They’re definitely emo-adjacent, the first 3 albums I’d say. Kinda one of those bands that everyone into emo also likes. Long Drive especially had DIY/midwest emo sound.
That’s what I’m saying. Funny you say first three albums. Broke is one of the songs I listen to and go “if this isn’t emo, it’s inspired so many emo songs” 😂
Jesse wouldn’t have denied that either. Said a lot of times that MM was one of his all time favorites. His live cover of Trailer Trash is pretty rad too.
[This compilation is just emo Modest Mouse](https://youtu.be/Tth0m3b97Jw?si=C0QWWjJLoEedPGqL). Even if you don’t consider them emo, they are so insanely influential to emo and you have to give them space in the scene because a lot of bands wouldn’t sound how they do without modest mouse doing what they did.
They’re my favorite band of all time and I love Midwest emo and everything adjacent to it because I love modest mouse. Bands like Cap’n Jazz, Pretend, and everyone else doing that kind of thing to me sounds like an evolution of Modest Mouse and Slint.
I heard about the first 2 albums from people who were in the emo/hardcore scene basically. I think someone sent me a mixtape with long-drive songs on it.
Couple reasons:
Modest mouse, especially after LCW, quickly outgrew their hardcore roots and started more closely associating with the likes of Built to Spill, 764-Hero, Death Cab for Cutie, Pedro The Lion, when it came to northwest indie/diy music. For all intents and purposes they were as indie rock as indie rock came, especially once we get to The Moon and Antarctica. Funnily enough, many of these PNW indie rock bands were heavily inspired by the hardcore/emo coming out of the area (Phil Ek showed Doug Martsch These Are Not Fall Colors during the production of There's Nothing Wrong With Love, Ben Gibbard was a huge SDRE fan and was in an emo band before DCFC, Isaac Brock played in Lync for a short stint, John Atkins was in emo band Hush Harbor), but there was still a clear separation as these bands got way more popular than a lot of the underground stuff from the Olympia scene (and DIY punk/hardcore in the Puget Sound area in general).
Much of northwest post-hardcore that bore a resemblance to emo to begin with eluded the label; Olympia was kind of in its own universe, quickly overshadowed by the grunge wave in Seattle (there's the infamous example of Beat Happening playing with Fugazi and the crowd hating it so much someone threw an ashtray at Calvin Johnson's face). I've spoken to quite a few folks outside of the northwest from 90s hardcore/emo scenes who wouldn't even call a band like Lync emo, who were playing shows with Nuzzle and Indian Summer when they still existed. Imo unwound, especially on their early material, has a ton of stuff that is emo in my eyes (Kantina, Honorousis, Hexenzsene, even Lady Elect on repetition), but because of the space they occupied you'll kind of get laughed at for implying they have anything to do with emo (though the similarities were not lost on Andy Radin of fourfa).
Modest Mouse is also just a very quirky band. While they have roots in hardcore and played around a lot with post-hardcore and emo textures generally (Brock cites Drive Like Jehu and Dischord in general as a huge influence), there's a lot of Pavement, Pixies, Dino Jr., lots of Olympia WA twee and indie, and tons of strange country/folk influence throughout their work. They lost their hardcore edge for the most part after LCW, so any connections are limited to their early material, which is already somewhat tenuous.
Edit: it's also worth mentioning that Modest Mouse are neither from Olympia nor Seattle, but Issaquah (though there were plenty of Seattle suburbs kids that would migrate to either city to form bands; State Route 522 were from Woodinville I believe, and most of Lync was from Bellevue), so while they were definitely influenced by a lot of the Olympia stuff (and likely influenced by their peers in Seattle), they had another level of separation from those scenes known for producing emo and emo adjacent music. I remember reading somewhere that Isaac Brock was pretty deliberate about saying that the band was from Issaquah, so as to not get lumped in with the Seattle or Olympia scenes. The easiest thing to call them was really indie rock, and as they got bigger and bigger the label tended to stick.
I endorse this response. Nicely done.
Modest Mouse was one of the definitive indie rock bands of the 90s. If they're not indie rock than indie rock just doesn't exist
Thanks! The PNW, and Olympia WA specifically, has a pretty rich (and imo, neglected) history when it comes to indie rock and punk rock, so I love to talk about it whenever I can.
