Emo

If emo was an attempt to break free of codified sounds and punk genre expectations, it certainly proved successful, starting in Washington, D.C. in the mid-'80s and forging a path through several stages of development and influence. The course of emo's evolution was nothing if not complex, but it has manifested itself in the 21st century in the radio-ready pop-rock of Fall Out Boy, the conceptual grandiosity of My Chemical Romance, and the fierce introspection of Dashboard Confessional. Emo shows its acoustic and hardcore sides in Next Steps.

If one thing connects the sometimes radically diverse songs falling under the "emo" rubric, it's intensity. That intensity comes in all forms in our Next Steps, whether it's the slow-burning variety delivered by Jimmy Eat World on "Hear You Me" and the Get Up Kids on "Campfire Kansas", or the hurtling meteor version perfected by Alexisonfire on "Boiled Frogs", Taking Back Sunday on "Liar (It Takes One to Know One)" and the thrash-driven Bullet for My Valentine on "Waking the Demon". Some of emo's roots are exposed, in Deep Cuts.

Haven't had the opportunity to keep constant tabs on the 20-year evolution of emo, from its D.C. beginnings to its multiple, frequently short-lived incarnations in far-flung regions? That's where our Deep Cuts come in, bringing you all the hard, plush, heavy, poppy, and understated elements of this storied alt genre. Rewind the clock to the early days with the post-punk fervour of Rites of Spring ("For Want Of"), and then fast-forward to the screamo-flecked sounds of the Red Jumpsuit Apparatus.

It's a classic tale of musical propagation, of change begetting change: emo — that singular brand of emotionally and melodically loaded punk rock — branched out from a handful of D.C. musicians to mutate into multiple forms across the U.S., and indeed the planet. In the process, a designation once used to distinguish those who'd taken their mid-'80s hard stuff to the next level of dynamic experimentation has become a marker for any band that enhances its punk-informed sensibility with passion, melody, and pop.