Pop screamo (or mall screamo) is a subgenre of post-hardcore that combines elements of screamo, emo pop and metalcore. It is characterized by the incorporation of both screamo-indebted screaming in verses and emo pop-indebted clean singing in choruses, as well as chaotic, metalcore-influenced instrumental elements, particularly breakdowns.
The genre has its origins in late 1990s bands such as such as Grade, Keepsake, Poison the Well and Drowningman, who were merging screamo and metalcore, while also incorporating the clean singing of emo and pop-punk. Its first codified wave began with Thursday's Full Collapse (2001). This wave entered the mainstream in the United States with My Chemical Romance, the Used and Thrice, Canada with Alexisonfire and Silverstein, and the United Kingdom with Funeral for a Friend. The genre reached its commercial peak in 2004, soon declining in mainstream prominence as emo pop became increasingly dominant. During this time, some pop screamo releases continued to gain commercial success, particularly Hawthorne Heights's "Ohio Is for Lovers" (2005) and the Red Jumpsuit Apparatus's "Face Down" (2006). During this time, many bands began to expand upon the genre's sonic landscape, with Escape the Fate merging it with elements of 1980s hard rock, Fightstar with post-rock and classical music, the Fall of Troy with math rock and I Set My Friends on Fire with electronic music.
During the late 2000s, pop screamo became progressively intertwined with metalcore, when Alesana, Drop Dead, Gorgeous and From First to Last increasingly incorporated metal elements, pioneering the Risecore genre, soon popularized by Attack Attack!, the Devil Wears Prada and Of Mice & Men. At the same time, Brokencyde and Breathe Carolina pioneered the hip hop fusion genre crunkcore using elements of pop screamo. During the 2010s, later first-wave pop screamo bands Pierce the Veil and Sleeping with Sirens continued to gain commercial success, while newer bands Before Their Eyes, the Ongoing Concept, Too Close to Touch and I Am Terrified were partaking in a minor revival.
Beginning in the late 2010s, the United Kingdom experienced a revival of the genre when Static Dress and Modern Error fused it with elements of dreamcore and grungegaze. During the early 2020s, an interconnected revival also began in the United States with SeeYouSpaceCowboy and If I Die First. By the mid-2020s a separate wave of United States pop screamo was being fronted by I Promised the World and Car Underwater.
During its peak popularity, pop screamo was often called simply screamo. Pop screamo was coined in the mid-2000s, in order to differentiate the genre from the traditional screamo style that inspired it, which similarly developed the name skramz.
Characteristics Pop screamo builds upon the template of traditional screamo, but differentiates itself by incorporating melodic, sung vocals and metal influenced riffs. It additionally embraces elements of emo pop, and the dissonant metalcore style of Deadguy, Botch, Converge and Coalesce. Some bands in the genre also incorporated elements from other 2000s post-hardcore styles. Pop screamo bands often feature cleaner production than its parent genres. Oftentimes, verses feature unclean vocals, while choruses use clean singing. Breakdowns are also frequently used, oftentimes during a song's bridge. Clean vocals were often sung with a nasally tone.
Alternative Press Magazine described it as a subgenre of post-hardcore, while Ultimate Guitar editor Jorge Martins called it a subgenre of the post-hardcore subgenre screamo.
Etymology
The term screamo is a portmanteau of the words "scream" and "emo". The term began to be used by the mid-1990s, solely amongst the DIY hardcore scene to describe the original screamo genre. Following the late 1990s popularity of screamo-adjacent band the Locust, screamo began to attract the attention of people outside of hardcore, and its name was being used more broadly. During the early 2000s, the term became equally as tied to the original screamo sound, as to the more melodic, but screamo-influenced, pop screamo. In 2003, Derek Miller, guitarist for Poison the Well, noted the term's constant differing usages and jokingly stated that it "describes a thousand different genres." In 2008, Bert McCracken, lead singer of the Used, stated that screamo is merely a term "for record companies to sell records and for record stores to categorize them."
By the mid-2000s, the popularity of pop screamo had led to the word "screamo" being used loosely to describe any use of screamed vocals in music. To combat the increasingly broad-nature of "screamo", the retronym "skramz" began to be used to describe the original DIY definition of screamo.Lars Gotrich, Pg. 99: A Document Revisited : NPR Music Interview This recodification also saw the rise of the term "pop screamo", for the more mainstream derivative, a name attested to by publications including Punk Planet in 2004, PunkNews in 2005 and News Release Today in 2007. Previously, Stuart Green of Exclaim had used the term "screamo pop" to refer to Grade, Thursday and Glasseater in 2003. It also developed the synonyms "MTV screamo", "mall screamo" and "screamo-lite". The German blog Heavy Pop noted "mall screamo" as a derogatory label.
