'The Big Country' (or, Slipknot vs. Michael Stanley Band)

Seriously, most of them move outta there to find kindred spirits, live their dreams, blah blah (Although even then, some such as Monsieur Manson still slide into Archtype No. 1.)

Detroit shouldn't count either, then, eh? To be fair, Cleveland was, like Chicago/Detroit, a big garage rock town, but the notions of regionalism and radio/scenes have been pretty well obliterated since then, I suppose.

Would Mellancamp fit into category No. 2?

A third musical result of the heartland's open space/emptiness could be Low, Slint, etc., although Chicago played a large role there.

That said, there are still two huge contributions: (a) "slow-core," as Scott quite correctly points out, and (b) emo, which is all about the space stretching from Milwaukee through Iowa / Nebraska / Kansas. Also there's the Champaign/Urbana (Illinois) scene, which spent the 80s aspiring to be Minneapolis or Athens and is currently responsible for folks like Wolfie, Sarge, and the Poster Children. Also there's Indiana and most of the Secretly Canadian roster. Also there's a ton of dinky punk and ska bands.

The southwest (as I vaguely defined it above) has actually turned out a decent amount of material, much of which interests me because it all seems to have a certain "southwestern sound" which I can't quite put my finger on. (Possibly it's just that it all reminds me of living in the southwest.) But quite recently there have been the Shins (Albuquerque) and the Starlight Mints (Oklahoma), both of whom share some vague quality of "southwesterness" in my head. There's also the whole Alison's Halo-through-Half String "beautiful noise" Arizona-shoegazer scene; the Independent Project label; and on the fringes of the region, the Flaming Lips, the Apples in Stereo, Chainsaw Kitten, the Meat Puppets, etc.

Plus, of course, the ultimate southwestern band, which is, of course, of course, the Gin Blossoms.

The true differences, all across the United States, lie much more in rural culture versus urban culture, with the suburbs performing a balancing act. (Not to speak of class and race differences, which are more divisive than any geographical boundaries.) Rural people in New York state are much more like rural people from Illinois than they are like Manhattanites. Vermont's "Northern Kingdom" can seem just as lonely and empty as North Dakota. And unfortunately the suburbs all across this country are pretty much indistinguishable; corporations and franchises have just about erased most "local color." I think these distinctions must be true to an extent, too, in England and western Europe; the supposedly "hip" people gravitate to the big cities, and the "uncool" people stay behind forever in small towns and suburbs. Or so we're always supposed to think.

I know. I've been there, having grown up in the hills of Iowa and then gone off to live in a big eastern city (though I've since moved on), and having lived in several other parts of the country, as well. I still love the Midwest, though I've heard the assumptions and suffered the condescensions. I've been spoken to as if I were an unschooled rube because I grew up in a place where people really didn't care if their bagels were frozen, if they cared about bagels at all. Does it sound as if this topic has touched a nerve?

So I know the old saw--in the Midwest we like it big and loud and stupid and obvious. Heavy metal rules, eternally. We're dingy conformists who think Madonna is too avant-garde. We're all fat slow right-wingers who never heard of Bjork until we saw her in that funny dress at the Oscars. We're either living miserable lives of isolation and frustration, as in "Winesburg, Ohio," or sunk into a beige complacency, as is Evan S. Connell's "Mrs. Bridge" and her Kansas City.

Well, then, great--people of more imagination than that which corporations and advertising agencies credit us will see through these outdated generalisations. One must remember that many of the most original and extreme artists of the past century came from the Midwest and only moved to the coasts because that, however it may be, is where the jobs are and where one goes to gain attention from the media (regrettable as that necessity might be).

All of that said, I can quite understand how Slipknot came out of Des Moines. I lived there for a year and a half and don't think any band's hellish interpretation of their need to escape from such a place (the "Insurance Capital of America") could be close enough to the horror of having to live there. So even the Midwest isn't perfect (never said it was). It's just that the rest of the world is hardly perfect, either.

To tell the truth, Kris, I didn't even know the group was from my home state until I read an article about them for the first time last week, my interest being piqued by the album title. Now I'm not so suprised, either, that my sister's stepdaughter got into trouble for hanging nooses around the house (she's grown out of Marilyn Manson).

Robin, it figures that England has its own "heartland;" just about every country with an efficient mass-media network must have one nowadays--even Bhutan. Everyone likes to be able to compartmentalize and urbanites so often like to be reassured that they're superior to rural dwellers.

Lastly, Dave, I have to admit I like big and loud and stupid and obnoxious myself, too, at least some of the time--as in Curt's pick of Cheap Trick's "Black And White And In Color." Except of course that early on Cheap Trick was clever enough to only seem stupid.