Twee Pop

Twee pop is one of the earliest styles of Indie Pop, defined by its cute aesthetic combined with an indie/DIY attitude and a musical simplicity often indebted to Punk Rock. The genre originated in the early 1980s as Jangle Pop and Post-Punk groups moved in a more overtly melodic direction, informed by 1960s Pop with particular influence from Girl Groups and the upbeat Bubblegum style. As a result, twee pop songs are short and sweet, combining catchy melodies with innocent, simple lyrics about young love, childhood, and an overall sense of idyllic nostalgia. The genre is also notable among indie scenes for the prominence of female-led and all-female groups, in part due to a shift away from the more masculine aesthetic and culture of punk rock, though boy-girl harmony vocals are common in twee pop as well. "Twee" itself is a British term used to describe that which is overly quaint or cute; it was originally used in a somewhat derogatory manner by music critics, but was later picked up and celebrated as a banner for the movement in the 1990s.

The early twee pop scene in the early 1980s was almost exclusively British, heralded by female-led groups like Dolly Mixture and Trixie's Big Red Motorbike and championed by British DJ John Peel who would record sessions with many artists in the scene. The term would pick up steam around the same time as the emergence of the jangly C86 scene, with groups like The Pastels and Talulah Gosh representing its more twee side. Twee pop would also be a major influence on The Jesus and Mary Chain's saccharine and distorted Noise Pop style. However, twee pop in the UK is perhaps most associated with the influential Sarah Records and associated artists like The Field Mice, Another Sunny Day, and Heavenly that enjoyed some popularity in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Though the twee pop scene in the UK would become less active after that, a few prominent Scottish artists like Belle and Sebastian and Camera Obscura would continue the sound through the 1990s and into the 2000s to commercial and critical success, and European labels like the Spanish Elefant Records would continue to release music by British and European groups in the style. British twee pop groups would also be a major influence on the style of Flipper's Guitar, who established the Shibuya-kei movement in Japan in the early 1990s.

American twee pop, on the other hand, is generally regarded as beginning with the mid-1980s work of Beat Happening on K Records, combining the simplistic British indie pop sound with a DIY attitude and parallels to the Japanese Pop Punk group Shonen Knife (who had their first American release on K, in 1985). In contrast to their jangly British counterparts, American twee pop bands would retain this rawer punk influence as it intermingled with the American Indie Rock scene, with 1990s groups like Tiger Trap, Rocketship, and Tullycraft fully establishing this particular branch of the style. Groups like these, along with like-minded bands in the UK and Canada like Heavenly and Cub, would come to be known as "cuddlecore", a substyle sometimes seen as a more lighthearted and melodic parallel to the Riot Grrrl movement.