The Top 200 Emo Albums of All Time

When it comes to the post-hardcore and emo boom of the 2000s, this is a very clear Before Full Collapse and After Full Collapse. Nothing that Thursday did on this album had anything to do with becoming famous, and almost everything Thursday did on this album was instantly copied by dozens of other bands who wanted Thursday’s overnight success for themselves. Part of the appeal was impeccable taste—Full Collapse combined elements of the raw screamo bands that played the same New Brunswick, NJ basements as Thursday with the melodic sensibilities of The Cure, the soaring post-hardcore of Quicksand, and various other types of punk, emo, and hardcore in a way that had never really been combined before—but an even bigger part was the emotion, the passion, and the honesty. Thursday poured everything they had into this album. Geoff Rickly wrote lyrics with a sense of purpose and substance that the “bitter ex-boyfriend bands” in their vicinity lacked. The combination of the abrasive and the beautiful was replicated by so many but rarely done in a way that sounds as authentic and timeless as it does on Full Collapse. The album’s influence was immediate yet it also grew over time, leaving an impact on future generations of bands that span from emo and post-hardcore to indie rock to black metal. That’s not just because Full Collapse covers so much musical ground; it’s because this album spoke to people, changed their lives for the better, and inspired them to create something of their own that might do the same for someone else. (Andrew Sacher, Author of Emo Revival)

On Clarity, Jimmy Eat World learned how to make songs that sounded as big as the emotions in your head. On Bleed American, they figured out how to make those same songs extraordinarily popular. Emo’s big mainstream, monocultural moment in the mid-2000s never happens without this album, whose hybrid of bruising emotional honesty and shiny power pop hooks is so singular and satisfying that it still sounds novel today. The obvious cornerstone is “The Middle,” which paired an earworm chorus, Bruce Springsteen-inspired lyrics, and a one-for-the-ages guitar solo to become the lone emo song with a legitimate claim to an all-genre song-of-the-summer crown. But songs like “Sweetness” and “A Praise Chorus” are just as irresistibly catchy, and even the deepest cuts (see: “The Authority Song”) are worthy of cueing up on the jukebox with the last quarter in your pocket. To this day, the album’s pop-informed jams shape the backbone of Jimmy Eat World’s setlist, but it’s the way the band tempers those sugar-rush highs with songs that might just make you cry – “Hear You Me,” arguably emo’s greatest elegy, or “My Sundown,” which sounds like how it feels to leave your hometown for good after high school graduation – that makes Bleed American a hall-of-fame emo classic. And when Jimmy Eat World make the euphoria and the pain coexist on the very same song (album highlight “If You Don’t, Don’t”), it’s a microcosm of what I’ve always loved most about emo: its ability to take the butterflies of first love and the devastation of first heartbreak, and collapse them into one.

The Promise Ring were one of the first emo bands I discovered, along with Sunny Day Real Estate and Texas Is the Reason (who I saw open for CIV when I was 15). At the time, emo was still such a strange sound. It clearly came out of the hardcore scene, but with these dissonant open tunings, loose playing, raw production, and singers who sounded like they might fall apart at any moment. I was instantly drawn to it. I listened to 30° Everywhere nonstop, and when Nothing Feels Good came out not long after, I expected another record that was just as cold and introspective. Instead, I heard these huge anthemic choruses and almost 1950’s bubblegum-pop references. At first it was a head-scratcher, but somehow it completely made sense. The Promise Ring had figured out how to incorporate big pop hooks without sacrificing any of the rawness that made the band special. In retrospect, Nothing Feels Good feels like the bridge between where emo had been and where it was eventually going (even for The Promise Ring themselves, who would more fully embrace their pop tendencies on Very Emergency). There’s just something about Davey’s voice that is quintessentially emo to me. He’s clearly not trained (like most of my favorite singers), but you get to listen to him figure it out. What draws you in is how expressive he is, how he lets his voice crack and collapse under the weight of whatever he’s trying to express. I dug into this record again while putting my list together, and after all this time it still holds up.

