Easycore, from the outside in. Each step is a genre and the single record this encyclopedia would put on first. Play them in this order and the last one should sound like a next step rather than a wall.
- 1 The way in
Rock 1954
The whole family: guitar, bass, drums and a beat borrowed from blues and rhythm and blues. Every branch below grows out of this trunk, metal included.
Sung. Melodic singing throughout.
Put on
The Beatles - Revolver, if you want to understand why everything branched so fast.
The Beatles, Revolver (1966) - 2 Then
Punk rock 1974
Three chords, two minutes and zero patience for solos. A full reset of rock, and the second major source of extreme metal.
Shouted. Barked or chanted, and you can still make out the words.
Put on
Ramones - Ramones. Fourteen songs in twenty-nine minutes, not a wasted note.
Ramones, Ramones (1976) - 3 Then
Pop punk 1977
Punk speed, garage-pop choruses and lyrics about suburban boredom.
Sung. Melodic singing throughout.
Put on
The Descendents - Milo Goes to College. The manual, written twelve years before the boom.
The Descendents, Milo Goes to College (1982) - 4 What you asked about
Easycore 2007
Pop punk with hardcore breakdowns glued into the middle. Sweet chorus, hammer at the end.
Sung and screamed. Clean singing and harsh vocals trade off, often chorus against verse.
Put on
A Day to Remember - Homesick. The most effective sweet-to-brutal switching in the genre.
A Day to Remember, Homesick (2009) - 5 Where to go next
NWOTHM 2005
New Wave of Traditional Heavy Metal: a new generation deliberately playing like it's 1982, down to the tape production.
Sung. Melodic singing throughout.
Assembled from the tree: every genre Easycore descends from, in order. Easycore has no subgenres, so the last step is the genre that rates closest to it by sound.