Top 10 Best Teen Angst Bands

This band is very impressive in that it can be charged with very aggressive teen-angst themes without ever becoming monotonous or annoying like most angst bands.

Every album they made feels like a journey through a distressed teenager's mind as they go through the motions of abuse and depression. The closer to their darkest album (the signature song, "Numb") is literally an allegory for someone's farewell message before they commit suicide.

Their angst is so much deeper, darker, and more colorful than the rest of the bands on the list. The amount of anger and sadness that they have helped teenagers deal with over the years really does make them the best angst band ever.

Out of all these bands, this is the group with the most thought-out music. Their albums followed overall storylines and concepts, had strong social commentary, and most perfectly captured the zeitgeist of their generation.

The difference between My Chemical Romance and other stylistically similar bands is the intellect and thought process behind the music. While containing as many dark emotions as other bands on the list, they wrapped it in ambitions as big as 70s concept albums, making them very appealing to both teens looking for an outlet for their negative feelings towards the world and so-called serious music lovers.

Often, Jimmy Eat World, along with Sunny Day Real Estate, are seen as the only real emo bands by music elitists. They created the genre emocore in the 90s. I disagree, as definitions change, and emo is not just emocore. It's a term for any music typically listened to by the emo subculture.

I am not much of a fan of Sunny Day Real Estate. Their sound may dwell on emotion, but it is also shapeless and too lo-fi and indie for my taste. However, Jimmy Eat World arrives with an infectiousness and powerful melodrama, appearing like the blueprint (or rather blackprint) for every My Chemical Romance, Panic! At the Disco, or Falling in Reverse that arose after them.

Many expanded on their ideas, as heard in My Chemical Romance's well-thought-out concept albums, Panic! At the Disco's mix with pop, and Falling in Reverse's heaviness. The truth is that Jimmy Eat World may be the quintessential emo band in music history. And wow, "Pain" is an astounding mix of torment and earworm appeal.

Falling in Reverse is seen and even advertised as a project by Ronnie Radke, and every second of their music is him bleeding out emotions. While definitely not the most likable person on the planet, he went through a lot, including a poor childhood, a stay in prison, and being kicked out of his band for whom he contributed a large part of their debut record.

May I say that (next to Chester Bennington) he is my favorite of all teen angst singers. You totally buy everything he says in his lyrics. Sometimes he sounds confident, sometimes deeply cynical, then seriously angry, then completely hurt, then almost apathetic. And I am not talking about an album here. He can cover all these aspects in a single song.

Falling in Reverse has so far delivered three of my favorite teen angst albums like this... Oh, and "Fashionably Late," but at least they realized that this random mix of genres didn't work out.

This band is the closest Germany ever got to American teen angst bands. When you compare them to German artists that copied them, and then to American alt-rock bands, they surprisingly resemble the latter, at least on their pre-hiatus albums.

Their German-language debut (neither written by them nor performed well due to Bill's pre-puberty vocals) kind of ruined their image in Germany. However, everything from 2007 and newer still stands as completely unique in German music. The imagery of their lyrics had that melodrama and coolness, and their music felt more easy-flowing and relaxed.

After their hiatus, their sound changed towards dreamy electronica that they got to know in the US, and German critics were much more welcoming than before. But lyric-wise, I bet a lot of teens still can relate. Just not emo kids, but hipster kids.

Black Veil Brides easily have my favorite lyrics of all teen angst bands. While not as thought out as My Chemical Romance's concepts, they have the empathy needed to execute music that offers something for people who feel rejected and lost. They rely more on metaphors and beautiful wordings, and they understand how to write both anthemic and uplifting music. Yes, I said uplifting.

While expressing a love for the dark and sinister, they ultimately stand for strength, not giving up, and standing together as a community. Their message is basically: "They say you are a freak? Well, we are too. And many others are too. But that's just what makes us who we are and is our biggest strength."

This is something that needs to be said, and BVB does that the most authentically. If you have watched interviews or fan videos with Andy Biersack, he seems to really be like this. It's not a gimmick.

Another teen angst band that managed to have a very good standing in the world, also in "serious" music lover circles. Simply put, they have much more professional and advanced musicianship and lyricism, and their overall sound is more mature, even though their traits appeal to every teen who feels lost.

Much like My Chemical Romance and Linkin Park, Evanescence probably aims for completely different and more adult audiences. However, more than the other bands, they embrace each of their fans and are happy to have all of them no matter the reasons.

In the mid-2000s, both Fall Out Boy and Panic! At the Disco had a few hits in Germany, but nobody ever associated them with emo. For that, their visual style was simply not emo enough. We had Tokio Hotel and Cinema Bizarre, and even rappers with more gimmicky looks, so we expected huge anime-like wigs from emo. Back then, we simply called these groups punk.

What the great Falling in Reverse heavily failed at with "Fashionably Late," I See Stars perfectly deliver in all of their works. They throw metalcore, indie rock, dubstep, and techno into a blender, and it always perfectly merges.

One song alone can take you from the 90s skater scene to 2000s emo, to a 2010s European techno club, to an easy-going forest trip with an indie-loving hipster. The band manages to connect all these different sounds and groups, making it feel like "we are one." It's like all off-beat groups got together to peacefully celebrate their individuality. Also, "The End of the World Party" is one hell of an album. They just kind of managed to sum up three centuries in less than 40 minutes.

This Hamburger Schule band already had the American emo haircuts in the 90s. Their covers looked very hipster-ish, plus they wrote lyrics about teenage life, being different, and emotional outlet. Funny thing: to this day, critics and sophisticated serious music lovers totally love this group to death.

In lists about the greatest German albums compiled by music journalists, you have about five of their records in top positions. If you want to be seen as intellectual in music circles, just say you listen to them. But actually, they never had much commercial success, and the wider public doesn't really know them. That feels kind of like a reversed stereotype for this kind of music.