When the rest of Fall Out Boy heard Patrick Stump’s accidental falsetto run on the end of their seminal song, “Saturday,” they knew they were about the change the game for emo. Take This to Your Grave is the blueprint for what emo could be in the mainstream. Before this record, emo was earnest and lo-fi — then Fall Out Boy showed up with humble hardcore beginnings and Pete Wentz’s “massive rock star” ambitions and they changed the game. Arguably the band’s most cited “best album,” Take This To Your Grave had everything a band could dream of for a debut album. Pete Wentz's songwriting is poetry with teeth — dense, sardonic, bleeding romantic imagery into suburban wreckage, quotable on literally every track. "My heart is on my sleeve, wear it like a bruise or black eye" — lines like these from “Chicago Is So Two Years Ago” perfectly capture the raw, exposed emotion that cemented the record as a definitive classic of the era. And Patrick Stump's voice changed the game entirely. His “soul voice” did things no emo frontman was doing in 2003 — it proved you could croon, wail, and still keep the grit. He forced every emo frontman to ask the question “Wait, do we need to really sing now?” and was the inspiration for many frontman to come after him. Take This To Your Grave also established what was to become one of the most pivotal writing relationships in all music: the partnership of Patrick Stump’s musicianship and Pete Wentz’s songwriting. This would later be honed and tested in albums to come, but talked about and likened to that of Elton John and Bernie Taupin and John Lennon and Paul McCartney. It's the rare debut that didn't just define a band — it redefined what the genre was allowed to be.

This is gonna sound ridiculous, but Free Throw is kinda like the Bon Jovi or Journey of emo. Seriously, put on Tongue Tied, Two Beers In or Hey Ken, Someone Methodically Mushed The Donuts in the right crowd of 20 or 30-something, the room goes ballistic. EVERYONE sings along. They’re the Taking Back Sunday for kids born 10 years too late for Tell All Your Friends.

Some would say the GOAT of emo revival and I don’t think that’s off base

Stay What You Are has always been the Saves the Day record that feels the most emo to me. I love Through Being Cool, but that one still leans pretty heavily into pop punk. SWYA feels darker, more emotional, and a little more grown up. “At Your Funeral,” “Freakish,” and “This Is Not an Exit” still hard till this day There are a bunch of albums I love that I left off because they’re really more pop punk than emo. I was trying to keep the list as true to emo as I could, and SWYA is one of those records that just feels like it belongs.

What else can you say about the "Godfather of Emo", Chris Carrabba? The man literally transformed the genre from, "sad songs for sad people", into accomplished songwriting that is filled with passionate lyrics about growing up, and falling in & out of love. The Places You Have Come To Fear The Most will always be an important marker in the timeline of trademark emo albums that people will look back on to see when this scene was at its commercial peak. Because of this record, Chris Carrabba is likely one of the first names that comes to mind when people mention "emo music", and almost always the first major songwriter named when writers look to the person who best personified "carrying the mantle" of this genre. This album changed the game in many ways, and when I look back on this collection of ten heartfelt songs, I always feel a warm sense of comfort in knowing that there were others that went through similar things as me. From the iconic MTV Unplugged performance from Carrabba at the peak of the genre's success, to making Dashboard Confessional a household name, this is a record that will forever stand the test of time. The Places You Have Come To Fear The Most personified a genre, started a scene, and left the audience clamoring for more. I don’t know about "fearing" these places, but this will be the one album that will continue to be the most adored by so many fans of emo for years to come.

modern baseball is a tragedy to me in that they went on indefinite hiatus in the process of retooling their thematic palette before they figured out how to blend it with their earlier songwriting magic. “thats so typical Bren, all you sing about is girls. take a stand man, you can find a voice that’s not haunted by old flings”. holy ghost is a fine record, but ten years later the only song that really hooked me is wedding singer, so i have to give it to their sophomore effort, because every song on this record is a banger. i hope and pray every day that Bren finds his new voice, slaughter beach dog has always been mid, we gotta get the gang back together.

While Take This To Your Grave announced Fall Out Boy to the mainstream emo scene, From Under the Cork Tree cemented them a place in the Mt. Rushmore of third wave emo bands. Their first major label album, From Under the Cork Tree took the formula they started to develop with their debut album and perfected it for the MTV crowd with bigger hooks, bigger production, but with personal, tongue-in-cheek lyrics and even longer song titles that stayed true to their roots. There was more self-awareness on this album and a lot of nods and winks to the current scene and their rising place in it. Beyond that, Patrick’s voice became bigger, he allowed himself to put more bravado and gravitas behind it and some of his longest held notes are found throughout the songs of this album. They also started blending a little more of that hip hop feel to their sound that they would further explore in their third album, particularly with the single, “Dance, Dance,” whose bass line has become iconic in its own right.

