See it on the listHome is an album that is second to none in its emotional intensity and storytelling. What it has in catchiness and energy, it surpasses in its grim and heartfelt lyricism, devastating arrangement, and wistful melodies sung with raw and earnest delivery by songwriter Christian Holden. Home has a trend of finding people exactly when it needs to, and sticking with them even as they progress and change. The at times visceral and even desperate stories told through this record are both relatable yet terrifyingly omnipresent in the subculture of alternative art. Queerness, poverty, mental illness, codependency and suicide permeate so many experiences of young adulthood, especially in countercultural spaces like emo and punk. This album finds that specific perspective through a profound and deeply empathetic narrator. It is not patronizing, nor is it dismissive of the struggles it discusses. Rather, Home boldly gives amplification to both the narrator and the subject, allowing for the audience to attach to both sides of a story that is both intensely specific and hauntingly archetypal. Home has influenced hundreds of thousands of musicians worldwide and has brought a lot of fans closer to the more emotional, lyrical aspects of emo. Its influence and strength as a record will surely last for generations of future waves.
More Words
Some contributors didn't stop at just voting. Here's what they said about the albums on the list
57 writeups
See it on the listwhat can i say about this record that hasn’t already been said? i’m not sure any other single record was more influential on the 5th wave sound. home took the revival’s twinkly guitars and basement show sincerity and made them feel enormous. huge dynamic swings, gang vocals, and songs that abandon conventional structure whenever the narrative demands it. intensely personal stories weave through themes of suicide, abuse, gender dysphoria, addiction, and power without ever sacrificing emo’s intimacy to achieve that weight and scale. i don’t think we get records like you’ll be fine or there’s a whole world out there without this lineage.
See it on the listWhen asked about the conversational dual vocal style between Adam Lazzara and John Nolan on Taking Back Sunday’s debut album Tell All Your Friends, John once said that he and Adam were just both writing so many lyrics at the time that the natural inclination was just to have them both sing it all. That inclination came to them when they were barely out of their teens and still regularly playing Long Island VFW halls, and it became one of the defining traits of the mainstream emo boom. All of a sudden, emo was no longer about the noodly guitar patterns and yelpy shouting that it was about in the ‘90s. It was now about melodrama and overwrought poetry sung in a back-and-forth style that would leave friend groups assigning different roles to each other as they clutched their chests and screamed along for decades to come. There were of course other records pushing emo in this direction at the time, but Tell All Your Friends reinvented the form in a way that few others did. It’s as much a coming-of-age classic for millennials as John Hughes movies were for Gen Xers, and all you have to do is attend a millennial wedding to see the way that you never really grow out of Tell All Your Friends if it first found you when you needed it most. (Andrew Sacher, Emo Revival)
See it on the listThere’s an almost unexplainable aura surrounding Jimmy Eat World’s third album Clarity. For starters, it’s the beginning of Jim Adkins becoming the main vocalist for the band, it followed up the constant conflicts the band had with their major label Capitol during the Static Prevails era, and it’s also the one before The One. With a run time clocking in just over an hour, it’s the sound of the band beginning to stabilize out of that chaos into the band they want to be (and the band they will become), exploring and tinkering within their ever-evolving style of emo. With Capitol off their backs and a sense of Clarity potentially being their last record, Jimmy Eat World linked up with producer Mark Trombino again and got wild with it. Experimenting with different guitar tones, songs with two drum sets, bells, chimes, pianos, and more - it’s a sprawling emo epic that got lost at the orchestra. The album starts hot with the opening trio of “Table for Glasses,” “Lucky Denver Mint,” and “Your New Aesthetic,” but it’s the second half that really cements Clarity’s legacy - the pure audacity of closing an album with a run that includes “Just Watch The Fireworks, “For Me This Is Heaven,” and arguably the band’s most beloved track “Goodbye Sky Harbor” - lol man what the fuck? What was supposed to be the end of the band instead paved the way for them to sell millions of records and establish themselves as one of the best rock bands of the 21st century. With nothing left to lose, Jimmy Eat World created the perfect emo album - an immaculate balance of savory and sweet, perfect rock songs with just enough space to get weird with it. And for me, almost 30 years later, it is still heaven.
See it on the listif this album didn’t exist, the Emo landscape would look entirely different. Think of your favorite emo band. If this record isn’t in their top 5, then something is wrong and you must help them. If you love Emo music, it’s your duty. This album is responsible for inspiring so many artists, The Early November included. How the hell have we still not played a show with them!? (I’m not counting festivals)
See it on the listI mean, come on, we all knew this record was gonna be near the top. It really doesn’t matter when you got into emo music, how you got into emo music or who got you into emo music - American Football’s debut album was and is an album you’ll eventually get recommended, listen to, and most importantly become enamored with (there’s a midwest version of Natalie Portman somewhere telling some sad sack that this album will change their life). (I’m so sorry for the Garden State reference.) I can guarantee that if you’re reading this list there was a moment - however long it may have been - where American Football was your favorite album ever (and still probably is for many people). We know the lore, the influence, the return and everything in between and beyond - a record that was never meant to be toured on turned into something beyond what the trio of Mike Kinsella, Steve Holmes, and Steve Lamos could ever even fathom. So what more can even written about this album that hasn’t already been written? It’s a record that re-shaped what emo was and could be. “Never Meant” is not just regarded as one of the best album openers ever but also one of if not the defining song of the genre, while a track like “Summer Ends” can show up on best post-rock song lists as well. It’s an album that transcended and re-contextualized what the genre could be and still impacts it to this very day.