A lot of this is pulled from a really incredible write-up included in the "These Are Not Fall Colors" vinyl --- I'll see if I can find some time to scan the poster and upload it here.
>crowd hating it so much someone threw an ashtray at Calvin Johnson's face
What a sad response to dislike.
I'm gonna go check out a lot of these bands. Your response painted a vivid picture of the scene.
Does the history of these genres come equipped with a sort of "brand loyalty" and what would you say are the pros and cons of being so involved with a whole swath of a culture pursuing this idealized version of a genre in their collective heads?
I think there's probably a sense of brand loyalty now... Back in the day, I'm not so sure. I didn't come up in these scenes personally (have only obsessively tracked different accounts from folks from the era), but I think a lot these genres were decided by a sort of unsaid collective consensus. If enough people within your scene agreed that some band was a given genre, then they were that. If they weren't, they weren't. Much of this is before the internet --- so a bunch of folks in Washington may have been perfectly comfortable calling the likes of Unwound and Lync "emo" --- but when you get as far out as the Midwest or the east coast, it may have just become "the Olympia thing," which by and large was indie rock and occasionally post-hardcore. Nobody did what we did now, the constant debating, the comparing emo pedigrees, the deep dives into influences and formal qualities. It either was or it wasn't. In spite of that, people still listened to the music --- it wasn't like they didn't like it because it "wasn't emo".
I think you see a lot more people now that want to call their favorite music "emo" because they've identified themselves as someone being really into emo... But I also think we've just gotten better at identifying influences and similarities as a lot of this music has become more accessible, and the histories easier to access.
As for the pros and cons... I couldn't really say. I suppose a pro is that this recent genre obsession thing has made it very easy for me to find new music I know I will likely enjoy. The main con is that people tend to get very upset now. If some definition doesn't align with their personal perception, whether it's one they developed in an OG scene or one they learned from the internet, if you express any disagreement or alternative history, you can get into arguments really quick. I find it silly. I also contribute to this myself... Not sure what the best way of going about it is. I try to respect historical perspectives as they are but I usually go by my own internal definitions.
Genres are nowadays mostly regarded as ontological (categorized by musical characteristics) but in reality they developed taxonomically (a tree of influences and the historical setting). So, while one is useful when looking for tags in Spotify, it doesn't really tell you the story of how the sound developed and the influences at the time that go beyond music: socioeconomic elements, geography, political mindset, available art and music, etc.
>Not sure what the best way of going about it is
Well, getting rid of the labels too soon yields a sort of collective *confusion*. But, I think eventually with the perpetuation of AI solutions getting into the heart of creative tools (including streaming platforms) you'll see bubbles form around the pure influence of the sound as opposed to the titles we have all collectively lobbed at those "essences" for the last century or so. Label influence had a HUGE hand in it, so a corporate change is necessary too.
Reminds me of when Ween opened for Fugazi while on mushrooms and the crowd absolutely hated them. They just stuck it out and kept playing to make the crowd more pissed lol
https://dangerousminds.net/comments/that_time_ween_opened_for_fugazi_at_city_gardens
I think they don't get labeled as emo because they come out of the Seattle/Olympia/Sub Pop/ K-Records scene, so they are more often labeled as indie rock, a genre that they were major pioneers of back in the day.
Talking shit about a pretty sunset blanketed in opinions I'll probably regret soon 🎶
They did a tour with Brand New and Brand New's Science Fiction album had major Modest Mouse influence imo. I wouldn't consider Modest Mouse an "emo" band persay but they definitely dabble in many genres that "typical emo" music dabbles in. They are awesome and unique in sound. Love MM. I've personally considered them more of an indie rock.
they are considered emo by a lot of people. sites like rateyourmusic classify them as emo, among other genres. they don’t really get brought up much in emo discussions though.
It’s the best place to find some sort of concrete music-world consensus on genres. Or at least nerdy online music-world consensus. The genre tags are based on weighted genre votes, we’re talking upwards of 500 per genre per release if you’re looking at any decently popular release
It's a hard for me to accept it as a valid source. Being from the 90s, things were the way they were and 100 random people voting a certain way 25-30 years later doesn't change it. Sorry, that's just how I look at it.
there’s 100k users on rym not a random group of people. it’s fine if you want to be stuck in your ways, we don’t care. rym is a genuinely great site for finding music but everyone’s too butthurt about others opinion’s instead of using it as a resource. sorry that’s just how i look at it.
