Why You Should Listen to Midwestern Emo

A few weeks ago, I was asked what my ‘guilty pleasure’ was. I responded, “I like to listen to midwestern Emo”. Because it’s true. I find delight in how cathartic midwestern Emo is. But after I gave that answer, I began to think, why do I call it a guilty pleasure?

When you go on Tik Tok or any other form of social media, you will find videos of people either making fun of midwestern Emo or artists turning regular songs into midwestern Emo-style songs, with comments saying, “Why is this actually good”?

Because internet, midwestern Emo, is good.

But first, what is Midwestern Emo? Midwestern Emo is a genre of music that can be described as indie rock-influenced Emo music that originated in the Midwestern United States. Funny enough, the most notable bands that have come out of the genre aren't even from the Midwest. Modern Baseball, being from Maryland, and The Front Bottoms, being from New Jersey. And yet, they are two bands that I would like to highlight to help you, reader, understand why you should listen to Midwestern Emo.

So, if Midwestern Emo is so great, why has it gotten a bad rep? And how does an entire genre manage to fall into the guilty pleasure category? Well, it may be because when people think of Emo music, they think of overly melancholic lyrics placed over harsh guitar riffs that aren't very pleasing to the ear. And Midwestern Emo, being an indie rock extension of the original Emo genre, is this, but whinier. It is teenage boys complaining about their girlfriend dumping them for what they don’t think, but everyone else knows, was a pretty good reason. It is skinny jeans, and hair aggressively swooped to the side. It is 2006. So naturally, it gets made fun of a lot.

I’m not here to neither confirm nor deny the aforementioned rumours, but rather to help you see through them. Some Emo music is complaining about why your ‘too good to be true’ girlfriend dumped you (something about you being a massive dick??? That can't be right...), but it isn't all like that. So, without further ado, here are the reasons why you should become Midwestern Emo’s biggest fan.

1. Unconventional Vocal Stylings Means You Can Sing It Too!

A lot of people brush Midwestern Emo off as something laughable due to the singers' voices. No, they don’t have that deep, soothing country voice you listen to Chris Stapleton for or those impressive whistle tones you blast 1996 Mariah Carey for, but let’s be honest, when you're singing along in the car, you don’t sound very good either. But that’s the appeal of Midwestern Emo. When they sing, it’s filled with raw Emotion. They are angry, they are sad, and they are letting you know so. You feel as if you are witnessing the Emotion. Like the singer has picked up their guitar and started singing just to you. Whatever they're going through happened yesterday-no time for processing, just time for feeling. Not a lot of genres have the immediacy of Midwestern Emo. And, no, they aren’t just monotone the whole song. Sure, they don’t jump octaves, but they do scream. And trust me, you’ll want to scream with them. It feels good.

2. Cathartic Lyrics That Tell It How It Is!

Are you tired of meaningless metaphors that have been overdone? Are you tired of lyricists beating around the bush? Do you have to look up half of Taylor Swift’s “Evermore” in a dictionary? (No, I did not know what the word calamitous meant.)

Well look no further!The lyrics in the Midwestern Emo genre are fresh, and tell it how it is. Songs in the genre commonly take you through very specific events, followed by hard-hitting realizations as the lyricists process the Emotions. In Modern Baseball’s album Sports, many of the songs detail oddly specific events that will somehow still feel relatable. Talking to Chloe from MySpace, sitting outside in the cold, and talking to a girl who loves someone else. The Front Bottoms, another notable band of the genre, song “Lone Stor” have a song that details the feelings that come with finding out a partner is pregnant, when unintended. The lyrics are literal, blunt, and confessional, to a point that you are shocked at the singer’s admission. A notable lyric being “The past few months were pretty tough/A couple times, wished we both were dead/I never cried like that before/I thought my eyes would pop out of my head”. These songs, all articulating specific events, bring about very specific feelings that they are expressing by showing you the events that transpired rather than telling you.

Sometimes, Midwestern Emo songs also know when less is more. They know when they need to tell you the truth. In my personal favourite “Your Graduation” by Modern Baseball, frontman Brendan Lukans sings “You weren't the only one who thought of us that way”, detailing the painful experience of finding out someone cared about you just as much as they cared about you, but much later.

The lyrics are to the point and uncompromising. Something we don’t see in many other genres.

The songs are also so imperfect, and they do not care. They do not have pop perfection with verse, chorus,verse, chorus, bridge, and chorus. They just are.

3. The Common Theme: Is Life Worth Living?

Midwestern Emo songs have a common theme: Is life worth living? It sounds dark, and it sounds exactly what you would expect from Emo music. But it’s also what makes the genre so good. Is life worth living? This is a question many people find themself asking throughout their lives. How do we define meaning to our own lives? Is it being successful? Is it being famous? Is it being loved? Will it matter if we all end up dead anyway? Midwestern Emo asks those hard-hitting questions, and sometimes they give us an answer. A lot of the time, the people they interact with in their lives, who show up as stars in the songs, are what make life worth living. In another favourite of mine, The Weekend by Modern Baseball, they sing “Most of my old friends I can't stand for the weekend, but that doesn’t apply here”. When old friends don’t make you feel good, the new ones will. They sing of the ease of friendship with some people and how hard it is with others. Helping the listener come to the conclusion that it is the people you can be around easily that make life worth living.

While you may still think midwestern Emo is whiny, I hope you reconsider next time one of the songs pops up on your for you page and you deem it your “guilty pleasure”. Because there’s nothing guilty about it, Midwestern Emo is good.