Rolling Stone's top 40 emo albums (5-1)

The end is finally here. Not sure what I’ll be doing to replace this impossibly easy and fun content idea, but keep your eyes peeled!

5: Braid - Frame and Canvas (1998, Polyvinyl)

I’m not sure why I pegged this record as annoyingly twee before revisiting it, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. A few choice moments of distorted crunch gives it more kick than many of its Midwestern counterparts. This is another big context clue for how the rest of the list falls into place. It takes the drive of Dischord stuff like Fugazi and gives it a coat of second wave shimmer. All of a sudden, Indian Summer and Thursday don’t seem worlds apart. Singer Bob Nanna’s voice also inflects with a hint of drama that could have inspired a Patrick Stump or Gerard Way type figure to channel their theatre kid background into fronting a punk band. There are some really strong songs on here, in addition to the record’s undeniable influence. Time for me to stop sleeping on this one.

4: Jawbreaker - Dear You (1995, DGC)

Jawbreaker comes closest to a consensus answer for “best 90’s punk band” as you’re ever gonna find, yet somehow they’ve never captured my attention long enough to dig deep on. This listen might be the first time I’ve understood why people love them so much. The record gets interesting when Blake Schwarzenbach is actually playing guitar. His simpler, four note power chord progressions lose me unless he’s doing something captivating vocally on top. It’s hard to deny his lyrics, but sometimes he goes on for too long, stretching the songs past comfortable runtimes. I’m also not sure if I would classify this as emo, although I guess it makes sense retroactively with how influential Jawbreaker was on the 90s punk scene at large. I can also see why some of the band’s most hardcore fans felt betrayed when this record came out. It doesn’t sound out of place in a mid 90’s alt-rock landscape dominated by Nirvana and Green Day. Still, this is a lot closer to Get Up Kids and Mineral than Fall Out Boy and P!ATD. So in hindsight, this record’s “major label aspirations” seem pretty innocuous.

3: The Promise Ring - Nothing Feels Good (1997, Jade Tree)

I feel like one listen isn’t enough to digest this album. It seems narrative and self-referential in a way that begs repeated interactions. I wouldn’t be surprised if the lyrics were from a notebook kept on tour, as the Milwaukee band makes reference to East Texas, Maine, and many other seemingly disparate locations in the US. The songs are deceptively simple and mesmerizingly repetitive. Multiple tracks have just two or three parts. Singer Davey von Bohlen does some heavy lifting, while his band seems content with digging deep into comfortable pockets. I thought American Football’s pensive twinkle was the most representative sound of Midwest emo before sinking into this list. I would probably pick this record instead if you asked me now. Promise Ring, like many of their contemporaries, played college rock filtered through punk in a poppy enough way to get major label attention, but with a wool sweater of weirdness that completely folded under the weight of outsider expectations.

2: Rites of Spring - Rites of Spring (1985, Dischord)

Listening to the “first emo album” after tackling most of this list is a unique experience. I’ve always viewed this record through the lens of 80’s hardcore, so contextualizing it as the start of a journey rather than just an offshoot adds valuable perspective. Rites of Spring ignited an entire scene in the mid 80’s, but it took ten years for everyone to truly catch up. Melody was always present in hardcore, but these disaffected DC vets pulled it from stranger places to create an intentionally distinct sound. They also weren’t afraid to slow down or stretch out songs. Based on sonic cues, this was probably just as relevant to Cap’n Jazz, Braid and Get Up Kids as it was to Embrace and Moss Icon. A bass riff here, a guitar lick there — it’s got fingerprints all over emo’s second wave. We could also talk about this record in the context of hardcore. It opened up lanes for sonic experimentation and lyrical diversity at a time when the genre was stuck in a self-referential rut. It’s a bold piece of art with reverberations you can still feel — but may not always hear — today.

1: Sunny Day Real Estate - Diary (Sub Pop, 1994)

There’s something to be said about nailing an idea early in the process. Sunny Day Real Estate released only eight songs — a demo and two 7” singles — before essentially inventing a new sub-genre with Diary. They took Quicksand’s manic churn and injected the type of pedal-stomping dynamics you would expect from a Sub Pop band, to create a timeless yet instantly impactful fusion of punk and indie rock. This record is surprisingly heavy, with a booming low end reminiscent of shoegaze’s most oppressive moments. Throw some plaintive shouts overtop and you’ve got a sound most Revelation Records super-fans should (but didn’t always) find wholly agreeable. When the clouds of fuzz clear, Diary evokes a dark, starry sky, filled with twinkling guitar constellations whose lineage you can trace to present day. I don’t think it’s possible to overstate this music’s impact, from both its influence on the scene to its emotional resonance when you hear it. I might have picked something different to top my personal list, but Rolling Stone made a perfectly good choice.