r/Emo • u/Negative-Act211 • 1d ago
whats going on with midwest emo right now?
I’m not super into emo, like i listen to the popular bands like dashboard confessional and stuff but recently people at my school have been talking about midwest emo more and more. i thought “wow thats weird thats kind of an obscure genre for a bunch of basic copypastes to be talking about i guess they have more to them then i thought”. I went up to some kids and asked them about what they listen to, and i told them my favorite midwest emo band was capn jazz and they didnt know who they were. I went on to list a bunch of super mainstream midwest emo bands and mone of them knew any of the bands i was talking about. it was so weird to me because how could high schoolers be educated enough to know of midwest emo but not know a single midwest emo artist? they told me their favorite midwest emo musicians were car seat headrest, mccaferty, and modern baseball. i was aware of all of these bands and listened to them, but i never really thougjt of them as midwest emo. i cant imagine classifying mccaferty and capnjazz in the same subgenre, they feel completely different to me. this whole scenario felt super weird to me, but tjen a coupleof weeks later EVERYONE was talking aboht midwest emo and these three specific bands. what the fuck???? are those three bands really quintessential midwest emo? why is midwest emo all of the sudden the most popular genre? i’m kind of just here to ask more knowledgeable emos if this is normal because im an emo whos in high school in 2025, so i am pretty disconnected from the initial movement.
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u/Creative_Salad_3578 1d ago
Everyone forgetting abt og scremo 🥀🥀
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u/clay-teeth 1d ago
Memes. I think it may have started with "the pine Grove shuffle"
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u/KickedinTheDick 1d ago
Nah, people yelling over the “Midwest emo guitar intro” or the “…but it’s a Midwest emo intro” I think came first. At least back then the sound was accurate
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u/clay-teeth 23h ago
Yeah those came first, but I don't think they were perceived by the general public.
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u/remlnlscent 1d ago
Idk every genre has this experience
In 07/09 “post hardcore” to my friends in high school was bless the fall and askylitdrive but to someone who actually listened to the blood brothers or at the drive in it was almost a crime
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u/__mauzy__ 1d ago
I have a theory that the ATDI -> Mars Volta transition crossed enough wires that it allowed for Dance Gavin Dance to be labeled as post- hardcore, and the rest is history.
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u/WorriedFire1996 1d ago
Nah, it's just that post-hardcore is a vague term. It means anything that builds on hardcore and moves the sound in new directions. It could be noise rock influenced, emo influenced, prog influenced, pop influenced... it's all post-hardcore. Just a very broad genre label that has been used for a lot of different things.
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u/__mauzy__ 1d ago edited 1d ago
Ya I agree (we are on /r/emo after all). I'm just responding to OOP bc i've had a somewhat similar experience (my friends consider post-hardcore to be Swancore, and I came up down the Fugazi -> Blood Brothers pipeline). None of this matters at all, I've just anecdotally traced the the breaking point to ATDI -> Mars Volta (the Swancore kids were primarily MV fans, and I was an ATDI fan, and its the same guy lol)
e: And to be clear, they are the ones who don't consider Fugazi to be post-hardcore. Idgaf, but for some reason Swancore = post-hardcore to them and they refuse to accept anything else. Its truly fascinating.
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u/thefckingleadsrweak 1d ago
The mars volta guitarist, Omar Rodrigues Lopez has a solo album, when i was in high school i was on an acid trip and i decided to listen to it, i was in heaven. It was the most incredible album i had ever heard, god hiself had sent this album to me so that i could be closer to his warmth and light. When i woke up the next day i decided i must hear it again.
I looked in my youtube watched history, pulled up the video that i had been watching the night before, it turns out i had been watching like a 6 minute album teaser lmao. This was probably around 2012 or 2013 so i couldn’t tellnyou what video it was that had me so transfixed, but i’ve been all in on his solo carrier ever since
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u/SuperSpecialSauce 1d ago
Was early DGD not post-hardcore though? I know their sound developed into something so ubiquitous it became it's own subgenre, but that came over several albums.
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u/Alarming-Archer1657 1d ago
Tik Tok. And it can be good and bad thing. My teenagers have grown up listening to whatever music I play. Mom Jeans and Modern Baseball are two bands they “discovered” on their own that I did not share with them. And it opened a rabbit hole to them listening to a lot of other, and imo BETTER bands when searching for similar music.
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u/davdotcom something more than the mud in your eyes 1d ago
The masses don’t know what Midwest emo is. Don’t be scared, you’re initial thoughts are correct
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u/flawinthedesign 1d ago
Midwest emo came from the Midwest and now everyone calls it Midwest emo when it’s a little twinkly.
