What is midwest emo? The essential albums, wave by wave

The bridge from post-hardcore into emo's second wave. Diary (1994, Sub Pop) gave the genre its dynamics — hushed verses detonating into soaring choruses — and Jeremy Enigk's strained tenor became the voice every emo singer inherited.

Chicago's Kinsella brothers played emo as joyful collapse: yelped non-sequiturs, songs falling over themselves. This 1998 compilation collects everything; half of midwest emo's later bands (American Football, Joan of Arc, Owen) trace straight back to it.

The genre's defining record and its most famous house. Math-rock guitar figures, trumpet, Mike Kinsella barely holding the notes — released to little notice in 1999, broken up by 2000, and slowly canonized into the most influential emo album ever made.

Austin, 1997: the loud, earnest pole of the genre. Every quiet-loud build on this record aims for catharsis and lands. If American Football is midwest emo's head, The Power of Failing is its chest.

The genre's rhythm section masterclass. Frame & Canvas (1998) is all stop-start urgency and dual vocals trading lines — emo that grooves. Reissued and remastered in 2022 because the demand never went away.

The poppiest of the first wave — Davey von Bohlen's lisp-edged hooks made 1997's Nothing Feels Good the scene's singalong record, and its title became shorthand for the whole genre's mood (and the title of its definitive book).

Kansas City's 1999 power-emo touchstone: bigger choruses, Moog lines, heart permanently on sleeve. The record that carried the sound from basements toward Vagrant-era ubiquity — for better and worse, the blueprint for the 2000s.

Philadelphia, 2008: the spark of the revival. Cap'n Jazz worship played with total abandon, tapped riffs and shouted group vocals. It made twinkle cool again and announced that the fourth wave had started without anyone's permission.

Revival emo at orchestral scale — eight-plus members, crescendos borrowed from post-rock, titles longer than choruses. Whenever, If Ever (2013) is the wave's most ambitious statement.

The revival's wry, extremely online heart. You're Gonna Miss It All (2014) turned group-chat anxiety and party small talk into hooks, and made Modern Baseball the scene's biggest crossover since the 90s.

St. Louis, 2013: trumpet, falsetto, slow-burn builds — the revival's art-rock wing. “Rory” became the era's signature crying-along song, and Foxing kept evolving long after the wave crested.

The revival's masterpiece. Nine songs about grief, identity and care, opening with “An Introduction to the Album” — a funeral speech that becomes a scream. Routinely ranked the best emo album of its decade, in any wave.