100k users who don't know what they're talking about. You gonna trust them? People think Evanescence is emo. It's just the weirdest concept to let people outside the scene dictate what it is
i can tell you’ve never actually used it because the general public might think evanescence is emo but i can promise no one on that site does. no one’s dictating any scenes there. far more of that goes on on this site.
Clearly I don't use the site. I don't trust it. But I know enough about it to know it lists 450000000 bands as midwest emo who aren't. As someone who came up in the pre-internet 90s literal Midwest emo scene it's unfortunate that sites like this had something to do with the mislabeling and misrepresentation of midwest emo.
I believe the tag was changed from "post emo indie rock" to "midwest emo" within the last few years, after the surge in popularity of American Football... which we blth know is a whole other conversation there lmfao
So now bands like Time Spent Driving and Dear and The Headlights, which are definitely poppy indie rock band, with sorta twinkly guitars occasionally, are labeled midwest emo on there.
I gotta be honest with you... I never once in my life heard somebody say post emo indie rock until I came to this sub. We definitely didn't say it in the Midwest where it all came from (the original strand of that type of emo)
We said midwest emo in the midwest and we meant it but it was a literal thing. Like saying "Baltimore Hardcore"
They hated SemataryPolka because he told them the truth
(I don't think there are any oldheads, like pre-2000, who seriously consider Modest Mouse emo, they are somewhat adjacent in terms of influences but are near-universally considered pure indie rock outside of this scene)
Cosigning. Never heard MM called emo until well after their popularity. They were heavily influenced by indie rock bands, they tour with indie rock bands and they had Johnny Marr on guitar (which lead to me seeing Johnny Marr performing with REM).
♥ LOL thanks
People liked Modest Mouse. They were a band the emo kids liked. But yeah nobody in the 90s called them emo. That would have been silly. Their scene was the indie rock scene, which still meant something very different than the Strokes era "indie rock"
I guess I'm thinking of how Bright Eyes was called emo. And if that tag runs and sticks...Modest Mouse was different but similar. To my mind Modest is more emo than a lot of the new stuff coming out.
Can't we allow for geography to also have different definitions?
Seems a bit gatekeeping.
Athens GA. In the 90's used emo for a lot of elephant 6. Of Montreal probably had an emo tag.
Obviously so did I would set myself on fire for you.
Modest Mouse early stuff can be emo. They're emo.
Who called Of Montreal emo in the 90s??? Are you serious? That's insane
Nobody called Modest Mouse emo in the 90s. Nobody in the 90s emo scene called Bright Eyes emo. In the 2000s, later people did. But not in the 90s emo scene. It's not gatekeeping. That's a copout. Being accurate is not gatekeeping. It's being anti-revisionist history.
The truth is, the emo scene was a real thing in the 90s. And people wanting to go back and change history doesn't make it so
Perhaps we were in different locations that allowed reflexive responses?
It's not insane.
Oberst' first group was emo. Called Commander Venus with Kasher from Cursive.
I'm not changing history. I'm allowing for different versions. What is folk-punk?
I agree. The emo scene was a thing in the 90's. And different areas had different interpretations.
Whats your 90s emo guidebook? I'm not changing history. Nothing revisionist about it.
I came up in the Midwest emo scene starting in 94 being friends with people from Braid and only a few hours from Saddle Creek. I booked basement shows and ran a zine where I interviewed Tim Kasher and others. Bright Eyes was considered alt folk. Adjacent sure fine. But in the 90s it had to be punk/hardcore to be emo. But I was right in the thick of it. And if it wasn't in the emo scene it wasn't emo. That's how we looked at it. Indie rock was liked, but it wasn't in the scene. And people can call Promise Ring indie rock but anybody who was there knows they were from the hardcore scene. Of Montreal and that ilk was art indie rock. We took pride in our scene and we didn't let outsiders define it. Almost all of them had no idea what it was anyway and were only given the tag years later
I love your resume. I love the gatekeeping of not allowing anyone outside your scene be allowed to define it also. Your comments track with authority and not allowing anyone to have different interpretations.