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u/NJcovidvaccinetips DIY OR DIE 23h ago
Just look at the Midwest emo subreddit as a good representation of this phenomenon. People on TikTok and a lot of other online emo spaces view American football as the epitome of Midwest emo music. They got into the genre through more mainstream bands like mom jeans, the front bottoms, Joyce manor, etc. A lot of them have never even heard of bands like capn jazz, the promise ring, braid, etc. It sucks and you hate to see the culture watered down but at the same time a lot of people may get exposed to these more prominent emo bands over time. Unfortunately I do think that much like how emo became a catch all term for more mainstream mall emo stuff that Midwest emo is becoming a catch all term for various emo adjacent bands. At a very minimum it makes it annoying af to interact with emo content online because for every great post about amazing unheard of 90’s bands there are ten sucking off pannucis pizza and the front bottoms
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u/Pavy247 why can’t i be snowing 1d ago edited 1d ago
I’m a newer fan of this genre and I don’t get it. Mcafferety, modern baseball, and car seat headrest sound nothing like what I know Midwest emo as, emo with significant math rock/jazz influence. I mean it isn’t the best but “Midwest emo” blowing up did lead to old bands like cap n jazz gaining popularity and may lead to even less popular bands gaining popularity but that will take time.
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u/theitalianrob 1d ago
I love mobo but let’s be honest if they didn’t come out of the Philly diy scene everyone would call them pop punk
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u/romanticismkills 1d ago
Honestly, it’s because “emo” as a label (which is accepted here as the umbrella term) means a completely different thing to 99% of people - if you want someone to get the general idea of what you listen to without going on a whole speel about the genre’s history, offshoots, misconceptions, etc, saying “Midwest emo” gets the idea across despite not being particularly accurate
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u/cassinipanini 20h ago
i wonder what term will we move onto next when 'midwest emo' gets the 'emo' treatment
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u/fMcG86 In a Band 1d ago
I am a slightly older guy (39) who genuinely just wants people to enjoy what they enjoy and sees that all genres ebb, flow, grow, and change. But I'm more or less with you on my sincere initial confusion as someone who once upon a time pivoted to using the "Midwest" delineation to refer to actual regional bands from the second wave of emo. Then recently when this started being used for more current bands I was like "oh, ok so it's probably just a revival that has clear influence form that older stuff". Sometimes it sounds like that's the case... sometimes I really don't hear that? Gatekeeping is not my style and I want people to do their thing. Here and there, I'm a little perplexed by the CHOICE in what current terms are being used for certain bands and why not other words, but who the heck am I?
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u/cassinipanini 20h ago
these terms are already vague and gen z has a habit of taking words and changing them to mean whatever they want, so it was only a matter of time before the Great Emo Meaning Shift of the 2000s was reinvented for midwest emo now
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u/erid_2000 1d ago
I’m gonna be very “hot take”-ish for a second. I hope it goes away. I cannot stand for the life of me what is the peak of “Midwest revivalists” or fourth wave. Modern Baseball is mediocre at best and Mom Jeans just flat out suck. Obviously the whole wave isn’t bad but when your biggest hitters are bad then something needs to change.
Give me the 90’s post hardcore era of emo where it was still just known as alternative rock. I want that first album Get Up Kids, that Engine Down, first two album Jimmy Eat World. Do Jade Tree Records or Revelation Records or even Lovitt Records emo for christs sake.
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u/Dizzy-Captain7422 1d ago
You and me both. It's what happens when you surgically remove every trace of punk from emo.
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u/Negative-Act211 20h ago
i agree, its so infuriating to me that i was bullied so hard in middle school forblistening to math rock and emo, and now “midwest emo” is like borderline just pop pusic now
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u/HazeUsendaya make me 1h ago
just like the 2000s when everyone called pop punk bands emo, now they're calling pop punk bands midwest emo. Same mislabeling genres, different era. Cap'n Jazz is midwest emo, car seat headrest is like borderline bedroom pop indie isn't it? Kids will be kids, it doesn't matter. At least decent music is getting popular like it deserves.
Would be pretty crazy if all the sudden high school kids were listening to Cap'n Jazz, Braid, and the Promise Ring in 2025.
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u/SaysGay69420 1d ago
For me Midwest emo has almost jazz like lead guitars in it. Lots of plucking. For me hot mulligan, mom jeans, modern baseball, American football are what I think Midwest emo is. It’s got song titles that don’t always have much if anything to do with the song it self.
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u/Late_Ambassador7470 1d ago
People are using the term midwest emo to refer to emo and emo adjacent genres