Twee pop

Twee pop is a subgenre of indie pop characterised by its rejection of masculine conventions and association with feminism. Its lyrics often focus on love and are written from an innocent point of view. The genre emerged in the 1980s in the United Kingdom and United States and further developed during the 1990s and 2000s. It experienced a revival in popularity in the early 2020s.

Twee pop
Stylistic origins	Indie pop post-punk pop guitar pop girl groups bubblegum pop
Cultural origins	c. 1986, United Kingdom
Other topics
Anorak Math rock

Etymology

Further information: Indie pop

The definition of twee is something "excessively or affectedly quaint, pretty, or sentimental," supposedly born from a childish mispronunciation of the word sweet.^[1] With the twee movement's embrace of innocence and femininity, the genre has strong associations with feminism.

History

Forerunners

Dan Treacy's Television Personalities have been accredited as forerunners to twee pop.

The Velvet Underground have been retrospectively assessed as precursors to twee pop with songs like I'm Sticking with You and After Hours, written by Lou Reed but sung by female drummer Maureen Tucker.^[2] Reed's songs have been described as having a "proto-twee sensitivity".^[3] Similarly, the childlike innocence of Jonathan Richman's later albums have been identified as precursors to the genre.^[4] Additionally, the Byrds, described by the Guardian as "not without doses of twee pop",^[5] along with Syd Barrett's whimsical, nostalgic and childlike take on psychedelia, and Ray Davies of the Kinks' quirky character portraits (e.g. 'Phenomenal Cat') proved influential to the genre.^[6] Pitchfork cited David Bowie's "Kooks" and "Fill Your Heart" as "primitive twee-pop".^[7] Female sunshine pop singer Margo Guryan and outsider girl group the Shaggs were later credited with presaging twee pop, the latter on their albums Philosophy of the World and Shaggs' Own Thing.^[8]

Early indie pop musicians such as Dan Treacy of the Television Personalities would later draw influence from Jonathan Richman and Syd Barrett as heard on songs like 'Geoffrey Ingram' and 'I Know Where Syd Barrett Lives', becoming a pivotal influence to the C86 generation, including bands like the Pastels and Beat Happening.^[9] Additionally, Daniel Johnston's personal and naive lo-fi music also shaped twee pop with members of the two aforementioned bands covering his songs.^[10] Subsequently, the Go-Betweens debut single 'Lee Remick' and New Zealand's Dunedin scene, which included Chris Knox's Tall Dwarfs who would be influential to the twee pop genre.^[11] Other influences include the Monochrome Set, the Deep Freeze Mice and the Smiths as well as Scottish bands like the Jesus and Mary Chain and the Vaselines.^[12]

Female led UK post-punk groups such as the Raincoats,^[13] the Slits, Marine Girls, the Particles,^[14] and Young Marble Giants^[15] have also been assessed as precursors to twee pop.^[16]

1980s

Stephen Pastel in 1982.

NME released the C86 cassette in 1986, bringing together a collection of jangle pop guitar-driven indie bands which despite encompassing a variety of different styles, several of those featured artists would become early twee pop pioneers, including the Pastels and the Shop Assistants. These bands challenged aggressive and machismo punk rock conventions by embracing a lo-fi, DIY aesthetic whilst frequently singing innocent, sensitive and authentic songs about young love and adolescence.^[17] The indie pop side of the cassette modelled themselves after and drew influence from bands like the Smiths and the Jesus and Mary Chain.^[18]

Subsequently, English bands such as Talulah Gosh from Oxford, England formed in 1986, and London's the Field Mice, formed in 1987, their music combined lush melodies and tender lyrics with a jangly, dreamlike sound. They signed to Sarah Records, an independent record label that became the center point of the British twee pop scene.^[19] Beat Happening, a lo-fi trio from Olympia, Washington who formed in 1982 became a pivotal influence in America's own variant of the scene.^[20]

International variants of twee and indie pop emerged in the late 1980s to early 1990s, such as Tontipop and Sonido Donosti in Spain^[21] as well as Shibuya-kei in Japan.^[22]

1990s-2000s

In the 1990s, twee pop bands such as Tiger Trap, the Softies and Heavenly would have their music released on Calvin Johnson of Beat Happening's independent record label, K Records, helping further develop the scene.^[23] Other influential groups were Black Tambourine and Velocity Girl.^[18] By the 2000s, twee pop had become an influential genre in the alternative music scene with bands like Belle and Sebastian, the Moldy Peaches, Camera Obscura, and the Lucksmiths drawing influence from the original movement.^[24]

2010s-2020s

In 2022, twee pop experienced a revival amongst Gen Z on TikTok, particularly its aesthetics which had been re-developed in the late 2000s to early 2010s on internet sites like Tumblr. This revival coincided with the re-emergence of indie sleaze, which brought about renewed interest in the original twee pop scene. ^[25] Pitchfork stated that according to TikTok, twee was now "[...] anything feminine or vaguely melancholy, and the majority of #twee videos seem unconcerned with the trend’s potential uncoolness".^[24][26]

Characteristics

According to NPR, twee pop "was fervently informed by punk: snappy riffs, fast-track tempos, propulsive drums."^[27] Artists such as Heavenly, Talulah Gosh, and Marine Girls were primarily women who wrote about love, relationships, and personal empowerment. While the music sounded lighthearted and naive, the subject matter was often gritty and dark. Twee pop has been seen as a feminist response to tough, invulnerable, masculine punk and post-punk music scenes of the time.

Heavenly performing at Emerald Centre

Many twee artists, such as Blueboy, were openly queer.^[28] In the 1990s, indie pop and twee scenes rejected the sexist, homophobic, and racist attitudes of mainstream music.^[19]

A retrospective fascination with the genre in the US saw Americans eagerly defining themselves as twee.^[29] According to The A.V. Club's Paula Mejia:

The difference between "twee" and "indie pop" is slight but polarizing. Both styles of music transcended genre, became a tape-trading lifestyle, and have similar influences, drawing from the Ramones' minimalist three-chord structures as much as The Jesus And Mary Chain's salty pop harmonies. Everyone varies slightly on origins ... Twee itself began as a vast collection of sounds, gathering the threads where luminaries left off, and carving out divergent avenues in their wake.

AllMusic says that twee pop is "perhaps best likened to bubblegum indie rock—it's music with a spirit of D.I.Y. defiance in the grand tradition of punk, but with a simplicity and innocence not seen or heard since the earliest days of rock & roll".^[30] The author Marc Spitz suggests that the roots of twee stem from post-war 1950s music.^[31] While the culture categorized itself under the moniker of "indie" (short for independent), many major twee powerhouses gained mainstream critical acclaim for their contributions to the twee movement.^[19]