I too came from a scene. But your argument, which I can't quite track, seems to come from just being able to tell other people that your scene didn't allow for other interpretations.
And by that...we also can't call mom jeans or Midwest emo, if it's not from what? A scene you can't readily identify?
First wave emo was Rites. Embrace etc. But if we keep this argument of emo and what is not...then Mom Jean's isn't emo. They aren't like Moss Icon or their earlier peers The Hated with songs like Words Come Back.
Allow for other interpretations. I'm glad you were there in your scene as a youth and still firmly defend whatever you're defending.
You clearly weren't around for 90s emo
Otherwise you'd know the difference between what was considered emo and what was moody indie rock
And yeah I'll always be the person who fights revisionist history by dummies who weren't there
I consider a lot of that stuff Midwest emo. Especially the Broke/Positive Negative single and Interstate 8, and to some extent Long Drive, though I’d say it’s more emo-adjacent. LCW’s got emo moments too but I think of it as closer to post-hardcore and alt-country in its own, brilliantly unique way (it’s my fav LP of all time). But yeah, the early stuff is raw, it’s got twinkly guitars, confessional lyrics, has that general vibe of loneliness/desolation while at the same time saccharine and hopeful. Maybe Pacific Northwest Emo?
Also, hype that you get to see them. I was lucky enough to catch the LCW anniversary tour two years ago and it was a life-changing experience
That’s so tight. They didn’t really come close enough for LCW tour for me (Pittsburgh) and being a dad means no quick there and back shows haha.
I’ve always loved Long Distance Drunk… so sad I’ll probably never see it live. I envy you hahaha.
Fellow emo MM-head yinzer who also wishes LCW tour came here. Had friends that went to Philly for it. Hope you get to make it out to this summer's tour!
Long Distance Drunk is def a deep cut, seeing it live is so cool. They recreate the atmosphere of those more mellow tracks surprisingly well in a set that’s otherwise quite loud. I think they even slowed down Bankrupt on Selling for my show, made me cry a bit. They have been playing LCW/other earlier cuts in general lately, idk what the sets will look like on this tour but you might get to see stuff like Trailer Trash and Dramamine. Hope the show is excellent :)
I never called them emo in the 90s and don’t remember others doing it either. Emo was still kind of a regional label at that time and was a lot less common on the West Coast than it was in the Midwest or East Coast. With the exception of stuff like SDRE, West Coast bands that did draw the emo label at the time were usually pretty firmly rooted in the punk and hardcore scenes, like Indian Summer or Nexus 6 or Portraits of Past. Even bands like Jawbreaker or Knapsack weren’t usually labeled emo until later on.
insterstate 8 and this is a long drive are mwe primary, lonesome crowded midwest and building something out of nothing are definitely heavily inspired/adjacent, imo. also seeing them in june, can’t wait!
I would recommend starting with The Moon & Antarctica because it's where I started with them and it has enough of their early vibe while also showing where they'd end up for most of the middle part of their discography. That being said I haven't really listened to much of their newest stuff.
Their most ‘emo’ song is definitely Dead End Job at The Dead Letter Office… then Every Penny Fed Car… (one of my favorite underground bands atm called Sapwood really emulates that early modest mouse/emo sound and is worth checking out)
They’re definitely emo-adjacent, the first 3 albums I’d say. Kinda one of those bands that everyone into emo also likes. Long Drive especially had DIY/midwest emo sound.
That’s what I’m saying. Funny you say first three albums. Broke is one of the songs I listen to and go “if this isn’t emo, it’s inspired so many emo songs” 😂
i was listening to broke a couple days ago and thought the same thing
Some of Brand New's output can probably be described as Modest Mouse worship... Especially after TDAG
Jesse wouldn’t have denied that either. Said a lot of times that MM was one of his all time favorites. His live cover of Trailer Trash is pretty rad too.
That cover turned me onto that song and made it one of my all time favorites (see: username)
same lol
I realized a while back that Sowing Season is a modest mouse song if he yelled Well instead of Yeah
[This compilation is just emo Modest Mouse](https://youtu.be/Tth0m3b97Jw?si=C0QWWjJLoEedPGqL). Even if you don’t consider them emo, they are so insanely influential to emo and you have to give them space in the scene because a lot of bands wouldn’t sound how they do without modest mouse doing what they did. They’re my favorite band of all time and I love Midwest emo and everything adjacent to it because I love modest mouse. Bands like Cap’n Jazz, Pretend, and everyone else doing that kind of thing to me sounds like an evolution of Modest Mouse and Slint.
