On June 23, 2018, Dillinger Four posted the album art of Midwestern Songs Of The Americas with the following caption: “True story, when we sent the completed album in, one of the label guys said the demos sounded good and wanted to know when we were heading into the studio. Midwestern Songs Of The Americas was released exactly 20 years ago today.”

Funny how an album that would get a reaction like that would become a total classic twenty years later.

While Midwestern Songs Of The Americas was not Dillinger Four’s very first release, it was the band’s first full-length, marking the beginning of a discography that would be celebrated for years t come. The album also marked the beginning D4’s unmistakable take on melodic punk rock. The vocals were nowhere near as melodramatic like their melodic hardcore peers, but they did master the art of having multiple lead singers take turns singing a could of lines each in the span of one song such as “It's A Fine Line Between The Monkey And The Robot” and “Mosh For Jesus.” And with D4’s signature vocal style came their take on writing incredibly catchy, sing-along anthems with rowdy musicianship especially when t came to the tracks “#51 Dick Butkus” and “Twenty-One Said Three Times Quickly.” On top of all of that, the old school audio clips stitch in between most of the tracks made the album have it’s own distinguishable flow. It is a tradition that the band would keep doing on the later albums.

Of course, Midwestern Songs Of The Americas was where the band introduced us to one of (perhaps the) most famous songs in their discography, which was “Doublewhiskeycokenoice.” Right after a clip of some children singing, the track started out with an unmistakable few guitar chords (cough, cough looking at you Green Day, cough, cough) followed by the band yelling “D!” and then “Four!” And what happened next was probably one of the best drinking anthems to be written within the punk genre.

Despite the label’s apparent, initial reaction to Midwestern Songs Of The Americas there were some absolute classic tracks on this album that fans would go completely wild over when Dillinger Four played them live even two decades later. The record was a classic because it was the beginning of their rise to becoming one of the most influential melodic punk bands, especially during the early 2000’s and beyond.