Emo is one of those music genres where someone might look at you kinda funny depending on what your niche is. In an era where bands such as My Chemical Romance and Fall Out Boy are household names, telling someone that you listen to a band called Iwrotehaikusaboutcannibalisminouryearbook might get you some high raised eyebrows. But behind the energetic guitars and the passionate vocals lies the musical equivalent of pressing a pen really hard against a page in your journal and drawing circles until the paper crumples up and breaks. One of the reasons why I, and so many other people, enjoy and frequent this style of music is for that emotional catharsis and relatability, with songs that deal with themes such as breakups, and the general angst and discontent you feel with yourself and your surroundings.
However, as much as I enjoy this style of music for that very intense expression of emotion, I came to realize that the world of emo is very much dominated by men. From defining bands such as the ones mentioned above to more underground darlings such as American Football and Orchid, this realization made me ask myself: “where are all the women in emo?”
To try and answer this question, I went down a rabbit hole of bands with barely any views on the Youtube uploads of their albums and triple-digit monthly listener counts on Spotify — if they even have a profile to begin with. In this article I’ll recommend some bands that will hopefully give you a good look into woman-fronted emo bands, spanning from the beginnings of the genre all the way to the present day!
Fire Party and the D.C. Revolution Summer
To be able to discuss our emo girlies, it’s very important to look at one of the genre’s predecessors in emo-core, a style of hardcore punk music that emerged during the “Revolution Summer” movement in mid-1980s’ Washington, D.C. At this time, a number of punk bands, such as Rites of Spring and Embrace, began to forge a sound that would become extremely influential for modern emo. Think the genre’s equivalent to how 2000s- era pop artists like Katy Perry or Ke$ha influenced mainstream pop in the 2020s.
Out of all of these bands, a girl-group that captured that early sense of feminine rage caught my eye: Fire Party! Formed in 1986 by vocalist Amy Pickering, guitarist Natalie Avery, bassist Kate Samsworth, and drummer Nicky Thomas, they released two EPs before breaking up in 1990 (with a compilation of their work being released in 1996). They walked so Hole could run. The resemblance to 90s grunge and riot grrrl music is kind of uncanny. Check out the opener to their first EP, “Jerk”, if you want to fulfill that yearning to be a punk girl in the early ‘90s wearing dark red lipstick with messy eyeshadow in the midst of the most energetic moshpit of your life.
The Second Wave of Emo Girls: Emo Music in the 1990s
Fast forward to the ‘90s, we can start to see how the genre that we now know as emo took form, with all its branching sounds to boot. During this era, many new bands favored a more complex approach to their sound and more alternative/indie sensibilities. Think less punk rock rage and more melancholic introspection. This shift in sound would later be known as “second wave” emo (or just plainly as “emo” for the less music-nerdy of y’all out there), and this is where we start to see that iconic sound start taking shape!
If you want a band that captures that melancholic sound of 90s emo, look no further than The Lazarus Plot and their 1999 self-titled album! The band formed in 1997 in the small Illinois city of Elgin, and it sounds exactly like something that could only come out of a small city in the Midwest. Vocalist Laura Lorent and co. made the album equivalent of staring out of a window in a dimly lit bus during a difficult time in your life while your mind wanders on the bad experiences you’ve had. The lyrics on this album paint such vivid pictures that also express that melancholy, such as with the second song of the record, “Confessions to An Early Summer Nightmare”:
“She retreated to a room that was no longer her own
Closed her eyes
Sank to her knees
Collapsed and laid stiffly on the carpet
Covering her ears
Black out his wailing”
It’s hard to explain why this album works so well, so all I can really say is that, like, you should totally listen to it!
Speaking of sad women from Illinois, in the city of Chicago and the rest of the Midwestern U.S., a few bands took the indie elements from the second wave of emo and turned them up a few notches. This new style incorporated a softer sound via arpeggiated and twinkling guitars alongside more strained vocals, and it earned the name Midwest emo! If I could say anything about this subgenre it would be that it’s the perfect music for the girlies that yearn. Like, “lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, and thinking about your breakups” levels of yearning. For the more chronically online of those reading this, you might be familiar with this style thanks in huge part to the song “Never Meant” by the aforementioned American Football; it has become a staple among emo kids for its melancholic sound and relatable lyrics about falling out of love with someone and the sorrow that the process entails. And also because of that iconic riff, if you know, you know.
Taking a look at our Midwest princesses, an album that I would definitely recommend if you’re interested in this style of emo would be Chicago band Sarge’s 1999 album The Glass Intact! If I could describe this album, it’d be like if you took Avril Lavigne’s music and the energy of The Powerpuff Girls’ end credits music, put it into a blender, and sprinkled some emotional angst, all with a queer cherry on top. It’s emotional, catchy, and honestly a really good way to get into the world of both ‘90s emo and the indie music of that era in general. And to top it all off, there’s a few songs on this album that talk about lesbian heartache and, as a lesbian, it’s the coolest thing ever! No shade, but like, take notes, Chappell Roan. If any of this sounds like your vibe, definitely check out their song “Fast Girls”!