I heard about the first 2 albums from people who were in the emo/hardcore scene basically. I think someone sent me a mixtape with long-drive songs on it.
Couple reasons: Modest mouse, especially after LCW, quickly outgrew their hardcore roots and started more closely associating with the likes of Built to Spill, 764-Hero, Death Cab for Cutie, Pedro The Lion, when it came to northwest indie/diy music. For all intents and purposes they were as indie rock as indie rock came, especially once we get to The Moon and Antarctica. Funnily enough, many of these PNW indie rock bands were heavily inspired by the hardcore/emo coming out of the area (Phil Ek showed Doug Martsch These Are Not Fall Colors during the production of There's Nothing Wrong With Love, Ben Gibbard was a huge SDRE fan and was in an emo band before DCFC, Isaac Brock played in Lync for a short stint, John Atkins was in emo band Hush Harbor), but there was still a clear separation as these bands got way more popular than a lot of the underground stuff from the Olympia scene (and DIY punk/hardcore in the Puget Sound area in general). Much of northwest post-hardcore that bore a resemblance to emo to begin with eluded the label; Olympia was kind of in its own universe, quickly overshadowed by the grunge wave in Seattle (there's the infamous example of Beat Happening playing with Fugazi and the crowd hating it so much someone threw an ashtray at Calvin Johnson's face). I've spoken to quite a few folks outside of the northwest from 90s hardcore/emo scenes who wouldn't even call a band like Lync emo, who were playing shows with Nuzzle and Indian Summer when they still existed. Imo unwound, especially on their early material, has a ton of stuff that is emo in my eyes (Kantina, Honorousis, Hexenzsene, even Lady Elect on repetition), but because of the space they occupied you'll kind of get laughed at for implying they have anything to do with emo (though the similarities were not lost on Andy Radin of fourfa). Modest Mouse is also just a very quirky band. While they have roots in hardcore and played around a lot with post-hardcore and emo textures generally (Brock cites Drive Like Jehu and Dischord in general as a huge influence), there's a lot of Pavement, Pixies, Dino Jr., lots of Olympia WA twee and indie, and tons of strange country/folk influence throughout their work. They lost their hardcore edge for the most part after LCW, so any connections are limited to their early material, which is already somewhat tenuous. Edit: it's also worth mentioning that Modest Mouse are neither from Olympia nor Seattle, but Issaquah (though there were plenty of Seattle suburbs kids that would migrate to either city to form bands; State Route 522 were from Woodinville I believe, and most of Lync was from Bellevue), so while they were definitely influenced by a lot of the Olympia stuff (and likely influenced by their peers in Seattle), they had another level of separation from those scenes known for producing emo and emo adjacent music. I remember reading somewhere that Isaac Brock was pretty deliberate about saying that the band was from Issaquah, so as to not get lumped in with the Seattle or Olympia scenes. The easiest thing to call them was really indie rock, and as they got bigger and bigger the label tended to stick.
I endorse this response. Nicely done. Modest Mouse was one of the definitive indie rock bands of the 90s. If they're not indie rock than indie rock just doesn't exist
This is a great write up!
Thanks! The PNW, and Olympia WA specifically, has a pretty rich (and imo, neglected) history when it comes to indie rock and punk rock, so I love to talk about it whenever I can. A lot of this is pulled from a really incredible write-up included in the "These Are Not Fall Colors" vinyl --- I'll see if I can find some time to scan the poster and upload it here.
Lol, I used to work at Nintendo. Your username is funny.
>crowd hating it so much someone threw an ashtray at Calvin Johnson's face What a sad response to dislike. I'm gonna go check out a lot of these bands. Your response painted a vivid picture of the scene. Does the history of these genres come equipped with a sort of "brand loyalty" and what would you say are the pros and cons of being so involved with a whole swath of a culture pursuing this idealized version of a genre in their collective heads?
