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Emo, is becoming a heavily debated topic among music lovers today. Many whallow in it's inevitable empathetic notion, while others would just as soon stop the whining all together. But I implore you, ask yourself: Exactly what do you call emo?

Emo, being short for "Emotional", could open a gate of many different meanings and interpretations. Since it can be argued that all music is emotional, save for maybe when Timberlake brought sexy back, what makes it cross that line into such a phase that you would brand it into this genre? It began that emo, so to speak, was that new age of rock where the vocalist showed so much emotion, that you could feel it coming through the speakers. This could generally mean a mix of smooth, to even screaming vocals. I didn't mean that the music had to be hard rock, however. Take for example, many record stores place Dashboard Confessional in the emo rack. The music is anything but hard, but Chris Carraba's vocals paint such a picture of feeling, and basically bleed in songs like 'bitter pill', that you have to say it's very... 'emo'.

The emo genre was made, to house bands and artists with more feeling than most, however this could be any feeling, good or bad. Today, when you hear the word emo, you only think of bad feelings. You think of rock bands that sing of only cutting themself, or putting on heavy eye liner and moping around the house instead of getting a job. When did this happen? Why does it seem that now, the word only means pain, despair, and hopelessness? It seems that there is confusion in the meaning, so much that in fact, the meaning all together may have changed.

Learn more about this author, Eric Maynes.
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