The short answer is no. But what sucks is it’s happening whether we need it or not. Unlike the three waves of ska—which were not only necessary but inevitable—the three waves of emo, to date, are a bit harder to parse out and sadly reveal a tragic, full collapse (sorry, I had to) of the American Empire as a whole. Also...unlike the three waves of ska, which actually had huge generational gaps, and with each wave signifying a rediscovery and reinterpretation, the waves of emo are actually more like one slow-burn, catastrophic tsunami, which crested and made landfall in every white American suburb in the mid-2000s. This bubbling fourth wave that’s coming, whether we are ready for it or not, is more of a literal second wave, since there’s that generational gap and rediscovery process. Since there is no stopping this follow-up tsunami, we might as well prepare for it, and you, the reader, might as well learn how we got here.
A little history, first. Emo started in 1985 with Rites of Spring’s first and only album. This start date is about as accurate as saying punk started in 1976, with Ramones’ debut. It’s simply a nice, clean, easy start date. Obviously, punk, hardcore, and post-hardcore bands in the late ’70s and early ’80s were dealing with more personal and self-searching issues in lyrical content. Have you ever read any Henry Rollins-era Black Flag lyrics? Dude is literally using being in a band as a substitute for therapy. Strip away the self-righteousness, and Minor Threat’s "In My Eyes" is essentially an emo song. But either way, Rites of Spring’s debut is simply a nice goalpost we can start at.
This quot;first wavequot; in Washington, DC, was fairly limited to that city, with bands like Rites of Spring, Embrace, and Dag Nasty. Basically, anything on Dischord Records in the ’80s can be considered Emo Mark I. So what’s the connecting thread? The impetus? Musically, it makes sense. Young people like playing loud, energetic rock music, and if you’re not that politically literate, what are you gonna sing about? Your feewlingz. That’s the lazy, plebian explanation. I think there was something more nefarious at work. Where and when are we? Fucking DC in the ’80s! We are smack dab in the middle of Regean’s Evangelical Theocratic Capitalist Hellscape! While these spry, young punk rockers may not have been intentionally responding to the cruel gutting of any and all possible economic future for themselves, I’m a firm believer that the environment you live and breathe in permeates your art. You see the high-rise buildings shoot up and the homeless shelters and mental health clinics shutter—the garbage piles up as trade unions fight their last heroic stand before finally getting swept under the neoliberal juggernaut façade of happiness. A new class of coke-raddled business elites in yellow ties step over droves of homeless that just got kicked out of those evil, taxpayer-burdening, nanny state establishments.
The left-wing political ire of English punk and bored apathy of the New York brand (and, to an extent, the earlier stuff in Detroit) clearly did nothing. Bad Brains started off the decade strong with some tight, succinct political grievances delivered at lightning speed, but they quickly fizzled out into a wash of drugged-out reggae without getting a movement going. I think sad suburban introspection was really the only thing left to sing about. The powers that be cannot be destroyed or dissuaded with music, so fuck it, let’s just read our diary but jump around while doing it.
The second "wave" is a little more difficult to pin down but is largely referring to the "Midwest emo" phenomenon of the mid-’90s. Again, when you zoom into the nitty gritty, it really does start looking like one big tsunami rather than separate waves since we got a direct line from the initial DC scene to Fugazi and Jawbreaker in 1990, which is spitting distance from Sunny Day Real Estate’s ’94 debut masterpiece—vaguely the beginning of this second wave. Yes, I realize Seattle isn’t in the Midwest, but it was hit just as hard by the neoliberal gilded age of the ’90s. The glossy, end-of-history era where all major American producers outsourced their labor to countries where they could get away with shameless worker exploitation, and literally all the money was funneled to douchey tech start-ups, as this awful homunculus known as the internet was congealing into existence. This is where a more recognizable style known as emo flourishes, with The Get Up Kids, The Promise Ring, Cap’n Jazz, and Mineral providing the soundtrack for disaffected suburban youth across the nation. Again, while most of these bands were probably not consciously commenting on the literal dissolution of the American Dream before their very eyes, it was in the air they were breathing, especially in Rust Belt cities that were essentially emptied of any hope for the future (i.e., manufacturing jobs where you could put in 20 years and at least come out of it with a house). They were told to just learn to code. This is where the suburban vibe really becomes part of the fabric of emo since it’s in these disgusting sprawls that kids made bands in garages with, again, nothing to sing about except diary entries because there’s literally nothing else going on.
Although the third wave was able to break through with the help of pop punk exploding across malls in the mid-’90s and arguably the first third wave emo albums came out in 1999 with Saves The Day’s Through Being Cool and Thursday’s Waiting—the pivotal moment is definitely the towers falling on 9/11, with Gerard Way literally witnessing the disaster firsthand and deciding then to quit his job and make My Chemical Romance. This timeline is arbitrary, but I feel like this third and most infamous wave (in that it’s easy to make fun of cause of the guyliner and side-swiped bangs) can be roughly placed between 2001 to 2008, between the towers falling and the recession, where the absolute failure of the American Empire and its inevitable decline, could no longer be hidden. It was right out in the open for all to see. Makes sense why this last wave-slash-crest of the tsunami started in New Jersey (and New York, depending on where you consider Brand New hails from) since they were closest to the epicenter. I think it makes sense that this wave was the most theatrical. At this point, the absurdity of the tactics of those in power, especially during the Bush administration, needed an equally absurd response. Again, none of this is intentional (except with Gerard Way, since he said as much, and the folks in Thursday have said on stage that a lot of the early stuff was in direct response to rampant government corruption). But if you can’t escape it, it’s gonna come through your art—like pouring food coloring in your plant’s water.
This may seem really tinfoil hat to most of you, but I promise I’m getting to a point. Because, again, the fourth wave of emo is coming. It’s already upon us. I’m just trying to help you, dear reader, to figure out why the fuck it’s happening. If ever there was a time when the youth felt particularly powerless, unable to fathom anything resembling financial stability or even safety with all the geopolitical chaos, it is now. And even though it seems this would be the generation to be more politically engaged and more involved in their communities, the last few election cycles have all but proven that nothing is going to change, and the people in power are only going to work to keep that power. They were told to vote, they did, and rent is still skyrocketing while we’re still throwing missiles in every direction. It’s nice to see some Starbucks and Amazon warehouses unionizing, and it was kind of a relief that an unintelligent, failed reality TV star that wears a diaper didn’t get a second term as President...but still, everything feels pretty stagnant and hopeless. Time to break out the diary and jump around in the community center event hall! Whether or not America needs a fourth wave of emo, we certainly deserve it.
