Crunkcore (also called crunk punk,^[1] screamo-crunk, crunk rock,^[2] and scrunk^[3]) is a musical genre that combines crunk hip-hop with elements of screamo.^[4] The Boston Phoenix described it as "a combination of minimalist Southern hip-hop, Auto-Tune croons, techno breakdowns, barked vocals, and party-till-you-puke poetics".^[4] Inland Empire Weekly described the genre as combining "post-hardcore metal licks with crunk."^[5]

History[link]

According to the Boston Phoenix, writer and musician Jessica Hopper claims that the influences for crunkcore can be traced back to 2005 when Panic! at the Disco mixed emo with electronics.^[4] But Warped Tour co-creator and CEO Kevin Lyman calls the group 3OH!3 as "the real tipping point for scrunk", and said that "though 3OH!3 doesn't incorporate the blood-curdling screams of many scrunk acts, they were the first emo-influenced act to depart from traditional instruments in favor of pre-programmed beats", while still retaining many of the stylistic elements of emo.^[4]

Criticism[link]

The Boston Phoenix has mentioned criticism of the style, saying that "the idea that a handful of kids would remix lowest-common-denominator screamo with crunk beats, misappropriated gangsterisms, and the extreme garishness of emo fashion was sure to incite hate-filled diatribes".^[4] The band Brokencyde in particular has been singled out, with John McDonnell of The Guardian calling Brokencyde "the worst thing to happen to music since Katie Melua's Nine Million Bicycles in Beijing".^[3] AbsolutePunk founder Jason Tate said that the level of backlash against the band is more than he has seen for any single act in the ten years he has been running the site, claiming, "They're just that bad, and they epitomize everything that music (and human beings) should not be."^[4] Vocalist Mikl from the band has acknowledged the criticism leveled at the band, but stated, "We don't care what people say (...) All these critics are trying to bring us down, and yet we're selling a lot of copies of our music and that's because of our dedicated fans."^[4] Writer Jessica Hopper also has criticized the band, but acknowledged its appeal to teenagers, stating "brokeNCYDE just completely references anything that might be a contemporary pop culture reference, or anything that a teenage person is into. . . . You kind of get everything at once."^[4]

Notable artists[link]

Artists that have been described as crunkcore include Brokencyde,^[3][4] 3OH!3,^[4][6][7] Millionaires,^[4][6] Breathe Carolina,^[6] Hollywood Undead,^[6] I Set My Friends On Fire,^[6] and Family Force 5.^[5][8] Also, David Jeffries of Allmusic referred to Kesha as the 'crunkcore queen' when noting her guest spot on the 3OH!3 album, Streets of Gold.^[9]

References[link]