Pop screamo

Pop screamo (or mall screamo) is a subgenre of post-hardcore that combines elements of screamo, emo pop and metalcore. It is characterized by the incorporation of both screamo-indebted screaming in verses and emo pop-indebted clean singing in choruses, as well as chaotic, metalcore-influenced instrumental elements, particularly breakdowns.

The genre has its origins in late 1990s bands such as such as Grade, Keepsake, Poison the Well and Drowningman, who were merging screamo and metalcore, while also incorporating the clean singing of emo and pop-punk. It is first codified wave began with Thursday's Full Collapse (2001). This wave entered the mainstream in the United States with My Chemical Romance, the Used and Thrice, Canada with Alexisonfire and Silverstein, and the United Kingdom with Funeral for a Friend. The genre reached its commercial peak in 2004, soon declining in mainstream prominence as emo pop became increasingly dominant. During this time, some pop screamo releases continued to gain commercial success, particularly Hawthorne Heights's "Ohio Is for Lovers" (2005) and the Red Jumpsuit Apparatus's "Face Down" (2006). During this time, many bands began to expand upon the genre's sonic landscape, with Escape the Fate merging it with elements of 1980s hard rock, Fightstar with post-rock and classical music, the Fall of Troy with math rock and I Set My Friends on Fire with electronic music.

During the late 2000s, pop screamo became progressively intertwined with metalcore, when Alesana, Drop Dead, Gorgeous and From First to Last increasingly incorporated metal elements, pioneering the Risecore genre, soon popularized by Attack Attack!, the Devil Wears Prada and Of Mice & Men. At the same time, Brokencyde and Breathe Carolina pioneered the hip hop fusion genre crunkcore using elements of pop screamo. During the 2010s, later first-wave pop screamo bands Pierce the Veil and Sleeping with Sirens continued to gain commercial success, while newer bands Before Their Eyes, the Ongoing Concept, Too Close to Touch and I Am Terrified were partaking in a minor revival. By the end of the decade and the beginning of the 2020s, a prominent pop screamo revival was being fronted by Static Dress and SeeYouSpaceCowboy.

During its peak popularity, pop screamo was often called simply screamo. Pop screamo was coined in order to differentiate the genre from the traditional screamo style that inspired it, which similarly developed the name skramz.