While you had this softer style developing in the Midwest, a form of more aggressive emo music started taking shape in the California scene, heavily inspired by post-hardcore and metal music. This style would be known as screamo, and, as you could probably guess, all the vocals are screamed! The best way I could describe this sound is like the musical equivalent of a rage room, with songs that resemble extremely sharp bursts of the most violent emotions you could think of. Despite the genre’s beginnings in the West Coast of the U.S., the band that I’d like to talk about takes us all the way to France, and their name is Anomie! Their musical output spans from 1994 to 1997 — with it all being compiled in 2001 — and it’ is some of the most abrasive stuff to come out of that era. Even with the obvious language barrier, since most of the songs are in French, you can still feel the unadulterated anger in Kathleen Simonneau’s banshee-like vocals, along with the super energetic instrumentals that constantly keep you on edge. There’s also these small moments of clarity scattered throughout a lot of their songs, where they slow the music down and bring in more introspective vocals before dragging you back into their chaotic soundspaces, kinda like the eye of a monstrous-feminine storm. Overall, if you’re looking for music to help channel your rage, this might be the sound for you!
Emo Goes Pop: Paramore and the 2000s Scene Boom
In a lot of ways, the 2000s felt like a huge paradigm shift for emo, with it going from an underground indie phenomenon to an inescapable part of pop culture. For example, we saw the huge rise of scene culture, which gave emo bands and fans alike their iconic look: layered and dyed hair, clothing sourced from stores like Hot Topic and Spencer’s, and a color palette that embodied the same energy as a Monster Energy can. Another huge part of the culture was the online aspect of it; Myspace became the home for a ton of scene kids and their self-expression, with many bands getting their first hit at fame thanks to the social media platform.
It would actually be insane to talk about this era of emo without discussing one of the bands that majorly influenced its rise in popularity, and that’s Paramore! Their sound, especially in albums such as their debut, All We Know is Falling, and 2007’s Riot!, encapsulates a sound called emo-pop. The catchy guitar riffs and infectious choruses, all with Hayley Williams’ iconic vocals, makes for the perfect soundtrack for your spike bracelet-infused teenage angst. There’s a reason why so many scene queens took a ton of their inspo from Hayley, and why songs like “Misery Business” are enough to send any Millennial nostalgic for that era into a frenzy.
Even screamo wasn’t safe from the scene boom! A new subgenre of screamo music started taking form in the mid-2000s that generally got a lot of inspiration from the aforementioned culture as well as from metalcore and alternative rock, earning the title of pop screamo. The best way I can describe the genre is like a more controlled and poppier version of screamo and as a huge time capsule of the 2000s. A really underrated band in this genre that I can’t recommend enough is Picture Me Broken! Their song “Dearest (I’m So Sorry)” was absolutely snuffed from scene/emo stardom, and it deserves so much more love!
The Modern Day: Women In The Emo Revival
Nearing the end of the 2000s, we saw how emo, as well as alternative subculture as a whole, started fading out of the limelight. Scene kids became non-scene adults and grew out of the movement, and various bands in the genre either saw a dip in their popularity or straight up disbanded. This didn’t mark the “death” of emo or anything like that, but it did lead to another shift in the genre during the 2010s and the 2020s, which took us back to the sounds of the 90s! This modern emo revival took a ton of inspiration from Midwest Emo; in some ways it maintained the poppier sounds found in the 2000s but sprinkled in that melancholic and twinkling Midwest emo sound, in large part due to bands from that era, such as American Football, gaining a lot more recognition. One of my favorite bands in this revival has to be Sweet Pill and their 2023 album Where the Heart Is, who have this sound that perfectly mixes Paramore-style emo-pop with Midwest emo, and it’s nothing short of euphoric. It makes me feel like an angsty teenager in some random city in the Midwest skating down a long and barren strip of road while the sun is setting. Major shoutout to the band’s vocalist, Zayna Yousseff; her voice was literally made for this style of music. Check out the song “High Hopes” (Not you, Brendan Urie) to see what I mean!
While emo began harkening back to its roots, screamo did the same thing in a lot of ways, and it’s as aggressive and passionate as ever! One of my favorite albums in the genre to have come out recently is An Exit Exists by Australian band Blind Girls, which came out in 2024! For me, this is as abrasive and ferocious as screamo gets, throwing you around a violent swirl of emotions for its 20-minute run time and not letting go for even a second. It’s equal parts cathartic and disturbing, and I’m all here for it! Check out the song “Lilac” to see what I mean.
And there we are! As we can see, women have always played a huge role in the genre’s development, even if it seems like a huge sausage fest from a distance. Even though I only really offered a general overview of the genre in this article, I hope at least some of my recommendations sparked your interest in this musical style! There were so many more bands that I wanted to talk about in this article, but didn’t over the fear of making this a whole research project. So instead, here’s a small Spotify playlist that contains most of the artists that I discussed here as well as a few others that might be worth your time!