrial metal)
- and many more
So, you can tell many pop-punk and post-hardcore bands get mislabeled as emo and many industrial metal and shock rock bands get mislabeled as goth. Just because they’re not those genres, doesn’t mean that they suck or anything. Many bands mislabeled as goth and emo I still like, and some of them I haven’t even listed!
To close part one out of three (which is the music part), here’s a couple of links I’d like for you, the reader, to listen to. More unknown emo, but very good finds nonetheless. (use ad blocker as this is on pooptube; I cannot use invidious links on here or don’t know how to embed them I am sorry.)