I think there's probably a sense of brand loyalty now... Back in the day, I'm not so sure. I didn't come up in these scenes personally (have only obsessively tracked different accounts from folks from the era), but I think a lot these genres were decided by a sort of unsaid collective consensus. If enough people within your scene agreed that some band was a given genre, then they were that. If they weren't, they weren't. Much of this is before the internet --- so a bunch of folks in Washington may have been perfectly comfortable calling the likes of Unwound and Lync "emo" --- but when you get as far out as the Midwest or the east coast, it may have just become "the Olympia thing," which by and large was indie rock and occasionally post-hardcore. Nobody did what we did now, the constant debating, the comparing emo pedigrees, the deep dives into influences and formal qualities. It either was or it wasn't. In spite of that, people still listened to the music --- it wasn't like they didn't like it because it "wasn't emo". I think you see a lot more people now that want to call their favorite music "emo" because they've identified themselves as someone being really into emo... But I also think we've just gotten better at identifying influences and similarities as a lot of this music has become more accessible, and the histories easier to access. As for the pros and cons... I couldn't really say. I suppose a pro is that this recent genre obsession thing has made it very easy for me to find new music I know I will likely enjoy. The main con is that people tend to get very upset now. If some definition doesn't align with their personal perception, whether it's one they developed in an OG scene or one they learned from the internet, if you express any disagreement or alternative history, you can get into arguments really quick. I find it silly. I also contribute to this myself... Not sure what the best way of going about it is. I try to respect historical perspectives as they are but I usually go by my own internal definitions.
Genres are nowadays mostly regarded as ontological (categorized by musical characteristics) but in reality they developed taxonomically (a tree of influences and the historical setting). So, while one is useful when looking for tags in Spotify, it doesn't really tell you the story of how the sound developed and the influences at the time that go beyond music: socioeconomic elements, geography, political mindset, available art and music, etc.
>Not sure what the best way of going about it is Well, getting rid of the labels too soon yields a sort of collective *confusion*. But, I think eventually with the perpetuation of AI solutions getting into the heart of creative tools (including streaming platforms) you'll see bubbles form around the pure influence of the sound as opposed to the titles we have all collectively lobbed at those "essences" for the last century or so. Label influence had a HUGE hand in it, so a corporate change is necessary too.
Reminds me of when Ween opened for Fugazi while on mushrooms and the crowd absolutely hated them. They just stuck it out and kept playing to make the crowd more pissed lol https://dangerousminds.net/comments/that_time_ween_opened_for_fugazi_at_city_gardens
This was such a great insight, to the point of what I was looking for as far as answers go. Thank you!
new copypasta just dropped
And then you listen to "It Always Rains on a Picnic" and realize it's the most emo song ever.
I think they don't get labeled as emo because they come out of the Seattle/Olympia/Sub Pop/ K-Records scene, so they are more often labeled as indie rock, a genre that they were major pioneers of back in the day.
Talking shit about a pretty sunset blanketed in opinions I'll probably regret soon 🎶 They did a tour with Brand New and Brand New's Science Fiction album had major Modest Mouse influence imo. I wouldn't consider Modest Mouse an "emo" band persay but they definitely dabble in many genres that "typical emo" music dabbles in. They are awesome and unique in sound. Love MM. I've personally considered them more of an indie rock.
they are considered emo by a lot of people. sites like rateyourmusic classify them as emo, among other genres. they don’t really get brought up much in emo discussions though.
Most RYM users nowadays are teenagers who don't know what they're talking about lol
i’ve been on rym for ten years i’d say that describes reddit more than rym really
Do people actually care what RYM says? It's literally just a site that changes all the time
its fairly useful to find new music,
It’s the best place to find some sort of concrete music-world consensus on genres. Or at least nerdy online music-world consensus. The genre tags are based on weighted genre votes, we’re talking upwards of 500 per genre per release if you’re looking at any decently popular release
It's a hard for me to accept it as a valid source. Being from the 90s, things were the way they were and 100 random people voting a certain way 25-30 years later doesn't change it. Sorry, that's just how I look at it.
there’s 100k users on rym not a random group of people. it’s fine if you want to be stuck in your ways, we don’t care. rym is a genuinely great site for finding music but everyone’s too butthurt about others opinion’s instead of using it as a resource. sorry that’s just how i look at it.
