By Adam Cecil

The so-called emo revival that is sweeping the internet is based in midwestern emo, a sound that was swallowed up by the early ’00s mall punk emo that put Hot Topic on the map. But the history and lineage of emo is so messy that it’s hard to really call this a revival of anything. Emo had no golden age, as many music blogs have been quick to point out. So what, exactly, are these bands bringing back?

1. Emo is still a dirty word.

Talking about emo music is hard. It might even be a harder conversation to have than any had by a girl trying to break up with the lead singer of an emo band. What exactly is emo music, anyway? Is it the dynamic hardcore punk of Rites of Spring, the plaintive moans of Sunny Day Real Estate, or the theatrical mall punk of My Chemical Romance? All of these bands have a claim to the genre, but a lot of Rites of Spring fans wouldn’t be caught dead wearing a My Chemical Romance shirt.

The shifting sound of the emo genre is what killed it in the first place — it became a fad. You can blame Jimmy Eat World, whose classic emo album Clarity has only gotten better with age. When they changed gears and started churning out pop hits like The Middle, which was mandated by law to appear in every third movie produced between 2002 and 2005, the word emo came with them.

2. Emo never actually went away.

This point has already been covered expertly by Dan Ozzi in an article for Vice titled “There’s No Emo Revival, You Just Stopped Paying Attention,” but the fact of the matter is that emo music never really disappeared. Ozzi interviews Evan Weiss of Into It. Over It., a project that has been heralded by many media outlets as heralding emo music in a new age. Evan Weiss isn’t a new artist, however — he’s been writing and performing emo music for fourteen years. If this is emo’s mandatory twenty-year-revival, as Stereogum put it, then what does it mean that their standard bearer has been deep into the genre for fourteen years?

The ridiculousness of this shows itself well in Buzzfeed’s listicle on the subject. Just scroll down to the third entry, Grown Ups. Buzzfeed lists off the appropriate information about the band, including where they’re from and the best album to start with. It also features a note that the band broke up in 2011. Here’s an idea for next month’s headlines on the emo revival: “Emo Revival: As Lifeless As Your High School Relationship?”

3. Why now?

So what makes this time special? What was the event that really made it clear that emo was back and a force to be reckoned with? The sad thing is (write lyrics about this one, Joie De Vivre), there was none. A couple of internet writers and media outlets decided that emo was back. One could argue that Topshelf Records’ recent success with bands like The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die helped spark a renewed interest in the genre. But, again, Topshelf Records has been around since 2005, and it was founded to serve a music scene that already existed. Topshelf did not spark a revival in the scene. This entire “emo revival” would be better described as a “media-interest-in-emo revival,” but that doesn’t roll off the tongue quite as well.

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