Twee pop is a subgenre of

indie pop Indie pop (also typeset as indie-pop or indiepop) is a music genre and subculture that combines guitar pop with DIY ethic in opposition to the style and tone of mainstream pop music. It originated from British post-punk in the late 1970s and su ...

that originates from the 1986 '' NME'' compilation '' C86''. Characterised by its simplicity and perceived innocence, some of its defining features are boy–girl harmonies, catchy melodies, and lyrics about love. For many years, prominent

independent record label An independent record label (or indie label) is a record label that operates without the funding or distribution of major record labels; they are a type of small- to medium-sized enterprise, or SME. The labels and artists are often represented ...

s associated with twee pop were

Sarah Records Sarah Records was a British independent record label active in Bristol between 1987 and 1995, best known for its recordings of indie pop, which it released mostly on 7" singles. On reaching the catalogue number SARAH 100, the label celebrated it ...

(in the UK) and

K Records K Records is an independent record label in Olympia, Washington founded in 1982. Artists on the label included early releases by Beck, Modest Mouse and Built to Spill. The record label has been called "key to the development of independent mus ...

(in the US).

Characteristics

The definition of twee is something "excessively or affectedly quaint, pretty, or sentimental", supposedly born from a childish mispronunciation of the word sweet. A retrospective fascination with the genre in the US saw Americans eagerly defining themselves as twee. According to '' The A.V. Club''s Paula Mejia:

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the dat ...

says that twee pop is "perhaps best likened to bubblegum

indie rock Indie rock is a Music subgenre, subgenre of rock music that originated in the United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand from the 1970s to the 1980s. Originally used to describe independent record labels, the term became associated with the mu ...

– 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". The author Marc Spitz suggests that the roots of twee stem from

post-war In Western usage, the phrase post-war era (or postwar era) usually refers to the time since the end of World War II. More broadly, a post-war period (or postwar period) is the interval immediately following the end of a war. A post-war period ...

1950s music. 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.

Related movements

Cuddlecore is a movement that emerged as a consequence of twee pop that was briefly prominent in the mid-1990s."Cute. Real Cute : The Look Is Dainty, but Cuddle Core Followers Are Brashly Telling the World They'll Grow Up the Way They Please"
''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the ...

'', 28 June 1995. This label described a style marked by harmony vocals and pop melodies atop a punk-style musical backing.Kaitlin Fontana, ''Fresh at Twenty: The Oral History of Mint Records''.

ECW Press ECW Press is a Canadian book publisher located in Toronto, Ontario. It was founded by Jack David and Robert Lecker in 1974 as a Canadian literary magazine named ''Essays on Canadian Writing''. They started publishing trade and scholarly books ...

, 2012. . Cuddlecore bands were usually, although not always, all female and essentially represented a more pop-oriented variation on the contemporaneous

riot grrrl Riot grrrl is an underground feminist punk movement that began during the early 1990s within the United States in Olympia, Washington and the greater Pacific Northwest and has expanded to at least 26 other countries. Riot grrrl is a sub ...

scene.

References

{{pop music Indie pop 20th-century music genres British styles of music British rock music genres Pop music genres