Emo is a music genre characterized by emotional, often confessional lyrics. It emerged as a style of hardcore punk and post-hardcore from the mid-1980s Washington, D.C. hardcore scene, where it was known as emotional hardcore or emocore. The bands Rites of Spring and Embrace, among others, pioneered the genre. In the early-to-mid 1990s, emo was adopted and reinvented by alternative rock, indie rock, punk rock, and pop-punk bands, including Sunny Day Real Estate, Jawbreaker, Cap'n Jazz, and Jimmy Eat World. By the mid-1990s, Braid, the Promise Ring, and the Get Up Kids emerged from Midwest emo, and several independent record labels began to specialize in the genre. Meanwhile, screamo, a more aggressive style of emo using screamed vocals, also emerged, pioneered by the San Diego bands Heroin and Antioch Arrow. Screamo achieved mainstream success in the 2000s with bands like Hawthorne Heights, Silverstein, Story of the Year, Thursday, the Used, and Underoath.

Embrace was a short-lived American hardcore band from Washington, D.C., active from the summer of 1985 to the spring of 1986. Along with Rites of Spring, and Beefeater, it was one of the mainstay acts of the 1985 Revolution Summer movement, and was one of the first bands to be dubbed in the press as emotional hardcore, though the members had rejected the term since its creation. The band included lead vocalist Ian MacKaye of the defunct hardcore punk act Minor Threat and three former members of his brother Alec's band, the Faith: guitarist Michael Hampton, drummer Ivor Hanson, and bassist Chris Bald. Hampton and Hanson had also previously played together in S.O.A. The band played their first show on July 28, 1985, at Food for Thought, a former restaurant and music venue located on Washington, D.C.'s Dupont Circle; their ninth and final show was held at the 9:30 Club in March 1986. The only recording released by the quartet was their posthumous 1987 self-titled album, Embrace, being influenced by the Faith EP Subject to Change.