The Best Emo Albums of the 2000s

Nine rough demos leaked in January 2006, ten months early, and fans loved the album before it existed — the finished Interscope record, produced with Mike Sapone, arrived heavier and stranger than the leak promised. 'Jesus Christ' is the centerpiece: a slow-blinking meditation on death that lets the bass carry the tune while Jesse Lacey sings like he's bracing for the answer. The decade's consensus peak, and it earns the slot.

Dropped by Capitol, Jimmy Eat World paid for these sessions themselves, then sold the finished album to DreamWorks — and briefly retitled it Jimmy Eat World after 9/11. 'A Praise Chorus' is the thesis: Davey von Bohlen of The Promise Ring wanders in to sing a middle eight stitched from 'Crimson and Clover' and half the songs the band grew up on. Emo's underdog-makes-good story, with hooks to match.

Every dual-vocal trade-off in 2000s emo descends from this Victory Records debut. Adam Lazzara and John Nolan interrupt, answer, and talk over each other — 'Cute Without the 'E' (Cut from the Team)' turns that crosstalk into the chorus itself, two grudges harmonizing. Nolan and bassist Shaun Cooper walked in 2003 to form Straylight Run, and the scene argued about it like a divorce.

The title is French for 'already heard' — a joke about scene clichés from a band busy escaping them. Brand New's Triple Crown release went gold the slow way, on word of mouth; 'The Quiet Things That No One Ever Knows' explains why, a verse that murmurs politely before the chorus slams the door on itself. The leap between their first and second records is still the genre's biggest.

Screaming became an instrument of grief instead of aggression here — post-hardcore border case, flagged and essential. On the Victory breakthrough's 'Understanding in a Car Crash,' the verses churn in minor-key panic while Geoff Rickly's voice frays exactly when the lyric does. Rickly paid it forward by producing My Chemical Romance's debut, which makes Full Collapse the decade's patient zero twice over.

One voice, one acoustic guitar, and a crowd shouting every word back — that was the pitch, though the Vagrant recording quietly adds bass, drums, and Jolie Lindholm's harmonies. 'Screaming Infidelities' keeps the strumming soft so the title line can do the bleeding, and its video beat The Strokes to the MTV2 Award at the 2002 VMAs. Chris Carrabba made whispering competitive with rock bands.

Rob Schnapf came in from producing Elliott Smith and gave Saves the Day's Vagrant breakout actual air between the notes. 'At Your Funeral' opens the record with the decade's most quotable morbid first line, a bass hook doing the verse's work while Chris Conley's melody skips rope over it. The album that proved a pop-punk band could slow its pulse without losing the plot.

Theater-kid menace survived the major-label money: My Chemical Romance's Reprise debut, produced by Howard Benson and since certified 3x platinum, is the emo-pop border case that converted the most civilians. 'I'm Not Okay (I Promise)' compresses the whole pitch into its title, verses tightening like a held breath until the chorus spits it out. The gateway record for a generation of listeners.

Adopted by the scene rather than born in it — flagged as the indie-rock border case — this Barsuk record got an assist from The O.C.'s music supervisors. Chris Walla, the band's own guitarist, produced; the title track 'Transatlanticism' spends eight minutes turning one piano figure and the phrase 'come on' into a slow flood, the quietest catharsis on the list. Long-distance longing has never been engineered better.

Gretta Cohn's cello is the second lead singer on Cursive's Saddle Creek concept piece, sawing against Tim Kasher's self-lacerating narrator through all three acts. 'Art Is Hard' is the mission statement — a jerking riff that mocks the confession industry while participating at full sincerity. Art-rock border case, flagged; also the smartest record here about why anyone writes sad songs at all.

Pop-punk border case, and the future in miniature: Fall Out Boy cut most of this at Smart Studios in Madison — Butch Vig's old room — with producer Sean O'Keefe for Fueled by Ramen. 'Grand Theft Autumn / Where Is Your Boy' already has the Patrick Stump move, a soul singer's melisma smuggled into a scene chorus. Two years later they owned the radio; this is the version before the varnish.

Moog first, guitars second — in 2000, in Lawrence, Kansas, that was heresy, and The Anniversary made it work on the Get Up Kids' Heroes & Villains imprint through Vagrant. 'The D in Detroit' rides its synth line like a lead guitar while boy-girl vocals volley the verses back and forth. The scene's brightest outlier; half of today's synth-loving emo bands are chasing this without knowing it.

Max Bemis has been open about losing his grip during these Doghouse sessions — paranoid delusions included — and the album converts that crisis into the decade's most theatrical songwriting. 'Alive with the Glory of Love' turns his grandparents' Holocaust survival into a defiant love song with a strut in its step, which shouldn't work and completely does. J Records reissued it once the scene caught on.

The elders returned mid-youthquake: Sunny Day Real Estate made this as a trio for Time Bomb Recordings, Jeremy Enigk covering the bass himself, with Lou Giordano producing. 'One' aims Enigk's keen straight at the arena — a chorus built to fill rooms the band never got to play, since the label faltered beneath them. The decade's most dignified almost.

Bob Nanna and Todd Bell walked out of Braid's wreckage and got tighter: their Vagrant debut as Hey Mercedes, produced by J. Robbins, trades tangle for drive. 'Our Weekend Starts on Wednesday' is the best argument — a riff that sprints in straight lines where Braid would have zigzagged, Nanna finally singing more than shouting. Underloved on release; the people who kept it are smug now, and correct.

Leaving the biggest band on Victory to make quiet piano songs — for Victory — took nerve. John Nolan and Shaun Cooper's post-Taking Back Sunday debut swaps score-settling for hymn-paced restraint, with John's sister Michelle Nolan sharing vocals. 'Existentialism on Prom Night' builds from lone piano to full-band swell without ever raising its voice past hurt. The scene's favorite comedown record.