"Waiting Room" by Fugazi from the album 13 Songs (1989)

No matter how much they deny the emo forbearer mantle, they were the X factor that helped transform the macho orthodoxy of hardcore into whatever punk strain emo wound up crawling out of. With this wiry under-three-minute anthem, the first song on their first record, it was clear that they were onto something new: in place of hardcore’s standard vocal bark-and-drum bludgeon, forceful crooning, yearning cries, and percolating beats combined into a new blueprint for punk.

_Daniel Brockman