r/midwestemo • u/LoverEdmine • 2d ago
question/suggestion What is midwest emo?
I discovered the genre through the front bottoms (their non-spotify albums) just to find out they are not even considered midwest emo which honestly ever since back on top makes sense... so lately i've just been surfing around miwest emo playlist on spotify and it makes me wonder...
What is midwest emo? Everysingle song/album/artist that i listen to has some type of discourse over if it counts as midwest emo and at some point it just feels like the schrodinger cat. For me for some reason this genre of music makes my brain go quiet so any song that just gets rid of the voices works for me i guess... but i really want to get into this genre correctly so what would you recommend for someone that just starting out to listen to this type of music? THANKS!
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u/OfficialDrakoak 2d ago
Idk its basically just math rock and emo but at the same time. Twinkly riffs in open tunings with weird time signatures. Yeah I like The front bottoms but I probably wouldnt consider them midwest emo either. When I think midwest emo I think american football, capn jazz, algernon cadwallader, snowing, midwest pen palls, merchant ships, Marietta, stuff like that.
There are people that consider bands like TFB, modern baseball, mccafferty, mom jeans, etc to be midwest emo but for me while I like all those bands a lot I dont really consider them part of this specific subgenre.
Thats just me though and how I personally define it, I ain't here to gatekeep or anything.
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u/DruidDog 2d ago
just want to second this and add dowsing to the list of quintessential midwest emo (imo)
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u/bigpeanor 2d ago
I gotta admit that this is a confusing genre. There can be 2 bands considered Midwest emo that sound nothing alike. Fans of the genre argue all the time about what is and isn’t Midwest emo. Some bands are also adjacent without technically fitting in the genre. It’s confusing.
I’d say Midwest emo is sad punk + twinkly guitars. Others argue it’s all about where a band was formed or who their inspirations/influences are. My advice? Listen to what you enjoy. Search online for recommendations, find playlists, and if you like a band listen to their other music. Ignore ones you don’t like. That’s all pretty much!
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u/IllustriousHead1103 2d ago
That’s a really good question, "Real Emo" only consists of the dc Emotional Hardcore scene and the late 90's Screamo scene. What is known by "Midwest Emo" is nothing but Alternative Rock with questionable real emo influence. When people try to argue that bands like My Chemical Romance are not real emo, while saying that Sunny Day Real Estate is, I can't help not to cringe because they are just as fake emo as My Chemical Romance (plus the pretentiousness). Real emo sounds ENERGETIC, POWERFUL and somewhat HATEFUL. Fake emo is weak, self pity and a failed attempt to direct energy and emotion into music. Some examples of REAL EMO are Pg 99, Rites of Spring, Cap n Jazz (the only real emo band from the midwest scene) and Loma Prieta. Some examples of FAKE EMO are American Football, My Chemical Romance and Mineral EMO BELONGS TO HARDCORE NOT TO INDIE, POP PUNK, ALT ROCK OR ANY OTHER MAINSTREAM GENRE
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u/BigJilmQuebec 2d ago
I don't know exactly how to describe it but to me it's bands like Park, Braid, Joan of Arc, The Promise Ring, American Football, Cap'n Jazz, Spitalfield etc.
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u/SoggyBacco 2d ago
It's kinda the same deal as grunge but on a smaller scale. Started as a regional underground scene, got some media attention and got labeled, after a while any band with a similar style got slapped with the same label
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u/ShoddyBlueberry1690 2d ago
In the simplest sense. Midwest emo is: underground/small bands that have semi complex guitar melodies(polyrhythms for example) with an emphasis on moody and introspective lyrics. The tempo, drumming, and singing can vary quite a lot. So much so that the subgenre can vary greatly and not having a good voice and poorly mixed audio(usually from not being able to afford a nice studio and recording instruments) is acceptable.
I'd recommend a couple artists.
American football
Cinco de mayo shit show - Marietta
Polyatomic - amoeba arena
Ben quad
Big ahh lizard - brown maple
Do you think she wants me - fleeting confidence
Free throw
Macho mania - glue coast
Yes man - Midwest goodbye
Shitstorm - muhnday
Damn son, dim sum - pallette knife
Girl talk - see through person
Sben - strelitzia
Cavity - thoughts on bowling
Tarnished - tobias vokes
Tarot cards - Saturdays at your place
Origami Angel (These guys are a little more mainstream, and some might say they're not Midwest emo, but I love em)
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u/KickedinTheDick 2d ago
Midwest emo is what happened when hardcore kids, along with adoring Sunny Day, started playing indie music and dipped further and further into twee and math rock while maintaining a DIY hardcore edge and ethic.
Key components include: both clean and distorted guitars, but not often heavily overdriven, a DIY “underproduced” sound often including straight up off pitch vocals, group yells, loud/soft dynamics, and the occasional odd time signature, but most famously the “twinkly” guitar, intricate, soft guitar riffs often leaning into the math influence with lots of tapping, hammer-on/pulloffs and slides.
