Musical Style and Influences
Justin Pierre and Joshua Cain formed the band with shared inspiration from Sunny Day Real Estate, Jawbox, The Flaming Lips, and Superchunk. They have since been noted as being influenced by Braid and The Rentals, "early 90s rock", Elvis Costello, Pixies, 80s music, dance music and Ben Folds.
The band's musical style is widely recognizable by its unique blend of pop punk with the moog synthesizer. They have been widely attributed to a number of different genres, including pop rock, indie rock, punk revival and the usual reference of pop punk. They have been said to display "more pop than any other genre" which mix in "alternative-based, acoustic songs" to "switch up the successful flavor that gained them notoriety." The band has been described as being "too diverse to fit into just one particular genre," with Pierre replying by suggesting the band could fit into "Scrabble rock. Not Fraggle rock. You know the game Scrabble, where you’ve got to come up with the big words and you get the most points," he was referring to the lyrical content of the songs, where he admits he must sometimes use a dictionary to "fact-check".
Their debut album, I Am the Movie has been described as having a "distinctly unified and identifiable style." An article by The News Record's Jeff Miller in 2004 said, "inspirations for the band's style range from Elvis Costello to Huey Lewis, but it is more appropriately described as a fusion of Jimmy Eat World and The Get Up Kids, enough high-energy to classify under punk, contrasted with enough emo lyrics to fill up a LiveJournal." Motion City Soundtrack's "synth-pop-punk" style has been brought upon by "lyrics and guitar lines that are purposefully designed to get stuck in your head, all perpetuated by the catchiness of Johnson's keyboards."
The band's third studio album, Even if It Kills Me, came with more of a pop sound than the previous two. Jesse Johnson has said the band had the opportunity to add "elements such as strings onto the latest record." The Daily Cardinal said that the "album is true to the band’s fast-paced punk roots while remaining firmly anchored in catchy bubblegum pop melodies," demonstrating the band's "maturing style" while "the pop-punchers play it safe and stick to what they know best."
Metro Station credits Motion City Soundtrack as an influence, following Cain and Pierre's production of two songs for their debut self-titled album.
Read more about this topic: Motion City Soundtrack
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