Look I know. I know. Easy target here. We are 100% lying to ourselves if we don't admit that a good chunk of the bands that appear on this list post 2015+ most likely started their journey into "emo" with this, FOB, MCR or Paramore. I mean c'mon with No P!ATD we don't Cheem.

San Francisco, Warped Tour 2002… I remember it like it was yesterday. A young, rambunctious Kenny Vasoli burst into our van. “Have you heard of this band!? They’re fucking incredible!” We looked at the jewel CD case flailing in hand as he went into his pitch. Popped that sucker into the head unit and the rest was history.

This is a bit of a dark horse. Most people would choose The Hotelier’s album just before this, but Goodness has always hit me harder. Similar to Pinkerton, Goodness makes me wrestle with parts of myself I don’t like, and the people I’ve left behind, or have left me behind, because of them. It drudges up feelings of regret for not being closer with people who are no longer here, and Home Like NoPlace Is There does this as well, but it doesn’t bring the catharsis that Goodness does. I’m not a religious person, but this record makes me feel like there’s a heaven more than anything ever has. We don’t disappear when we die; we return to the earth and give it life in a new way than we did when we were alive. This record makes me appreciate the beauty of the sun, the beauty of all human bodies, and the beauty in not understanding everything. The Mary Oliver poem routinely quoted on this record, Wild Geese, anchors it all so perfectly: “You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.”

It's not hard to say there's nothing else out there like Cosmic Thrill Seekers. A bratty emo punk record about an acid trip in 3 acts based on the head, heart, and courage from The Wizard of Oz where each act's songs all perfectly blend together? It's just too fuckin weird and awesome. This is emo, vocals and their character are always front and center, but just how brash pdaddy are on this record connects with me so deep. Even with their very obvious core sound, they are able to mold and shape it from song-to-song (or act-to-act) in ways that stay fresh, across songs of incomprehensible structure. This is the best emo album of all time.

Before Chris Carrabba achieved massive success with Dashboard Confessional, he teamed up with his friends Chad Neptune, Steve Kleisath, Joshua Colbert and Nick Dominguez after the demise of their hardcore band Strongarm. Playing only a handful of shows Carrabba left the band before they even released their first album The Moon is Down. The Moon is Down features intricate guitar work, odd time signatures, pounding drums and hooky choruses. The songs blurred the lines between emo, math rock, post hardcore and pop. Carrabba's distinct ability to bring the chaos into format with his vocals and lyrics is something only he could do. This album is an entirely no skips album.

Rites of Spring were the first “emo” band

If you’ve ever listened to our show you’ve heard me glaze this record an obnoxious amount of times, but I truly think it’s one of the two best records of the 2020’s so far. Kerosene Heights are the epitome of cool. Southeast of Somewhere is a classic and I’m glad it made the list as well, but Blame It On The Weather is built different. From the elite levels of yearning coming outta the mouth and soul of vocalist Chance Smith, to the all out assault on their instruments from Benji and Elle, to the color splashes laid over top by J. Franklin, Kerosene Heights is truly a perfect band and Blame It On The Weather is a PERFECT record. Recency bias is a bitch, but this album belongs in the top 50, if not the top 20.

There are plenty of great pop-punk bands (Modern Baseball, Joyce Manor, Fall Out Boy) that get culturally lumped in with emo as an idea, but musically add nothing to the lineage of emo music. And there’s nothing wrong with that! I think Never Hungover Again is as good or better than most emo albums of the last couple decades. But if we’re going to make big lists of the best emo has to offer, I think it should focus on the albums with sonic contributions to and connections with the history of emo music as music. My list tries to cover more than just the obvious classics; it’s an unranked list of albums that I think represent the best emo albums that also had a significant impact/influence—unranked, except, however, my number one, which I think is a clear and obvious and inarguable #1 of all time. I’ve often said: the best emo album is Nothing Feels Good, the best emo band is Braid, the most important emo band is Moss Icon, and the best emo album that isn’t really an emo album is 1986 by One Last Wish.

If peripheral vision by turnover is not the winner of this survey, then this survey is false. Peripheral vision is a monumental record, that was both a happy accident and a deliberate masterpiece. Talk to anyone who has ever heard this record, and they will tell you it means the world to them. It sounds like nothing before or after it. It is a snapshot in time that will live forever.

