The Bridge: Everything Is Emo

[This edition of my Hit Parade—“The Bridge” bonus series is available to Slate Plus subscribers only. A link to the episode show page is below. To sign up for Plus—and tell Slate that Hit Parade sent you!—visit slate.com/hitparadeplus.]

In this mini-episode of Hit Parade, host Chris Molanphy is joined by podcaster, screenwriter, and author Andy Greenwald to dissect the latest full-length episode of Hit Parade on pop-punk and emo. When Andy wrote his book Nothing Feels Good: Punk Rock, Teenagers, and Emo in 2003, he thought the music had gotten pretty big. He hadn’t seen anything yet. Andy and Chris discuss how a scattered movement of DIY-scene bands gave way to a wave of commercial emo on the pop charts, from the soul-baring Dashboard Confessional to the goth-clad My Chemical Romance—even the vexing, genreless Weezer. Emo never really had one sound—and while it reached its apex with Fall Out Boy and Panic! at the Disco, the emo sensibility never really went away. It lives on everywhere from pop’s biggest megastars to indie-rock and even rap.

Next, Chris quizzes a Slate Plus listener with some music trivia, gives her a chance to turn the tables with a stumper question of her own, and previews next month’s full-length episode. Slate Plus members can sign up for a chance to be our trivia contestant on a future episode here.

Podcast production by Asha Saluja.