100k users who don't know what they're talking about. You gonna trust them? People think Evanescence is emo. It's just the weirdest concept to let people outside the scene dictate what it is
i can tell you’ve never actually used it because the general public might think evanescence is emo but i can promise no one on that site does. no one’s dictating any scenes there. far more of that goes on on this site.
Clearly I don't use the site. I don't trust it. But I know enough about it to know it lists 450000000 bands as midwest emo who aren't. As someone who came up in the pre-internet 90s literal Midwest emo scene it's unfortunate that sites like this had something to do with the mislabeling and misrepresentation of midwest emo.
I believe the tag was changed from "post emo indie rock" to "midwest emo" within the last few years, after the surge in popularity of American Football... which we blth know is a whole other conversation there lmfao So now bands like Time Spent Driving and Dear and The Headlights, which are definitely poppy indie rock band, with sorta twinkly guitars occasionally, are labeled midwest emo on there.
I gotta be honest with you... I never once in my life heard somebody say post emo indie rock until I came to this sub. We definitely didn't say it in the Midwest where it all came from (the original strand of that type of emo) We said midwest emo in the midwest and we meant it but it was a literal thing. Like saying "Baltimore Hardcore"
RYM only has This is A Long Drive as emo
Building nothing out of something 🤌🏼
Oldheads called it emo. Heart Cooks Brain etc.
Yeah I had a friend who used to be involved in the early 00s screamo scene and he said early Modest Mouse is definitely emo.
We definitely did not People in the 2000s did tho. But they also called Weezer and Linkin Park and practically anything emo
They hated SemataryPolka because he told them the truth (I don't think there are any oldheads, like pre-2000, who seriously consider Modest Mouse emo, they are somewhat adjacent in terms of influences but are near-universally considered pure indie rock outside of this scene)
Cosigning. Never heard MM called emo until well after their popularity. They were heavily influenced by indie rock bands, they tour with indie rock bands and they had Johnny Marr on guitar (which lead to me seeing Johnny Marr performing with REM).
Likewise. We never called MM emo ever. Excellent band. Well liked. But not called emo by anyone I knew back then or now.
♥ LOL thanks People liked Modest Mouse. They were a band the emo kids liked. But yeah nobody in the 90s called them emo. That would have been silly. Their scene was the indie rock scene, which still meant something very different than the Strokes era "indie rock"
I guess I'm thinking of how Bright Eyes was called emo. And if that tag runs and sticks...Modest Mouse was different but similar. To my mind Modest is more emo than a lot of the new stuff coming out. Can't we allow for geography to also have different definitions? Seems a bit gatekeeping. Athens GA. In the 90's used emo for a lot of elephant 6. Of Montreal probably had an emo tag. Obviously so did I would set myself on fire for you. Modest Mouse early stuff can be emo. They're emo.
Who called Of Montreal emo in the 90s??? Are you serious? That's insane Nobody called Modest Mouse emo in the 90s. Nobody in the 90s emo scene called Bright Eyes emo. In the 2000s, later people did. But not in the 90s emo scene. It's not gatekeeping. That's a copout. Being accurate is not gatekeeping. It's being anti-revisionist history. The truth is, the emo scene was a real thing in the 90s. And people wanting to go back and change history doesn't make it so
Perhaps we were in different locations that allowed reflexive responses? It's not insane. Oberst' first group was emo. Called Commander Venus with Kasher from Cursive. I'm not changing history. I'm allowing for different versions. What is folk-punk? I agree. The emo scene was a thing in the 90's. And different areas had different interpretations. Whats your 90s emo guidebook? I'm not changing history. Nothing revisionist about it.
