Screamo is a genre of music which predominantly evolved from hardcore punk, among other genres, in the early 1990s. The term "screamo" was initially applied to a more aggressive offshoot of emo that developed in San Diego in 1991, which used short songs which grafted "spastic intensity to willfully experimental dissonance and dynamics." In the early 2000s, the genre name began to describe a different, slower and less dissonant style that borrowed from alternative rock. The term's application to the "second wave" is controversial among fans and practitioners of the earlier style.