What makes a band....an emo band???!

What makes a band....an emo band???

I mean...the music used to be known as Alternative?

so what about the bands like The Cure, The Smiths, U2, Morrissey..Echo and the Bunnymen...besides being old bands..are they also NOW emo bands???

and how are these bands necessarily emo-tional?

'Emo' today means commercially focused bands playing banal pop-punk/goth/teen pop music. It is a label for both the fans and the music; fans are provided with a plastic 'identity' and subculture, and therein thr illusion of individualism, while the music is made easily recognisable and distributable to said fans. It's cousins are garage-rock and nu-metal which do the exact same things in the exact same ways except with different distortion pedals and t-shirts.

Emo in it's oriuginal form was not just 'emo-tional,' as you say in your question, but it was emotional hardcore: emo-core. That is to say it took the style of hardcore punk, but eschewed the typical hardcore themes in favour of more a more personal slant. As such 'proper' emo could be really quite abrasive like its hardcore roots. It soon however became more melodic, and eventualy softer leading to modern indie-rock bands like Sunny Day Real Estate and Jimmy Eat World who retained a connection to emo through their underground beginnings (a connection now completely lost), as well as purer music which retained some of the original emo ethos in composition despite becoming stylisticly like indie or pop punk.

The bands you mention are indie bands, Emo came from hardcore. Emo bands are not just emotional. If emo music were just anything emotional then 3/4 of music made since the 1960's would be emo. Having said that I think it's important to recognise again that emo is just a trendy word that sells records rather than an actual genre of music nowadays. MCR and FOB etc are really just Blink-182 with somewhat maturer lyrics and more than 4 chords. The same thing has happened to the word screamo which originally meant very harsh, ultra-cathartic music, but now refers to modern rock music with non-sung vocals.

Read:
http://www.fourfa.com/

Listen:

Older, harsher works -
Rites of Spring - End on End (1985)
Embrace - Embrace (1985)
One Last Wish - 1986 (1986)
Still Life - From Angry Head With Skyward Eyes (?)
Indian Summer - Discography (?)
Portraits of Past - Portraits of Past (?)
Heroin - Heroin (1992)
Saetia - Saetia (1998)

More melodic -
Jawbreaker - 24 Hour Revenge Therapy (1993)
Cap'n Jazz - Analphabetapolotology (1998)
Braid - The Age of Octeen (1996)
American Football - American Football (1999)
The Promise Ring - 30 Degrees Everywhere (1996)