The chaos that was Cap’n Jazz was such a unique mixture of frenetic energy, technical expertise, raw melody, humor and catchiness that it set a standard for Midwestern emo that laid groundwork for generations to come.

this is not mentioned nearly enough because the band never really got big, but this is truly a gutwrenching album of emo perfection. It takes itself entirely seriously without making you doubt if it has a right to do so. Flannel emo for northeast winters.

What the fuck did you just fucking say about me, you little bitch? I'll have you know I graduated top of my class in the Navy Seals, and I've been involved in numerous secret raids on Al-Quaeda, and I have over 300 confirmed kills. I am trained in gorilla warfare and I'm the top sniper in the entire US armed forces. You are nothing to me but just another target. I will wipe you the fuck out with precision the likes of which has never been seen before on this Earth, mark my fucking words. You think you can get away with saying that shit to me over the Internet? Think again, fucker. As we speak I am contacting my secret network of spies across the USA and your IP is being traced right now so you better prepare for the storm, maggot. The storm that wipes out the pathetic little thing you call your life. You're fucking dead, kid. I can be anywhere, anytime, and I can kill you in over seven hundred ways, and that's just with my bare hands. Not only am I extensively trained in unarmed combat, but I have access to the entire arsenal of the United States Marine Corps and I will use it to its full extent to wipe your miserable ass off the face of the continent, you little shit. If only you could have known what unholy retribution your little "clever" comment was about to bring down upon you, maybe you would have held your fucking tongue. But you couldn't, you didn't, and now you're paying the price, you goddamn idiot. I will shit fury all over you and you will drown in it. You're fucking dead, kiddo.

Let It Enfold You to me is one of the best albums of all time. So many emotions from start to finish. I find myself going back to it at least once a year.

as emo has evolved over the years and gone through many iterations, summer death feels like the most centrally "emo" of all, while also having high quality songwriting and creativity. a great emo album should be devastating to listen to, but impossible not to jam out to. they captured something special here that stands out.

Choosing between this and always cloudy was rough, but welcome > cross my heart > waste away > what am I supposed to do? is a 4 song run that's hard to beat. SAYP have some incredibly devastating lyrics, and yet the general feeling from this album is still one that reminds me to remember, this won't last forever.

Arguably the best debut album from any emo band so far this decade, on Parade! Parade! the San Diego trio take you on an angst filled trip along the 805 for 30 minutes. Aren't We Amphibians are like if someone was cooking up an emo band and they said "what if we made sports. but with bigger hooks and the occasional trumpet?".

if Leisure hour is the pizza of music, Equipment is the chicken nuggets because those are the foods I could eat every day of my life.

I know, I know. But hear me out. None of the other albums on here, even my top pick, exist without this one. Pinkerton doesn’t seek to make you like Rivers, it just paints a picture of who he was. It is one of the most brutally honest lyrical albums I have ever heard. I have always loved it, but the more I learn about it the more I love it. Every story on this record, even if sometimes exaggerated, is true. The “old man cane” Rivers references on The Good Life is something he really carried around because of a surgery he had to make one of his legs the same length as the other. He really did get the letter mentioned in Across The Sea. He really did get rejected by a lesbian and have a mental spiral over it. His ability to be so confessional while still making these songs ear worms is stunning. Its scratchy production was an inspiration for many bands to finally say fuck it and just make that record, even if it didn’t sound perfect. Rivers Cuomo is a weirdo, but there’s a little Rivers in all of us, and this record will help you learn a lot about yourself if you let it.

Some would argue this is more than 75% a pop punk album, but I think we need to have a very necessary; even if bordering on revisionist; conversation about this album, and including it in its rightful place of being a top emo album of all time. It’s the absolute cream of the crop for me and there’s something so intangibly special about it that I’ll likely never shut up about.

yeah, what eric said.

I wonder if Northstar makes the list for anyone else but my god, near perfect band. Lyrics are absolute nonsense and still somehow pull the heart strings

Maybe the greatest record ever made, full stop. Emo is a lot of things, and who knows if this belongs on a proper “emo” list, but also fuck that, i have spent more time lying on the floor listening to this record than any other record ever. Elliott smith is a hero and should be recognized as such every chance we get. And if, somehow, you found yourself reading this list and haven’t spent time with this record, please change that right now.

A little bit of an underdog pick for their wave in my opinion, but this album belongs safely in my list. Not on the Mount Rushmore of emo, but they’ve left an indelible mark on the genre and on me. They’re a pick for the dedicated fan of the genre as you start to get more into the weeds, so to speak.

