MUSIC

THE PUNK YEARNING OF THE MIDWESTERN SOUL

why the midwest needs its pop punk

By Emrys Hiatt

We know what you need, midwest punks!

“Attention, attention! May I have all your eyes and ears…” the debut full-length album of Chicago’s own The Academy Is... , begins, immediately followed with an emblazoned cry about worst case scenarios playing out amongst rooms full of all too familiar faces. The lyrics themselves are unique to the band, but they are not at all a unique mentality to listeners, genre, or even location. In fact their message -- one of nostalgic-fueled frustration for a landscape that seems simultaneously empty and claustrophobic -- is one addressed by Fall Out Boy, Screeching Weasels, Powerspace, The Atari’s, and The Hush Sound. Aside from having arbitrarily long and cobbled together names, these powerhouses of pop punk music have one major thing in common that few pay attention to. They all originate from the Midwest. So what is it about these fly over states that encourages such a bracing message that has lasted over 40 years and still continues without any signs of losing strength?

First off we need to establish context. For the sake of this discussion we need to address what exactly the Midwest is. While the National Census Bureau includes Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin, let it be noted that (in a decision that may anger quite a few folks) I am placing a defining boundary along Highway 29, effectively removing the Dakota’s, Kansas, and Nebraska. Your contributions have been noted, but you are not moving on to the next round of our bracket. Sorry.

The boundary has been set

Second, it would be dishonest to pretend that Pop-Punk was born and bred exclusively in the Midwest. Anyone who is in the scene would be quick to point out that there are numerous highly successful and perhaps more notable bands sprouting from all corners of the nation (and even outside—I’m looking at you Avril Lavigne.) While it’s certainly true that there have been a number of incredibly influential bands in the punk and pop punk, none show up with such concentration as those found in the midwestern states. This collection, by the way, is being stacked against media production powerhouses Los Angeles and New York City, both of which have a long standing entertainment industry so well established that their names are synonymous with stardom wet dreams.

What is it about the Midwest that attracts Pop Punk specifically? The culture of the midwest is hinged entirely upon this idea of staying put and staying the same. Indiana specifically prides itself on it’s stubbornness. The backbone of the midwest is labor and farm work -- a far cry from the rushing glamor of NYC or Los Angeles. Even Chicago, the 3rd largest city by population in the United States, doesn’t quite feel like a city a mile out. Buildings are old and paint peels. Things aren’t always broken, but they are old and worn. It’s the sort of aesthetic that wealthy kitsch has been trying to capture by calling it “rustic”. It’s what residents who are being honest would call worn down.

Some paint would be nice

For a young teenager or adult, these sorts of things are stifling. Passing into the cities of the midwest, everything takes on the same beige hues. The classrooms, straight out of a movie scene, are often built with long term durability in mind over utility and comfort. Between the fluorescent lighting, windows that won’t open more than 2 inches and cinder block walls, children quite literally grow up in buildings outfitted with the same design concepts as prisons.

With arts programs plummeting across the board, students turn to music to find some sort of escape, and Pop Punk, which is consistent in its lyricism of feeling of being an outcast in any situation, in wanting desperately to move forward when everything else seems to be pulling you back to stay in the same place until you’ve grown into a mold made by the generations before. “With so little sleep you’d think I’d find some peace in my dreams/but my mind still winds up on the same thing, the same scene, the same theme” (powerspace’s “Sleep Now”), and “I wait for the day to come/where I'll wake up and be a star/I dream of a different world/Where we will go far (The Ataris, “Hey Kid”).

Looking for difference?

Ironically this message of feeling isolated and disconnected from anyone else surrounding is one that’s widely spread. You would be hard pressed to toss a stone in a high school and not hit a student who hadn’t actively listened to pop punk when they were feeling their lowest. What’s most interesting to me about the Pop Punk scene, is that interest and connection doesn’t fade. And this is something that’s intricately connected to the lyrics and the music which almost understand that these feeling would be felt over a long period of time. “Why bitch about my life/Why bitch about this scene/Why hate this f*ckin town/And wish it was all a dream” (The Ataris “Hey Kid”), and “So I just dove right in/I felt at home, I felt alive I felt that I fit in/So I'll just keep dreaming” ( Carry me Home The Hush Sound).

