What is Midwest emo?

Removed from the connotations that have come to be associated with the term, “emo” is simply short for emotional. To call music emo seems pretty redundant from a somewhat pedantic perspective. Given the broad nature of the label, it has come to mean a lot of different things to different people. In the general zeitgeist, the word emo conjures up images of teenagers dressed in all black. Robert Pattinson’s Batman costume would serve as a good example of this. The specific delineations of the emo genre are more complicated than the look, with some examples stretching far beyond this stereotype. The style elements of the genre that most people think of have generally disappeared, although there are exceptions.

Emo music originally came from Washington D.C., rising out of the hardcore punk scene there in the mid-1980s. This music had a much harsher sound than the music that gets called emo today. Sunny Day Real Estate’s album Diary is an acceptable starting point for this transition. This music featured a lot less, but not zero, screaming and shouting vocal lines, and a lighter sound overall.

Today, a genre called Midwest emo is slowly growing across the country. This music is almost unrecognizable compared to the D.C. scene. Whether Midwest emo is a real movement or an invention of the category-obsessed users of rateyourmusic.com is still up for debate.

Bands that embody this style the most, in the opinion of this author, would be American Football and Marietta. The style features simple but fast open-tuning riffs with crashy drums and soft but shouty vocals. Sometimes it is referred to by the more pedantically accurate term “math rock,” because of their use of chords usually associated with jazz.

But what makes any of this Midwest? I would argue that the lyrics of bands, especially Marietta, portray the essential boredom and longing of alienated suburban life pretty well. There’s a line from their song “God Bless Eric Taylor” that goes, “Could you get some matches? I’ll probably burn them, cause I can’t drive, and I need something to pass the time.” I can’t think of a better way to summarize life in a flyover state, especially as a teenager without a car. Never let anyone tell you that music isn’t good anymore. There’s always something important going on if you know where to look.

By Luke Morris