kevin~ said:
emo and indie
is emo short for emotional? are bands like matchbook romance and silverstein considered emo? those with alot of screaming in the song.
what is indie short for? what do their songs sound like?
thanks
kevin~ said:
oh yea, just to add
what does ska and reggae mean too? thanks
'Emo' is short for 'Emotional Hardcore' or 'Emocore'. It was a brand of hardcore punk that originated in the late 80s, and was predominantly associated with the Washington, D.C./Maryland/Delaware/New Jersey area. 'Screamo' arose a couple of years later, which figured on bands mostly shouting or screaming the lyrics (original Emocore bands sang like most other Hardcore bands in the 80s). What is called Emo nowadays is technically 'Post-Emo Indie Rock'.
'Indie' started out as an abbreiviation of the word 'independent'. It was used for artists that produced alternative music of all sorts outside the mainstream spectrum. Sometimes, but not very often, these bands were on a major label, but they were often the least funded and less-known of those bands. When Nirvana brought the mainstream's attention to alternative music, 'indie' became the new alternative. There is no one unifying sound to indie music, since indie incorporates many different genres, from light, melodic rock to ambient dance music to abrasive noise-rock and some forms of electronic music.
'Ska' has three well-known phases. The first wave was in the early 60s, and largely consisted of Jamaican artists trying to replicate the sound of New Orleans R&B, but they developed their own sensibilites instead of mimicking it. This in turn eventually evolved into reggae. In the late 70s and early 80s, many British artists started incorporating the sound of original ska into their music, and added a punk edge to it. This music is commonly called Ska Revivalist, or 2-Tone, and is the second wave of ska. The third wave was later in the 80s, and throughout the 90s, and these artists were largely influenced by the Revivalist bands while adding in influences from Hardcore Punk to Heavy Metal. The third wave is also sometimes referred to as 'ska-punk', and is usually considered a legitimate genre of Punk, whereas the Revivalists were generally considered Post-Punk artists.
'Reggae' was born when the tempo of original ska was slowed down. Supposedly this happened one hot summer when it was too hot to either play or dance to ska. It originated in the late 60s or early 70s.
(information on Ska and Reggae paraphrased from
Allmusic.com articles)
