Taking Back What's Ours

Taking Back What's Ours is the eleventh installment in The Emo Diaries series of compilation albums, released December 3, 2007 by Deep Elm Records. The label had unofficially halted the series after the release of its tenth chapter in 2004, citing the "bastardization" of the term "emo" among its reasons, but decided to resurrect it three years later:

In 2004, Deep Elm Record's legendary compilation series The Emo Diaries unofficially came to rest as the longest running compilation series in the history of indie rock with its tenth chapter and a total of 135 unreleased songs. Deep Elm cited the bastardization of the term "emo" in today's pop culture, as well as mainstream's stranglehold and subsequent commercialization of the genre, which placed the focus squarely on the aesthetic...not the music, the energy or the passion. Essentially, Deep Elm refused to play the game and closed the doors on the genre they helped to document, nurture and expose to the world. But this is 2007 and Deep Elm is Taking Back What's Ours.

As with all installments in the series, the label had an open submissions policy for bands to submit material for the compilation, and as a result the music does not all fit within the emo style. The twelve songs on the album were selected from over 1,200 submissions. As with the rest of the series, Taking Back What's Ours features mostly unsigned bands contributing songs that were previously unreleased.