Rolling Stone's top 40 emo albums (40-36)

I’m a big sucker for music related listicles, as some of you know. My good friend Clay was recently inspired by my list-related work to run through a couple top 40s on his own.

He was hitting me with his thoughts on the Rolling Stone top 40 emo albums — a genre we both like but have fairly different tastes in. I got so excited about his thoughts that I decided to do the exercise for myself.

I’ve always had a tangential relationship with emo because it was the hottest subgenre of DIY music when I started going to shows (around 2011). My taste existed then in a liminal space where the modern bands I liked cited many of the albums on this Rolling Stone article, along with the Bridge 9 back catalog, as their inspiration. I ended up on the hardcore end of that spectrum, so while I can pay lip service to a lot of classic emo, I haven’t heard many of these records in over a decade (if at all).

I thought it would be fun to revisit and review some of these classics. I’m doing them five at a time. Come along for the ride.

40: The Used- In Love and Death (2004, Reprise)

l’d never heard this record before. High school, Led Zeppelin t-shirt Vince called this “gay emo screamo bullshit” and college Vince wrote it off as “mall music for posers”. Somewhere along the line it might have connected if given the chance, but that ship has sailed. This album’s opening sample is pretty emblematic of how it feels as a whole. It’s dark and obscure enough to peak my attention, but then out of nowhere they earnestly start talking about God, and I roll my eyes. I think the first Used record might be worth checking out. That one apparently sounds more like Alexisonfire. This is like snakebite piercing mall screamo kids trying their best to cross over into the burgeoning, radio-friendly third wave of emo while still retaining enough of their basement metalcore roots to keep the cred intact. They do a pretty good job walking that tightrope. I just want more push mosh parts and less wailing to god about dead girlfriends.

39: Panic at the Disco - A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out (2005, Decaydance/Fueled by Ramen)

This is surprisingly low considering where some of its contemporaries fall. Maybe the emo scene has turned on this, yet decided Fall Out Boy is still really cool for some reason. Who knows? This record does have a lot of singular elements, to the point where if someone wanted to accuse something on the RS list of “not being real emo”, Fever would be a prime candidate. PATD weaves circus music, electronica, pop, and a host of other random influences into their debut, but emo has never been a genre to colour neatly in the lines. Fever, to me, is quintessential for its time period. The article, of course, makes no mention of why it’s so low, which leaves me scratching my head.

38: Into It. Over It. - Intersections (2013, Triple Crown)

My buddy Clay hated this record on his listen. I never got into this band when I was a kid, so I was expecting it to suck. I instead had a pleasant trip down memory lane, recounting a hundred random bands I saw in DIY venues and a dozen record label sampler playlists I combed through in hopes of finding my next favourite artist. Into It. Over It.’s second full length is the sound of emo as I remember. It’s twinkly and forlorn, but smooth around the edges and self-referential to the scene it came from. This is for holding a three dollar bottle of beer in one hand and excitedly pointing the other at the stage when you hear a recognizable lyric. I was never really ten toes down in this world, and hearing Intersections gives me familiar mixed feelings of understanding and alienation.

37: Indian Summer - Science 1994 (2002, Future Recordings)

I could never get into this type of shit when I was a kid. It was simultaneously too twee and too offputtingly angular for me to understand. My interest in 2023 is highly piqued. This is a relic of a time where hardcore music still had lots of room for experimentation. The guys in this band were dyed-in-the-wool basement geeks with a really cool idea they were trying to figure out on the fly. The results ended up having tentacles long beyond this band’s short and relatively obscure career. I can see myself coming back to this compilation on a regular basis.

36: Orchid - Orchid (2002, Ebullition)

I’ve always considered this to be Orchid’s worst record, but after today’s listen, I might have to reconsider. It’s definitely their least straightforward and most ambient, which I guess makes it more emo, compared to the early material which I consider squarely hardcore. I think the reviewers at Rolling Stone liked how many of vocalist Jayson Greene’s smart, sardonic and sarcastic lyrics they could understand, due to his more sassy delivery matching the “pulled back” approach of the music. There are two genuinely hard parts on this record. The rest is plaintive, weird and disagreeable in the way only Orchid can pull off. This might also be the horniest record on the list, although I’m sure another competitor will emerge at some point. Dance Tonight! Revolution Tomorrow! should be the go-to Orchid album, but the band deserves to be mentioned here, and their ranking might even be a little low.