See it on the listWe idolized them so much that we dressed like them. The Get Up Kids were the coolest emo band there was. Seriously… I started wearing scarfs because of them. This record was a special one to all of us in the scene.
See it on the listMy most influential emo album checklist: [ ] Urbana Champaign Illinois formed [ ] Polyvinyl Records [ ] 1998 release year [ ] J Robbins produced This is Frame and Canvas by Braid. Bob Nana has one of the most recognizable voices of the scene, Chris Broach’s guitar plays off Nana’s perfectly, and Todd and Damon hold down the rhythm section. Killing a Camera belongs on ever “best of emo” playlist. This album has a range of punk songs, to pretty songs, to playing with rhythms. Chris and Bob trade off vocals in a way that makes you feel like you’re back in a concrete basement losing your hearing and filled with energy. This album perfectly encapsulates a band that burned brightly for a short time and then went on to form just as inspiring projects. If you don’t know this album, the bands you love were influenced by it and you don’t know it yet.
See it on the listBefore the pomp and circumstance of the Black Parade, two bloodied, star-crossed lovers adorned the cover of My Chemical Romance's sophomore album, Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge. The release of Three Cheers was the birth of another emo gateway drug to the scene, injected straight to the under-developed frontal lobes of an entire generation of millennial adolescents. Pairing lyrics wrought with grief, guilt, and loss with pop-punk melodies and raw, high-energy performance, Three Cheers skyrocketed MCR into the mainstream. One simply could not turn on FUSE in 2005 without the captivating, dramaturgic music videos for "I'm Not Okay (I Promise)," "The Ghost of You," or "Helena" passing across the screen; the marriage of Gerard Way's full-frontal-emo approach to performance and whiny vocals made it impossible not to watch at length. Audiences will debate whether Three Cheers deserves a spot in the top 10 greatest emo albums of all time over revered rock-opera The Black Parade. We will likely never find consensus across even the most devout of MCR fans. But on the whole, Three Cheers offers a grittiness, an edge, and relatable realness track-by-track in contrast to the polished regalia and complex lore of its successor. Adding to the nuance, Three Cheers was released at just the right time, directly influencing the kickoff of the inception of the mall-emo generation. If for no other reason, Three Cheers has earned a spot in the top 10 of the emo greats for imparting on us the gift of wisdom - it's okay to be not-oh-fucking-kay.
See it on the listThrough Being Cool is one of those records whose influence is almost impossible to overstate. You can make a pretty convincing argument that modern pop-punk, the version many associate with the sound - for better or worse - starts here. Fall Out Boy doesn’t exist without this record. Its fingerprints are all over bands like Thursday and countless others that followed. It was catchy as hell, but it also pushed the language and emotional vocabulary of this kind of music somewhere new. I didn’t know you could write songs like this. And there was something else happening, too. Seeing these kids, who did not look much older than you, sitting on that iconic couch, making music like this … it had a psychological impact on a teenager that’s hard to put into words. It made the distance between you and the people making the records suddenly seem incredibly small. There was an undeniable pull to it. But Through Being Cool now sits where a lot of important records from this era unfortunately sit. All of that ridiculous good—the hooks, the lyrics, the influence, the feeling it gave you to play loud in your headphones on that walk down the high-school hallway—is also sitting alongside the allegations of misconduct against Chris Conley. There isn’t a neat way to reconcile those things, they sit together and we’re left to wrestle with their lasting impact. I guess part of the lesson is learning what it’s like to hold onto something that was important to you while reckoning with the fact that it can hurt to hold it now.
See it on the listDiary takes the #1 spot for me because it's upstream of so many classic albums and sounds. I've always felt it set a blueprint for loud quiet emo and also a lot of the guitar textures later bands would use that would eventually distinguish them from adjacent genres.
See it on the listThis album is as good as it gets in my opinion. It starts strong, it ends strong. There is no filler to be found, though for me there are certainly high points in Doctor Whomst, The Title Track and Skeleton Key. But The album stands as a testament to the fact that emo can have positive and optimistic undertones, span genres, and still rock. The guitar work on this album is mind blowing too.
See it on the listWhen 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)
See it on the listOn 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.
See it on the listThe 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.
See it on the listWhen 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.
See it on the listThis 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.
See it on the listSome would say the GOAT of emo revival and I don’t think that’s off base
See it on the listStay 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.
See it on the listWhat 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.
See it on the listmodern 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.
See it on the listWhile 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.
See it on the listLook 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.
See it on the listSan 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.
See it on the listThis 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.”
See it on the listIt'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.
See it on the listBefore 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.
See it on the listRites of Spring were the first “emo” band
See it on the listIf 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.
See it on the listThere 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.
See it on the listIf 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.
See it on the listThe 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.
See it on the listthis 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.
See it on the listWhat 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.
See it on the listLet 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.
See it on the listas 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.
See it on the listChoosing 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.
See it on the listArguably 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?".
See it on the listif 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.
See it on the listI 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.
See it on the listSome 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.
See it on the listyeah, what eric said.
See it on the listI 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
See it on the listMaybe 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.
See it on the listA 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.
See it on the listIf 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.
See it on the listi 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.
See it on the listHe 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.
See it on the listEvan 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.
See it on the listJust my 1:1 all time, in or out of the genre
See it on the listI 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).
See it on the listMaybe 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).
See it on the listOne 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.
See it on the listThe 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.
See it on the listRising 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.
See it on the listTo 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.
See it on the listI 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.