If a record can cure depression it’s this one. The first half, Jake Ewald’s half, tackles the monotony of every day life; how even a job as exciting as touring the country and playing music can feel like a slog when you miss your lover, family, and friends. How constantly seeing nothing but gas stations, advertisements, religious platitudes, and industrial areas typically hidden from view on the road beats it into your brain how soulless our world has become. The second half, Bren Lukens’ half, takes these same sentiments and lashes out at them. It reckons with how difficult personal growth is in a world that wants you to stay the same, especially when you aren’t even really sure who you are or want to become, let alone how to get there. The final track’s ending words echo in my head constantly. “Even if you can’t see it now, we’re proud of what’s to come, and you.” People who really love you see your potential even when you can’t, and that’s so beautiful.

i don’t care if it’s technically an EP, this is The Record. in just 18 minutes we traverse folk rock, post rock, skramz, and emo revival. harmonica, singing saw, horns, and violin fill out the varied sonic textures. in spite of all this, it doesn’t sound confused at all, it sounds like a band that realized emo has no rules and committed to the bit. to me this was the inflection point where 5th wave stopped sounding like reheated 4th wave nachos. home is where forever.

He knows it. I know it. We all know it. If you don’t know it, you better start. Chris Carrabba is the undisputed king of Emo. One of the kindest people in the business. This record shifted the chemical balance inside my mind. “How can an acoustic album feel this way? What does this guy know about me that I don’t!? Imagine what these songs would sound like with a full band!” (Give it a year). This album changed EVERYTHING that was to follow. It’s all because of Chris.

Evan Weiss gets all the praise from the people who know, but he is still the most underrated artist making the most wonderful albums of our generation. They aren't just albums; they're intricate pieces of art that make you see colors with every note played and every word sung. Standards brings me warmth and makes me feel like I'm home; with every listen, I find something new that I hadn't noticed before. It's the type of album made to be listened to with noise-canceling headphones on and liner notes in hand.

Just my 1:1 all time, in or out of the genre

I think Brother Sister is more of the fan favorite, and probably is a better overall album but as far as emo goes, this is the one for me. Frantic vocals, shouting poetry that covers community, suicide, spiritual loss and fulfillment. Killer drum and bass combos and countless guitars. The riffs are melodic and always interesting, and the tones are perfect (thank you Brad Wood).

Maybe I’ll Catch Fire is so good that Radio, arguably THE definitive Alkaline Trio song, is maybe the worst track on the album- and I love Radio! From the start of Keep Em Coming to the end of 5-3-10-4, the album takes you through a Chicago blizzard for 30 minutes before rocking you softly with Radio. I’m not sure Alkaline Trio is an emo band necessarily, but the through line between this record and Jawbreaker is apparent (I hope I used that phrase right).

One of the few times I tried (and failed) to intentionally rattle the cages of internet dwelling emo dorks, I made a simple statement and accompanied it with a playlist, "Is Glocca Morra just Mock Orange worship?". And hey, i'll be the first to admit that the differences are plentiful and, honestly, pretty glaring, BUT the similarities, which probably start and end at the weaving guitar interplay, are there. Mock Orange is a band who have shape shifted quite a bit throughout their career, and I believe have always done so with tact and grace, they have just ONE emo album and it also just so happens to be the one album that shines brighter than all the rest: The Record Play. God damn I love this record. It's got some of the coolest arrangements and guitars on any emo record and it's really just a perfect album to me. If you haven't, you really should check it out.

The self titled album is great, but this album has aged so nicely for me. This band not dominating the fourth wave and being one of the biggest emo bands ever is something that won’t ever fully make sense to me.

Rising Tide is the penultimate SDRE album. Their progression throughout their discography is one of my favorite things ever and something I always aspire to achieve. When I was younger all the emo heads I knew were against this album and would only cite the earlier stuff. I hope that view may be different now 16 years after those interactions.

To me, anything prior to Thursday is almost it's own category- lyrically, song composition, even the emotions (ha)- and I'm not going to get into fights about is "real emo". Everyone is a bit wrong, and everyone is a bit right. Who cares, ultimately? Love the music, support the bands, buy their merch.

I miss loitering in record stores, abusing the preview station. This album may have been my biggest offense ever. I remember previewing the CD in close to its entirety inside Vintage Vinyl, a legendary independent record shop in New Jersey. I left that same day with the album in hand. Funny thing is that most of your favorite bands from New Jersey probably all have a similar story from inside that exact shop. RIP Vintage Vinyl.