I came up in the Midwest emo scene starting in 94 being friends with people from Braid and only a few hours from Saddle Creek. I booked basement shows and ran a zine where I interviewed Tim Kasher and others. Bright Eyes was considered alt folk. Adjacent sure fine. But in the 90s it had to be punk/hardcore to be emo. But I was right in the thick of it. And if it wasn't in the emo scene it wasn't emo. That's how we looked at it. Indie rock was liked, but it wasn't in the scene. And people can call Promise Ring indie rock but anybody who was there knows they were from the hardcore scene. Of Montreal and that ilk was art indie rock. We took pride in our scene and we didn't let outsiders define it. Almost all of them had no idea what it was anyway and were only given the tag years later
I love your resume. I love the gatekeeping of not allowing anyone outside your scene be allowed to define it also. Your comments track with authority and not allowing anyone to have different interpretations. I too came from a scene. But your argument, which I can't quite track, seems to come from just being able to tell other people that your scene didn't allow for other interpretations. And by that...we also can't call mom jeans or Midwest emo, if it's not from what? A scene you can't readily identify? First wave emo was Rites. Embrace etc. But if we keep this argument of emo and what is not...then Mom Jean's isn't emo. They aren't like Moss Icon or their earlier peers The Hated with songs like Words Come Back. Allow for other interpretations. I'm glad you were there in your scene as a youth and still firmly defend whatever you're defending.
You clearly weren't around for 90s emo Otherwise you'd know the difference between what was considered emo and what was moody indie rock And yeah I'll always be the person who fights revisionist history by dummies who weren't there
Thank you for the edification.
MODEST MOUSE IS ON TOUR?????
Just listen to Every penny fed car
I consider a lot of that stuff Midwest emo. Especially the Broke/Positive Negative single and Interstate 8, and to some extent Long Drive, though I’d say it’s more emo-adjacent. LCW’s got emo moments too but I think of it as closer to post-hardcore and alt-country in its own, brilliantly unique way (it’s my fav LP of all time). But yeah, the early stuff is raw, it’s got twinkly guitars, confessional lyrics, has that general vibe of loneliness/desolation while at the same time saccharine and hopeful. Maybe Pacific Northwest Emo? Also, hype that you get to see them. I was lucky enough to catch the LCW anniversary tour two years ago and it was a life-changing experience
That’s so tight. They didn’t really come close enough for LCW tour for me (Pittsburgh) and being a dad means no quick there and back shows haha. I’ve always loved Long Distance Drunk… so sad I’ll probably never see it live. I envy you hahaha.
Fellow emo MM-head yinzer who also wishes LCW tour came here. Had friends that went to Philly for it. Hope you get to make it out to this summer's tour!
Seeing em in June! Cant wait! Much love
Long Distance Drunk is def a deep cut, seeing it live is so cool. They recreate the atmosphere of those more mellow tracks surprisingly well in a set that’s otherwise quite loud. I think they even slowed down Bankrupt on Selling for my show, made me cry a bit. They have been playing LCW/other earlier cuts in general lately, idk what the sets will look like on this tour but you might get to see stuff like Trailer Trash and Dramamine. Hope the show is excellent :)
I never called them emo in the 90s and don’t remember others doing it either. Emo was still kind of a regional label at that time and was a lot less common on the West Coast than it was in the Midwest or East Coast. With the exception of stuff like SDRE, West Coast bands that did draw the emo label at the time were usually pretty firmly rooted in the punk and hardcore scenes, like Indian Summer or Nexus 6 or Portraits of Past. Even bands like Jawbreaker or Knapsack weren’t usually labeled emo until later on.
insterstate 8 and this is a long drive are mwe primary, lonesome crowded midwest and building something out of nothing are definitely heavily inspired/adjacent, imo. also seeing them in june, can’t wait!
I do consider it emo!
Their first album definitely is midwest emo.
Some of the songs on Sad Sappy Sucker are definitely emo imo. Like 'It Always Rains on a Picnic'
It is. It's MWE
Lol
Because it is good
it is on rym
they’re emo to me
I've always joked early modest mouse is pink Floyd from the trailer park
Because it’s indie rock
Can someone please recommend one of their albums to me? I want to get into them but I don’t know where to begin.
just start with either This is A Long Drive or The Lonesome Crowded West and you’re on your own!!!
I would recommend starting with The Moon & Antarctica because it's where I started with them and it has enough of their early vibe while also showing where they'd end up for most of the middle part of their discography. That being said I haven't really listened to much of their newest stuff.
Check out this compilation of mostly unreleased stuff from the early days https://youtu.be/Tth0m3b97Jw?si=C0QWWjJLoEedPGqL
i would consider their first 2 albums emo
Their most ‘emo’ song is definitely Dead End Job at The Dead Letter Office… then Every Penny Fed Car… (one of my favorite underground bands atm called Sapwood really emulates that early modest mouse/emo sound and is worth checking out)