5 Things Everyone Gets Wrong About Midwest Emo

It's time to dispel some myths about Midwest emo and I want to be the person who does it.

If there was ever a "scene" that I was part of, it was the Midwest emo scene of the late 1990s.

There wasn't much in terms of local music growing up at that time in a small central Illinois town with a population under 2,000. But when Midwest emo bands started playing places within a short drive from my house (Davenport, Iowa; and Champaign, Urbana, Bloomington and Normal, Illinois), I finally felt like I had found my crowd.

The music was slightly more complex than the pop-punk I had been listening to at the time, not to mention it was way more accessible both physically and lyrically. I mean, how many times do you think I rolled into the skate parks or hit up the suburban shopping malls referenced in the pop-punk songs I was listening to? My hometown didn't even have a McDonald's — or any chain restaurant — for that matter.

READ MORE: 11 Best Midwest Emo Albums From the 1990s

Since then, I have enjoyed watching how Midwest emo has evolved through the years. But I feel there have been some misconceptions about the genre as it has continued to reach a wider audience over time.

Here are five things everyone gets wrong about Midwest emo music.

1. Emo Didn't Start With Midwest Emo

Depending on who you ask, we are currently on either our fourth or fifth wave of emo music.

The current iteration leans heavily toward being a post-Midwest emo revival. Bands such as Carly Cosgrove, Michael Cera Palin and Harrison Gordon, pushing the previous wave's true emo revival into new territory.

But while all this attention is being paid to Midwest emo in particular, the style shouldn't be mistakenly credited with starting the entire emo music genre.

Midwest emo is widely considered to be the second wave of emo. The first wave of emo music had a punk lean and featured bands such as Washington, D.C.'s Rites of Spring and San Diego's Drive Like Jehu in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Rites of Spring, "For Want Of"

2. Midwest Emo Didn't Start With American Football

It's an emo band from the Midwest whose most popular album and subsequent albums all feature photos of a house that happened to be in the same region. Of course, American Football are the founding fathers of Midwest emo, right?

The reality is, there was plenty of Midwest emo before anyone ever heard the opening chords to "Never Meant."

My introduction to Midwest emo was discovering Milwaukee's The Promise Ring opening for alternative rock act Hum in the late 1990s. From there, I discovered the band's vocalist/guitarist Davey von Bohlen had previously been in another influential emo act, Cap'n Jazz.

Oh, and the drummer of that band, Mike Kinsella, would go on to form American Football, but as a singer and guitarist rather than sitting behind his drum kit.

The Promise Ring, "Red & Blue Jeans"

American Football didn't even make it as a band for much more than a year after the release of their first LP in 1999, when its members parted ways. Their influence, however, would continue to grow, leading to the band reforming in 2014 and finally putting out a second LP in 2016.

While American Football's influence on Midwest emo is undeniable, there were several other acts that helped shape the genre's sound in its early days.

3. American Football Never Lived in The House on Their Album Cover

While we're on the subject of American Football, I'd also like to make it clear that the band never lived in the house at 704 High Street in Urbana, Illinois, that adorns the cover of their debut album.

The interior of the home just inside its front door is on the front of the band's 2016 follow-up as well.

Members of American Football did spend a couple of nights here and there at the home, which was a college-town rental at the time. But no one in the band had a fixed address there.

Today, the "American Football House" is owned by a group consisting of members of the band, Polyvinyl Records and photographers Chris Strong and Atiba Jefferson. Polyvinyl is the label behind the album, while Strong took the iconic photo and helped design its cover.

The home is currently listed as an Airbnb property.

4. It's Not Entirely a Midwest Thing

A popular meme shared among fans reads, "It's only Midwest emo if it comes from the Champaign-Urbana region of Illinois. Otherwise, it's just sparking whine."

The line is a nod to the music scene in Champaign and Urbana and a take on how the celebratory drink should only be called "champagne" if it originated in the Champagne region of France. (Thanks, Wayne's World, for teaching me this.)

In the 1990s, centrally-located cities such as Kansas City (The Get Up Kids), Milwaukee (The Promise Ring) and Champaign-Urbana (Braid, American Football) were considered hotbeds of Midwest emo. But the Midwest emo revival of the 2010s reshaped how people view the geographic boundaries of the genre.

Pennsylvania, for instance, started to see its own Midwest emo scene around this time, thanks to bands such as Algernon Cadwallader, Glocca Morra and Modern Baseball. In New Jersey, it was Pinegrove and The Front Bottoms importing the emo sound of the central states.

Today, Midwest emo is more of a sound than emo music from a specific region. Which brings me to my next point...

5. Not All Emo Bands From the Midwest Are 'Midwest Emo'

Look, I'm not the Midwest emo police here. I'm just a guy from Illinois who happened to spend a bunch of time and money going to emo shows in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

I am, however, comfortable saying that just because you are an emo band from the Midwest doesn't mean you are a "Midwest emo band" — it's like how all squares are technically rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares.

Fall Out Boy have been considered by some to be "emo," but there is absolutely no way they should ever carry the "Midwest emo" label. I'm not being elitist, it's just their music is nowhere near the Midwest emo sound.

Fellow Chicago act Alkaline Trio would be another one. The emotional lyrics are there, but the guitar and drum parts are closer to punk rock than true Midwest emo.

And let's be honest, Midwest emo is less about wearing black while being moody and more about wearing plaid, sweaters and jeans while being socially awkward, like most true Midwesterners living in the sticks.

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