Indie Vs Emo

Many often confuse the modern Emo and Indie music scene, but little do they realize they are completely different. Between the sense of fashion style, the history, and the musical culture these genres are as different as day and night. Emo being derived from the word Emotional has a more sensitive, but commercial style, while Indie derived from the word independent stands for the modern independent music scene. Although emanated from each other, both musical scenes have taken a completely separate path from each other.

The Indie kid often has a disheveled appearance. Their hair has a modified, greasy bed head look. They can be found wearing undersized t-shorts that look as if they could be found in thrift stores, but are not in fact
actually ought from thrift stores. The color choice of clothing should be vibrant yellow, green, or orange. Wearing black is too "L.A.," and wearing white is too gauche. Indie kids like to be seen as clever cynics, and because of this they live a thrifty life style. They feel living the way they do it is hard to make piles of cash; well most of them feel this way. There are the Indie kid "want to bes" called hipsters. Hipsters live off their rich parents money and claim to be poor. They wear expensive designer knock offs of thrift store clothing, and deny being rich. Indie kids are known as the modern bohemians, and often hold artsy, low paying jobs.

The Emo kids on the other hand have a completely different sense of style. The undersized band t-shirt, preferably black, is a must, but it's imperative that it is an Emo band. One should never be "that guy" either. ("That guy" is the person who wears the bands t-shirt to the bands show.) Another essential article of clothing to the Emo culture is the hoodie, whether is be a band hoodie or a plain hoodie. Emo kids wear tight jeans whether they are male or female. Scarves and mittens are adored and often worn as well. For footwear, one can see an Emo kid wearing a pair of Converse or Vans. Boys can be seen wearing eyeliner, which Indie boys wouldn't be aught dead wearing. Both Indie kids and Emo kids are often covered in tattoos and body piercings, but they will ridicule each other for the band tattoos they chose to get.

Where did Emo and Indie derive from?
One of the earliest influences of the Emo culture came in the early 90's from the California Bay are. The band was called Jawbreaker. It incorporated the brute force of hardcore music of the west in with the sensibility of the pop punk music in the east. Around this time Fugazi took the Indie underground scene by storm. But the Indie genre of music had been around for many decades before this. It rooted from Velvet Revolver in the 60's. They incorporated social realism in the world and created the element of punk. Punk in the 70's became a bit more mainstream, and broke off from the independent music scene. It left post-punk bands behind to the Indie scene such as Elvis Costello and The Talking Heads. Soon these bands got airplay and soon became old news. In the 80's, Indie turned its ear to music only college radio stations would play such as U2 and R.E.M. These bands then became a bit to mainstream, and the Indie scene took a darker turn and began listening to grunge bands such as Nirvana. That too even became too popular and Indie once again took another turn to Fugazi. Combining Fugazi with post-punk bands at the time such as Mission of Burma, the genre of Emo soon dispersed. Bands such as Sunny Day Real Estate popped into the scene having this mixed hardcore/pop punk sound to them. Throughout the 90's bands related to the sounds of Sunny Day Real Estate, and branched into two different scenes. The Emo bands had a
more poppy, up-beat sound creating a more mainstream persona for them. The Indie bands remained more underground and experimental. Today, the Indie kids have a more cynical view on the Emo genre because they know despite their radical differences, if it weren't for the Indie scene Emo would never exist.

So what are the Emo and Indie kids listening to today?
One can find the Indie kids listening to anything off of Matador Records.
It's basically the Warner or Sony records of Indie music, and it has about 40 bands on its Roster. For the independent music world, this label is huge. Bands of this label include Pavement, Catpower, Neko Case, Pretty Girls Make Graves, Mogwai, and Bella and Sebastian. Other major modern listened for the Indie scene include Aloha, Antelope, Joan of Arc, Owen, The Appleseed Cast, The Afghan Whigs, Architecture in Helsinki, Built to Spill, Girl Talk, and many others. Coachella is major Indie festival that happens once a year in California where one would find many of these bands and
more.

Emo kids would be found at a more familiar festival that tales place all over the country during the summer called Van's Warped Tour. Bands one would find on this tour would be My Chemical Romance, AFI, Silberstein, Fall Out Boy, Paramore, The Used, Thursday, Thrice and many others. These bands are found on more commercial labels such as Sony and Capitol Records, and can be found plastered on well-known music magazines such as Alternative Press and SPIN. One can find such bands on any well known music channel such as MTV or FUSE, where as Indie bands one must go to an obscure website and watching their live video. The Emo genre is far more commercialized than the independent music scene.

In conclusion, although both scenes have a few similarities, the Indie and Emo music scenes are very different. From the dissimilarities in style to the separate paths in music, both scenes have distinct classifications. An Indie kid would take great offense to being called Emo, and vise versa. So before one assumes they see an Indie or Emo kid walking down the street, they should take some time to recognize both scenes and observe their unique qualities.

MLA:

Emo Bands, Music, and Fashion: Emo Community 2008 Shoutmouth January 16, 2008 http://www.shoutmouth.com SoYouWanna.com 2007 Demand Entertainment January 16, 2008
http://www.soyouwanna.com/site/syws/indierock/indierockfull.html