Every five or six years or so, a musical genre starts to fade from popularity and people respond in a backlash that is usually very venomous, and often times, hilarious. When disco was fading in the late 70’s, the Chicago White Sox had a “Disco Sucks” night at the game, and burned vinyl on the field. That incident turned into a near riot, as the fire got out of control, and people vented their comical hatred of all things disco.

But a genre that has dominated modern rock radio over the past few years is now facing a crisis and a growing backlash from its fans. Yep, you guessed, the sub-genre of rock that is driving people up a wall nowadays is “emo”, and its fall could be quicker than how long it took the hair bands to change their image once Nirvana showed up.

Just so some people aren’t in the dark about “emo”; think of bands of like Dashboard Confessional, Hawthorne Heights and hundreds of other bands that usually are signing in a mopey tone about some girl who just left them. At first glance, these bands sing about topics most others sing about; but to listen to grown men whine incessantly about their problems and girl troubles is just plain wimpy and unflattering.

The genre succeeded for a few years, becoming a favorite among the teenage girl crowd and guys who liked to wear black eyeliners and asymmetrical haircuts. Groups like Dashboard and New Found Glory mined platinum stardom from these songs, and the Warped Tour jettisoned its image of a punk rock summer camp to feature many of these emo bands for the past few tours. But like any other sub-genre of a music form that grows in popularity, its star usually begins to fade after a while.

2006 could end up being the year where emo started to meet its end - sort of like 2001 was the beginning of the end for nu-metal, and 1991 was the end for the hair bands. This year’s Warped Tour suffered its first attendance decline in nearly a decade, with the lack of a platinum selling artist and as what a few voices that were overheard in the crowd declare “too many f---in’ emo bands.”. But the apathy did not end with Warped: many of the bands who vacated their cozy indie labels who left for major labels have not sold as many records as when they were with their indie label.

Groups like Taking Back Sunday, who were kings on the Chicago label Victory Records (which depending on who you talk with, is run with a style and grace similar to either Death Row Records or Enron) moved to Warner Brothers, only to have their major label debut sell about 60 percent of what their indie record sold. Perhaps this is just a sign of the genre’s slow demise. It still hasn’t stopped bands from leaving the indie labels. Hawthorne Heights is suing Victory to move to Warner Bros, and emo/metal upstarts Atreyu recently moved to Hollywood Records.

But even with those bands leaving their labels, that alone is not a watershed moment for the signal of emo’s demise. The watershed moment of emo’s imminent demise was in England, at the recent Reading Festival. Even big time emo groups such as My Chemical Romance and Panic! At The Disco were met with flying debris and profane chants directed towards them. This may not be as humorous as the “Disco Sucks” incident, but it does parallel another genre’s sign of its demise. Nu-metal was the king of the hard rock scene going into Woodstock ’99, but moron frat guys groped unsuspecting female fans; those same moron frat guys starting fires, and Fred Durst nearly inciting a riot during Limp Bizkit’s set started to spell the end for the nu-metal scene. At least the English fans were a little more civil while dealing with the emo bands.

The state of emo has caused some bands to shift their focus for upcoming records. My Chemical Romance’s upcoming “Black Parade” album sounds more like a modern update of a Queen album than previous work. Hell, they even grabbed the producer of Green Day’s “American Idiot” to produce the record, hoping it will have them hit those lofty Green Day sales figures. Fall Out Boy’s next record, according to the media whore of emo, Pete Wentz, is enlisting Babyface to produce.

Yep, that Babyface; the guy who produced Toni Braxton records is producing the next Fall Out Boy record. And I am sure Panic! At The Disco, this year’s breakout rock success story; want to do a full tribute to big band music on their next record. (I’m just kidding on that last one; maybe.)

My Chemical Romance and Fall Out Boy have set themselves apart from the emo crowd; MCR seems more determined to be larger than life and just like Green Day, while Fall Out Boy sounds more standard, radio friendly pop-rock (All American Rejects- sounding) than whiny emo. But because I have more of a trained ear, I see the differences. But it’s tough for most people to make a difference between Fall Out Boy, Emery and dozens of other like sounding bands, and that is where those bands could suffer their downfall.

People couldn’t differentiate Winger from Warrant from Whitesnake, and it cost them all their popularity and forced them to play in sweaty bars for the rest of their days. Will the same fate befall the popular emo bands of the day? If so, Fall Out Boy already wrote the theme of it; “Sugar, We’re Going Down”…

Either way, at least emo’s better than the Fray and James Blunt… those guys really suck.