How Everything Became Emo
Anyone who spent their teenagedom in a black hooded sweatshirt was served a nice piece of attention bait last year in the form of a TikTok phenomenon known as the “emo test.” In it, users listened to snippets of songs by such artists as Panic! At the Disco and Paramore to see how many tunes they recognized. If you got eight to 10 songs right, you were certified “emo.” If you got more than that, then congrats—you were “broken.”
The meme now feels like an omen for what would unfold in pop music in 2021, when many a top-tier artist had a whiff of emo—a label that evolved from the 1980s punk scene but has come to envelop all manner of anguished music designed to.” spiced his technicolor raps with . and collaborated on raging pop-punk with the Blink-182 legend Travis Barker. The year’s breakout newbie, the Australian singer/rapper The Kid Laroi, his way to on the Hot 100.
