I'd like to see where this goes. List emo related bands, what you think emo is, where it started etc...

Rites of Spring

I've listened to them a lot. At first they put forth hardcore punk style of music, but later became "personal" in their music as they shifted away from the punk scene. Rites of Spring being the first to develop a sound such as "emo" made emo a subgenre of hardcore punk.

Emo really does have a lengthy history, and I don't know it all. Today however, it remains controversial with bands beginning to run away from the label emo.

Bands such as these have been labeled emo, correct or not: AFI, Aiden, Atreyu, Brand New, Blood Brothers, Fall Out Boy, Fear Before the March of Flames Finch, From Autumn to Ashes, From First to Last, Funeral for a Friend, Hawthorne Heights, H.I.M., MCR, SIlverstein, The Starting Line, The Promise Ring, The Used, Underoath