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I always found that with emo music I felt like I was part of a club with the musicians. Their music a testament to the flavours of suffering that are uncomfortable to talk about when constrained by modern culture.
That said, I have found that floating in the thick sloppiness of sad music, whilst cathartic, often leads to more suffering. There tends to be periods of my life, however, where I feel that this kind of suffering is one of the most beautiful aspects of emotional experience.
Here is a catalogue of the most profoundly suffering-ful emo songs.
The best emo song. Anything I could say about it would be over-reductive.
A pinnacle of endearment which inspires deep compassion. The vulnerability in his voice and lyrics is deeply human, never outright shunned, yet taboo and uncomfortable for our culture. His raspy not-quite-finished-puberty voice tugged at the more vulnerable of my heartstrings and each of the instruments somehow convey that they're playing their little hearts out. It's even more endearing to know that they were 17 when they made this. The word naive comes to mind but entirely as a compliment.
This song is the best example of where beauty lies in emotional suffering. Cumulating waves of sorrow; an outbreak of tense, anxious, screams and an ending of gradual recovery. I once saw an art installation with random items, like a hedge trimmer, in glass display cases, and the point was to forget about their prior in-context usefulness and just admire and ponder them. To me here, he has done that with words. They don't mean much but they absolutely get the message across.
"It's about being sad and envious when other people can survive more easily than you." Everyday observations of an OK life that it isn't very easy to be living in. Nothing ever happens but our emotions beg to differ. Our lives feel like an infinite tightrope walk that we don't fall off of, leaving us tense and anxious, but the triumph of moving forwards never seems to come because we're too busy looking at our feet. A life of resting discomfort that's fit to burst but never will.
The letting out of a deep and long needed sigh. A perfect conveyance of the alienated down-and-out atmosphere life takes on from time to time, if you aren't careful. It comes with a twinge of acceptance, like 'well, this is it now, i guess. what can you do. might as well indulge in it.'