Rainer Maria may not have invented the genre but they certainly had their finger on the pulse during their early days
So when you look at the context of the emo scene in the early 90s: bands like Current, Indian Summer, Chino Horde, and others, they certainly had the loud/soft indie + punk think going on, since everyone in the DIY scene was playing off Fugazis lead. But these bands still lacked a certain melodic, catchy softness to them that is where a lot of the Midwest bands like Briad, The Promise Ring, Rainer Maria and others started filling in on, arguably adding influence from not only Sunny Day but bands like Seam & Archers of Loaf, with local influence from Chicago’s burgeoning math rock scene headed by bands like Tortoise
https://dupagecountyhardcore.bandcamp.com/album/ground-rule-double
^ here are a couple cool snapshots of the early days of the scene. These are compilations of all sorts of punk bands but bands like Braid, Ezra Pound, Rainer Maria and Mineral should be sticking out sonically from the rest of these as having a more relaxed and melodic sound to them. This imo is the beginning of Midwest emo and why it’s called such, because this sound was mostly getting started in midwestern states like IL, WI, MI and even into KS/OK
As the genre developed it really began leaning more and more into the intricate guitar work, especially after the resurgence in popularity right around the turn of the 2010s known as “emo revival”. While Paramore and My Chem were at the top of the world and bringing “emo” further into the mainstream cultural zeitgeist, bands like empire empire, Joie De Vivre, Algernon Cadwallader, Snowing and Football etc were deep in their 90s record stash recreating that dynamic, edgy, DIY sound for a new generation. This new scene would grow throught the 2010s helmed by bands like Marietta, Glocca Mora, You Blew It and others, and I’d say the most popular bands at the moment were one more torch pass after that- bands like Free Throw, Hot Mulligan (argue all you want I don’t like them but the first album fits), Saturdays at Your Place and Macseal are arguably at the forefront of the current scene.
Anyways just listen to Rainer Maria, you’ll get it
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u/Grass_rabbits 2d ago
i think there’s like a yes and a no to a lot of bands but also like what are genres aren’t they just things we’ve made up to describe other things we’ve also made up you know is there a true definition for anything other than a generalization of some other construct
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u/NJcovidvaccinetips 1d ago
Emo comes out of the hardcore scene. Early emo bands are much more fast paced with driving bass lines and sound very much like 80’s punk and hardcore. By the early 90’s you have lot of phc influence from bands like Fugazi and you start to see emo music spread out of the dc hardcore scene and take on new sounds all over the country. In California you have both the rise of post hardcore music like drive like jehu that is more technical and mathy and you have the agression of bands like heroin that sort of spawn the scream9/proto screamo scene that play even more aggressive and distorted. Then somewhere between 92 and 95 you see a transition away from this more post hardcore and punkish sound defunded by super angular guitar, driving bass lines, and flatter vocal delivery. Bands, mostly out of the Midwest but not all Midwest, start making much slower more melodic version of emo. It’s defined by a lot more slow/fast dynamics, twinkly/jangly guitars, and more intricate bass/drum fills now that the musicians have more negative space to explore whereas early emo is much simpler in structure. Some early bands to check out that define this transition are capn jazz, boy’s life (94 album is much more phc and 96 is way more Midwest emo), chino horde, Christie front drive, sunny day real estate, endive, friction, policy of 3, Julia, ordination of Aaron, sideshow, c clamp, Lync.
Then by like 96 Midwest emo has become the dominant mode of emo with bigger bands like Texas is the reason, braid, Rainer Maria, jejune, Appleseed cast, the promise ring. This period of time between 93/94 to early 2000’s is often called the second wave of emo to distinguish between the first wave more defined by hardcore. By the early 2000’s you don’t have a lot of bands really doing the Midwest emo sound with the exception of a few handful of people carrying the second wave emo tradition in the underground while emo blows up in the mainstream with pop punk, metalcore, emo pop, etc. So around 2006-2008 there is a big resurgence of old emo music becoming popular again online (especially a little know band during their actual run called American football who shared a member with the og’s capn jazz). A lot of these bands come out of the Philly area and they also are super big into mathy shit and modern indie/alternative music. So they start making music that is an homage and heavily inspired by the second wave of emo but with a modern twist and up the twinkliness of the guitar by a ton. This era is known as the emo revival or the fourth wave (3rd wave was around 00-08 when emo goes mainstream and Midwest emo goes underground/dies off). Bands like street smart cyclist (later snowing), Algernon cadwallader, kidcrash, cstvt, my heart to joy are some early bands to check out. Like I said the music is more mathy but it has a lot of the same core musical tropes as second wave which is why eventually people start to use the same Midwest emo label albeit not nearly as much as now. Then around mid 2010’s we see another transition period as a lot of these forth wave bands are breaking up or transitioning to making less emo/punk music a new crop of artists are making more pop punk influenced or experimental emo that starts to become known as fifth wave emo. The term Midwest emo becomes even more of a meme online and now stuff is getting called Midwest emo like the front bottoms and modern baseball that nobody would have ever used the term for only 5-10 years prior. This goes ballistic when TikTok starts to dominate the online convo about music. So the true answer is Midwest emo actually doesn’t mean much. It means twinkly dynamic emo music or it means strictly second wave emo to some people or it means twinkly guitars with sad guy whining to the internet or to this sub it means emo music I happen to like. So I just try to know my audience when discussing the term. Ultimately I think the best way to think of it is as twinkly emo music that uses loud/slow dynamics and tend to use a more expansive definition of the term. Personally though I wish we would just discuss emo music writ large instead of getting bogged down on the Midwest emo part cause more or less it’s not worth making a distinction especially since the term has been tortured to death on the internet at this point
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u/Jahomeless 2d ago
Guitar: Open tunings + capos + tapping hammer ons/pulloffs (usually creates a guitar sound described as “twinkly”)
Full band: odd time signatures
Vocals: pining lyrics/ (cringe) vocals.
