<p>My daughter and her friends did a video for their English class where they acted out Hamlet to Abba songs (according to them, Abba could be the soundtrack to Hamlet). They called this emoHamlet. Now I’m trying to figure out if they have no idea what emo means, or if it’s a joke I don’t get.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the definitions. Turns out I didn’t know what emo means. I don’t think there are any of that subset around here, but now I realize that the daughter of a college friend is totally emo, from the glasses to the dark hair falling over the face.</p>
The only problem with that statement is that all of the bands named are on major labels.</p>
<p>“Emo” is one of those labels that unfortunately doesn’t work so well, because it means different things to different people. As far as I can tell, it derived from “emotional punk” – i.e., early 90s punk-style music that dealt, often in a whiny way, with issues of romantic and family relationships in a serious, confessional way that classic punk didn’t. (The loudest, most anguished descendants of this are often referred to as “screamo”.) But a lot of non-punky artists tend to get assigned the “emo” label, like Bright Eyes or Jimmy Eat World, and other artists whose music fits the description perfectly don’t ever get the label, like Sleater-Kinney. I have never found two people who agree on what is emo and what isn’t. I think, however, that My Chemical Romance is pretty much the state of the art for widely popular emo today.</p>
<p>There is a lot of emotional overlap between “goth” and “emo”, but there’s about a decade worth of fashion difference (musical and sartorial) between them.</p>
<p>“Indie” is another word that means different things in different contexts. Sometimes it is just a factual adjective to describe an artist who is not produced or distributed by “major labels” in the music or film industry. Other times, as in “indie rock” it is something of a genre description for, basically, bands that have a lo-fi, quirky style that does not focus heavily on musical or vocal technique and who do not seek (or get) mass market popularity.</p>
<p>I am so out of it when it comes to bands-( case in point- I really didn’t start listening to Pearl Jam until Kurt Cobain died- ) :(</p>
<p>my older daughter- listens to all kinds of music, not necessarily what the “cool kids” are listening to,
My younger daughter listens to soundtracks from Hitch and whatever her friends have made for her- because I won’t let her buy it ;)</p>
<p>I used to think I was up on all the new music- I live in * Seattle* for goodness sake, but * Panic at the Disco* is on the cover of Rolling Stone?
I have never even* heard* of them </p>
<p>I barely listen to the radio except for NPR- the radio stations don’t play the new stuff anyway- I mean * new* music from Nirvana?</p>
<p>So where are you guys getting your knowledge from?
I want to know! :)</p>
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