Framing musical schemas and topics : genre and style in American emo

This dissertation examines the role of genre in the creation of musical meaning in popular music, drawing from schema theory, topic theory, and genre theory. Using emo as a case study, it focuses on how the various aspects of genres, both those conventionally considered musical and those not considered so, affect listeners’ conceptions of categories. It highlights how different conceptions of genres can affect listeners’ perceptions of musical features, and how different perceptions can affect listeners’ interpretations of those features’ meanings. It claims that listeners mobilize multiple genres to make sense of not only single songs but also other genres. Chapter 1 focuses on the theoretical frameworks of the dissertation. It lays out a conception of genre and examines the ways in which musical schemas and topics are mediated by genre. Chapter 2 provides context for the music analyzed in later chapters. It tells a history of emo music from the genre’s emergence in the 1980s through its various “waves,” looking at not just moments of relative stabilization but also periods of discursive struggle in the genre’s history, focusing on the role of “Midwest” emo before, during, and after the so-called emo “revival.” Chapter 3 uses schema theory to analyze a distinct feature of Midwest emo that is prominent in the emo revival—a type of riff described as “twinkling.” Chapter 4 then looks at the twinkle schema’s role in the genres of math rock (where it remains a schema) and pop punk (where it becomes a topic). The discussion is then extended through an analysis of emo songs with metal topics in music of Origami Angel. This leads to a final section which looks at the relative proximity of categories in genre space. The first chapter examines what genre theory can tell us about the relationships between schemas and topics, and this final section of the last chapter asks what schemas and topics have to say about the relationships between genres. In doing so, this dissertation emphasizes genre’s role in music analysis at the same time as it explores how music theory can inform understandings of genre theory.