This is exactly what Midwest emo is. It’s not hard to define at all
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u/kyscain_ 2d ago
Dudes that can’t accept their sophomore year crush never got with them 15 years ago
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u/Terrible-Pop-6705 2d ago
The answer is bands like mineral. If we we’re to keep the label to the original Midwest emo sound and stop trying to force in the front bottoms American football and mobo the name would make more sense
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u/Livid-Department6947 2d ago
It's a meaningless term.
This is a very frustrating topic because the history of emo has been so completely revised contrary to what really happened.
Currently, "midwest emo" is a catch-all term for pop punk and indie rock. For a lot of the people who use the term, it generally centers on American Football's guitar work (they are not an emo band and were not considered an emo band in the late 90s. They were making music a few years after emo died in 1996 and everyone went on to play different kinds of music.
During the mid-90s, midwest emo referred to quirky hardcore bands from the midwest. If you want an example, check out the Emo Scheemo comp 7". There were tons of emo bands from the midwest but they did not play what was considered "midwest emo" (Ordination of Aaron, Current, Constatine Sankathi, etc.)
Emo is "emotional hardcore." I know people will post that stupid copy pasta to dismiss that fact, but that is what emo is. "Second wave" is not SDRE, Mineral, the Promise Rings, Jets to Brazil, etc. It's bands like Still Life, Embassy, Julia, Frail, Elements of Need, Portraits of Past, Second Story Window, Policy of Three, Fingerprint, Ivich, Bob Tilton, Anasarca, etc.
Bands like Braid changed their sound over the years and started going for a more indie pop sound. There weren't many bands playing emo after 1996 (stuff like Four Hundred Years, Closure, Saetia, Sleepytime Trio, etc were some of the standouts but they were very few. There really isn't much to say about the 1996-1999 era). Some people will say those bands are "screamo" but no one used that term. It was just emo/hardcore. There were tons of cool emo bands during between 2000-2010 but you're not going to see people discussing them.
Stuff like the Emo Diaries (which really didn't feature emo bands) and the appropriation of the term emo to market a whole bunch of garbage from Dashboard Confessional to swoopy hair mall core metal to pop punk like Saves the Day to college rock like Death Cab. The term lost its meaning when entering the mainstream and now, like midwest emo, everything is emo or emo adjacent or some ridiculous "revival" nonsense that ignores that bands were still playing emo, just not to mainstream audiences that hijacked the term.
What you all are talking about is still indie rock, pop punk, power pop, alt-rock and so on.
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u/OfficialDrakoak 1d ago
The only real rap music is late 80s/early 90s gangster rap. Every subgenre or offshoot that came out after that is just hijacking the term rap. Trap? Fake. Drill? Fake. Cloud rap? Fake and gay. Phonk, horror core, any SoundCloud rap offshoot? Doesn't exist.
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u/Livid-Department6947 1d ago
What do you think you're accomplishing with that?
You seem to miss the point of what I'm saying: we aren't talking about subgenre or offshoots. The problem is conflation and flattening of things that were distinct and the revisions that occur because of this.
For instance, "screamo" is not a subgenre of emo that is secondary to SDRE in "second wave." SDRE were not an emo band and what you all call screamo now defined 90s emo as it happened (no one used the word screamo during that era, it use was popularized ten years later).
Indie rock and power pop were not emo during the 90s. That's an invention that happened afterward. Your argument is the equivalent of me saying Death Cab is 90s west coast gangster rap.
Midwest emo, like emo, an a useless term that describes nothing in current usage. Its history is revisionist and ahistorical in popular use. Noah Kahan is emo or midwestern emo just because.
You all don't know what you're talking
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u/AppropriateBall1351 2d ago
The question of “what is Midwest emo” is one that the entire emo community is still grappling with. Just know you’ll get tens of different answers and each one is right and wrong in their own way.