Sam Barker

Since 2019 we’ve been in the whirlwind of the emo nostalgia revival. Not a typical grassroots revival of a genre driven by younger bands rediscovering old sounds, but a returning of mainstream culture, a movement to reinterpret the sounds of their own generation. This is partly driven by a softening of older critics and cultural trendsetters towards 2000s-era emo-pop like My Chemical Romance, The Used and Taking Back Sunday and partly a result of the appeal of comforting teen tastes for the now very much adult millennials, and is accompanied by waves of new enthusiasm from younger fans – many of whom weren’t even born when these bands were forming.

This has manifested in a renewed interest in the music, style, fashion, brands and technology of popular mainstream emo from roughly 2002 to 2007. Bands that were previously dismissed as “junk” for idiot teenagers are now getting reverential write-ups in The New York Times. Las Vegas’ When We Were Young Festival represents a premium multi-day mardi gras of 2000s emo and pop punk bands. My Chemical Romance have undertaken a globe-spanning, stadium-swallowing tour of their classic 2006 The Black Parade – the album that has retrospectively been hailed as a rock masterpiece and defines the era in popular imagination.

I saw My Chemical Romance perform two nights at Wembley in July 2026 and it was superb. The band was on top form with a new wild narrative stage show. A heaving mix of young and old fans, all kinds of people united in genuine shared enthusiasm. For the band to play Wembley Stadium – almost the largest and the most iconic music venue in the UK – for three nights was incredible. Finally, the nerds had won.

But what comes next?

Nostalgia has a shelf life. Revisiting old flames and passions can only power you for so long; a music scene needs more to sustain itself.

There are young and hungry emo bands aplenty all over the world, with a vibrant, truly dynamic online scene eager to support them. Whether we’re talking “real emo”, Midwest emo, jazz, experimental or more pop varieties influenced by the 2000s greats, there’s no shortage of energy.

Bands like Saturdays At Your Place bring an accessible melodic Midwest emo sound. There’s also the more pop punk-influenced stylings of Arms Length alongside the screamo-influenced, ever eclectic Ben Quad. One of my personal favourite rising emo bands is Sweet Pill, a band I randomly saw live and of whom I absolutely loved the style of energy. They bring a deeply theatrical red/black/white colour scheme combined with a progressive but deeply impactful, yearning emo.

On a Midwest emo subreddit there’s even talk of a sixth wave of emo bubbling under the surface.

Are these the bands we’ll be seeing supporting My Chemical Romance on their next tour or up on the main stage of When We Were Young 2029?

Honestly, probably not.

It’s hard not to feel that the two scenes are talking past one another. There’s what I’m calling “emo inc”, comprising all the established bands that were popular 20 years ago, which everyone knows and loves – the bands that the media established as being on the emo level as a marketing tool. Then you have the “emo underground” alongside it: a roiling and energetic but much smaller group of bands that have creativity but very little mainstream recognition or purchase, and which often sincerely identify with the emo label and its specific musical ethos and history.

Many emo underground bands play the music they play because they want to be progressive and creative, and aren’t interested in just spoonfeeding crowds of millennials with reheated sounds from 20 years ago. And do emo inc fans even want new music from their older bands? Who at When We Were Young wants to hear, “alright Las Vegas, here’s one of our new ones!”?

Well… apart from one band. While My Chemical Romance themselves have been cagey about the possibility of new music, ‘The Foundations of Decay’, their first new song in almost a decade, was released in 2022 to a solidly positive response. The fanbase is clamouring for new music. Yet since this release we’ve heard nothing. Fans have naturally driven themselves in circles trying to plot and decipher codes and hidden messages from the band, but to no avail. Instead, they embarked on The Long Live The Black Parade world stadium tour. The tour I saw. Fantastic, amazing, but rooted in 2006.

Whether due to band dynamics, crushing perfectionism or music industry bullshit, no new music is forthcoming. Even the biggest band in the scene can’t move on.The nostalgia gear is locked.

Past is prologue

I love these older bands; I grew up on them, as did my close friends and millions of others. I don’t think nostalgia is some sort of dangerous or corrosive force in a music scene. Life is hard – you work, you pay bills, people you love die, you try, you keep going. In the midst of that, with adult responsibilities piling on, it makes sense that a generation just wants to indulge their own pleasures and passions without fear. If a 37-year-old wants to take a vacation to Vegas to hear Dashboard Confessional that’s not taking any bread out your mouth.

However, it’s also true that people deal with the struggles of life by doing the opposite. By pushing outwards, forcing progression and refusing to sit still, which is also so important. We need both sides. We need bands that are constantly in authentic motion, uplifted by the crowds that love and support them. No matter how big or small.

I’d love nothing more than for My Chemical Romance to bring a load of these bands out as support on tour. I know they have an awkward relationship with the emo label, but it would do sincere good to spread the creativity of the scene around and get nascent bands in front of hundreds of thousands of kids. It might surprise them. Injecting new blood into this whole messy family could stop it going stale. They might hate the term, but it in many ways built them, and they owe it that much.