There was a time, when we were young and foolish, when we thought it was easy to define an emo band. Just look at how much black they're wearing, how American their accents are, and whether their songs are really mopey, right? Wrong, as it turns out.
As this extensive and impassioned post on Urban Dictionary points out, "Most people have a horribly limited idea of what emo is, simply because the most important records in the development of emo were largely released on on vinyl, in small numbers, and with limited distribution."
Thankfully, a new website has been set up to rectify people's startling ignorance - Is This Band Emo? You might want to sit down before you use it for the first time, as the website throws up some pretty life-changing curveballs - My Chemical Romance, for example, are not an emo band.
The website also offers a sentence or two of explanation. When we tested out Ed Sheeran's emo credentials, for example, we were told - "Ed Sheeran is not an emo band. Soft spot for gingers in the Emo Council but no."
When we tried out St. Vincent, we were told, "You're way off. Maybe try Pitchfork?" Try it out for yourself, after you've looked at our attempts below. It proved surprisingly hard to find a band that the website admits is actually emo.
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