History Origins (1997–2000)
Southern Ontario band Grade had begun their career playing a style indebted to metalcore band Chokehold. However, by the time of their debut album And Such Is Progress (1995), they had departed into a style more informed by emo bands Indian Summer, Rye Coalition and Lincoln. With this change, vocalist Kyle Bishop began contrasting his screams with sung vocals inspired by James Brown, Black Francis and Bob Mould. On Grade's second and third albums, Separate the Magnets (1997) and Under the Radar (1999), they pushed their sound further away from traditional screamo, pioneering the sound of pop screamo. These releases were widely influential. Journalist Sam Southerland credited them as the first albums to "seamlessly" merge screaming and singing.
When asked by Noisey in 2014 if he ever felt bitter for a lack of recognition, singer Kyle Bishop stated,
Coral Springs, Florida band Keepsake began to merge pop-punk and screamo on their 1998 debut album The Things I Would Say. Law of Inertia magazine noted that "their whole schtick is being a pop-punk band because that's in and simultaneously being a 'screamo-o' band because that's also in. The two genres don't mix, were never intended to mix". Going on to note their similarity to later pop screamo acts. The Keepsake side project Poison the Well were one of the earliest bands to merge post-hardcore, emo and metalcore, shaping the sound that would later become pop screamo. This was particularly prominent on their first three albums The Opposite of December... A Season of Separation (1999), Tear from the Red (2002) and You Come Before You (2003). Lambgoat.com said of their legacy, Poison the Well "walked so (insert mall screamo band here) could run." In a 2003 interview with the radio station KNAC, the band's guitarist Derek Miller was asked about their "Hardcore meets Emo sound" sound. He responded "As far as I’m concerned, the whole thing to start this 'Emo-Metal' was Cave In with Beyond Hypothermia", going on to clarify that on The Opposite of December, they were simply copying Cave In and "not thinking about being original".
Exclaim! writer Sam Sutherland noted Drowningman as having "essentially pioneered" the genre. The band were influential upon many subsequent bands in the genre. They disbanded in 2002, just before their proginey's mainstream prevalence. A 2016 Exclaim! article credited them, as well as Boysetsfire, Waterdown and Thursday as amongst the earliest bands to adopt Grade's style. Maximum Rocknroll called Codeseven's 1999 album Division of Labor "proto-mall screamo" due to its fusion of metalcore and post-hardcore, similarly Alternative Press magazine cited Beloved, formed in 1999, as "forefathers of the pop-screamo era".
Mainstream breakthrough (2001–2004) New Brunswick
One of the earliest pioneers of pop screamo was Thursday, whose second album Full Collapse (2001), particularly its single "Understanding in a Car Crash", was highly influential within the genre. The first screamo–influenced album to gain significant media attention, it reached number 178 on the Billboard 200 and led to the band signing a multimillion-dollar, multi-album contract with Island Def Jam. Their subsequent album, War All the Time (2003), reached number seven on the Billboard 200.[ "Artist Chart History – Thursday – Albums"] Billboard.
Under the influence of Thursday, many other bands in New Jersey began to fuse the same styles, such as Senses Fail and My Chemical Romance. The New Brunswick basement scene became what ultimately brought emo to mainstream attention, with Em Casalena of American Songwriter stating that "Any conversation about bands that defined the emo sound will likely at least mention My Chemical Romance." The band's debut album I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love (2002) was influential on the sound on subsequent releases in emo, due to its use of the nascent style. Revolver named them as a key band in the "short yet crucial time-span" of mall screamo. On its follow up Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge (2004), they moved away from the style. Senses Fail's debut EP From the Depths of Dreams was released the same year. Loudwire wrote of Senses Fail's debut album Let It Enfold You (2004): "As a full-length debut, this album is impressive enough; its impact can still be seen rippling across the scene", Alternative Press note that it "will always be a staple of the pop-screamo genre". The album peaked at number 34 on the Billboard 200, selling 25,000 copies during its first week of release. It also charted at number two on the Independent Albums chart. It was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America in the US in 2020.
Greater Los Angeles
In Irvine, California, Thrice's second album The Illusion of Safety (2002) helped pioneer pop screamo and establish its mainstream prominence. Following its release "thousands of bands" began to make music inspired by it. The band released only one more album in the genre, The Artist in the Ambulance (2003), soon pursuing a separate sound. The Illusion of Safety sold 4,202 copies in its first week of release. It peaked at number 14 on the Billboard Independent Albums chart, and number 20 on Heatseekers Albums chart. By July 2006, it had sold 167,000 copies in the US. In 2019, the band's guitarist Teppei Teranishi said the album was "undoubtedly the highest point of [Thrice's] career as far as profile and popularity are concerned." For this album, both Thursday and Thrice were signed to Island Records, who advertised their shared pop screamo style as a phenonom similar to grunge.
Finch's debut album What It Is to Burn (2002) influenced much of the subsequent acts in the genre. What It Is to Burn charted at number 99 on the US Billboard 200 chart. By April 2003, the album had sold over 200,000 copies in the US. It charted at number 177 on the UK Albums Chart, while "Letters to You" reached number 39 on the UK Singles Chart. "What It Is to Burn" peaked at number 15 on the US Alternative Songs chart and number 35 on the Mainstream Rock chart. By October 2007, What It Is to Burn had sold over 400,000 copies worldwide.