What separates the pop punk scene and what makes it unique to the midwest is the culture itself. What does someone in Los Angeles or New York City really understand about being confined to a small town with the same faces? If you’re willing to travel an hour, or even two, you’re still in a metropolitan area that has thousands of opportunities for expression, for growth and different cultures. That doesn’t mean that they’re perfect or without their own issues, but feeling cookie cutter isn’t one of them. The people, the buildings, the restaurants all change. An hour or two away from Chicago and you hit farmland or modular homes. An hour away from that? The same scene.

Skip over to Indiana, to Ohio, to Michigan, to Missouri, to the many anywheres. Outside of the city limits, and even sometimes within them, and you’ll feel the strange ennui of being on your own home block and still not feeling safe or happy. It’s like a drug that sinks in: the longer you stay, the more you don’t care about it anymore until you’re also blending in with everyone else in the crowd. “Hey Suburbia, we’re in love with you and we won't end up like you want us to be/but so what 'cause we're always gonna be happy” (Screeching Weasels Hey Suburbia).

The signs are all there

If you’re in the Midwest and you look around, you might find yourself having trouble even finding your own family in a crowd, where everyone has the same haircuts and shirts. This is what makes the cry for individualism so uniquely midwestern, and in turn what makes the Midwest the perfect breeding ground for Pop Punk listeners and creators. Even in the center of Chicago’s metropolitan area, the creeping sensation of a sleepy suburban or rural town is within sight and grasp, and it will get to you like a siren’s call if you can’t tune it out. Pop Punk is the drunk sad sailor, crooning loudly and sometimes off key, who keeps you focussed until you can escape the shaky waves to something more exciting and real.

Jumping back to lyrics and personality… It would be a pop punk sin not to really look into Fall Out Boy. Arguably one of the most iconic bands of Pop Punk, Fall Out Boy (Abbreviated FOB) have set the tone for the entire genre for over a decade. Ironically when they entered the scene, they were largely criticized for entering an “over saturated and unwanted market”. It didn’t stop them from producing, and in 2005 they released their best selling record From Under the Cork Tree. From that point on every album they sold held a solid spot in Billboard’s top 200, most times in the top 20. Song 1, cheekily named “Our Lawyer Made Us Change the Name of This Song So We Wouldn't Get Sued” is lyrically powerful. Leading into the chorus, frontman Patrick Stump sings, “It’s just past eigh, and I’m feeling young and reckless.” One might say that this is the paradigmatic feeling of the entire album and the entire genre.

Yeah, I'm SCREAMING, too!

The second track, “Of all the Gin and Tonic in this Joint” continues the youthful abandon of trying to feel something: “We’re making out inside crashed cars, we’re sleeping through all our memories.” FOB chases after the classic rock scene, the fun and recklessness that comes from fame. Yet at the same time they still feel the fog of suburbia, of spending so much time chasing after the next thing that you don’t realize the moments you’ve just lived are over. This voice of nostalgic romanticism of hating the things you love, of being stuck in one place even when moving forward is iconic and crucial. And I would add again: the feeling of living and dying in the midwest.

That foggy romanticism is captured beautifully in The Academy Is…”s song, After the Last Midtown Show from their Album “Fast Times at Barrington High” (both a callback to the similarly named 80’s film, and their own true high school). William Beckett, frontman of TAI croons over a soft electric guitar melody of stolen moments behind corner stores and waking up with perfect gentleness, all while trying to preserve the moment without being caught by parents. “Right here, the best days of our lives/Is this coincidence or a sign? …. Tell me if I’m wrong, but why would we change a thing?”

That it, until it does

At the end of the day, when everyone is running from the sticky cloud of midwestern complacency, there’s also a longing for the safety and comfort, even from bands that have never experienced it in the first place. Those who came from those sleepy flyover states know there's a lot left to be desired. But the beauty of it is found in small pockets of beauty, the stolen moments in everyday places, the interpersonal problems you can’t escape when you have to eat, sleep and breath in the same neighborhood, and the heart-wrenching emotional tears that leave you feeling broken, but at least leave you feeling something. All of it adds up to the iconic sound and feeling of the midwest and pop punk. Those feelings are one and the same, and they don’t go away, no matter if you’re still there, or thousands of miles away. Those feelings are what raised you andmolded you into your being. And pop punk gave it all a voice.

©Emrys Hiatt and the CCA Arts Review