wibbling twee

You just want me to start ranting, don't you? I need to go to the bank, but I'll rant when I get back.

See the (very old) Sarah Records thread for all I have to say on the subject. I dislike this kind of thing more than any other music.

I don't like this kind of music being called "twee" - it's too much like what the kind of meatheads who don't like it would call it.

a good question: wibbling twee (or if you prefer, pathetic whimsy) is for me the fluffy kindercore movement in the US, or the nauseating creep who coined the term "cuddlecore". Or cats in baskets as hotlinks on people's websites. A creepy refusal to process adult emotions. The Gentle Waves. Ewwww

the Razorcuts were perhaps a bit twee, but they had that dreamy, romantic edge, in common with Biff Bang Pow, which saved them in my opinion. Like, in 1989 I was 14, and I walked around London singing their Storyteller LP, but forgot it a few months later. I could still play football, and I still beat people up regularly. Then I forgot about them/dismissed them until a fortnight ago one of the Beachwood Sparks was DJ-ing in LA after one of our shows and he played something from the same record. And I thought, this is OK, really, sure as fuck better than Primal Scream trying to be all hard rockin' anyway.

And have you seen Gregory Webster recently - he looks like a 15 stone convict. I can't see anyone using the T-word round him too easily.

People in the UK still knee jerk the way Steven Wells' knee jerked all those years ago (as if said pimply chairman in dirty shorts was a strapping example of healthy, forward thinking manhood) and this is very sad.

The thing about This Kind Of Music is that everyone seems to have an innate idea of what it is but very few people can name any bands who actually do it. I tend to think of a lot of people stateside who I don't like but when it comes down to it I could only actually name Barcelona. And, yeah, The Gentle Waves. Trembling Blue Stars I suppose, and then you are led to imagine a horde of bands that hang on Rob Wratten's every word and dedicate their lives to his imitation, but who exactly *are* they?

So - does it even exist any more in any force? I don't think it is the "London indie scene", really - I think the best characterisation of that recently was Tim H. talking about trad jazzers.

Kindercore: always fancy it to be a genre name for Boards of Canada and Aphex's more fluffy moments. Probably some American "babes" past 27 with humour-operations shouting about how their diapers haven't been changed in 6 hours and Daddy don't like me no more. Right? ;)

Good twee, afformentioned Boards of Canada and The Gentle Waves. I really like The 'Waves, they're just so right + my daughter loves them, so all criticism is useless.

A band made up of actual adult-baby fetishists might be worth hearing.

You could download their songs on nappyster (sorry)

I think Tim's comments about trad jazzers were the grumpy overtones of a man condemned not to drink for the forseeable future. And maybe a little bit of very indie self-loathing

Maybe I've misunderstood what scene is meant by "London Indie Scene" (Club Panda? a Baxendale Gig? Sinister Picnic? David Comet Gain's birthday celebrations?), but everyone at T&F and Strange Fruit seem frighteningly young to me. However I would rather eat kitchen knives than get into an extended analysis of the London Indie Scene. Or wibbling twee. Tom is right, a nebulous term / target for so much hate if ever there was one.

"Probably some American "babes" past 27 with humour-operations shouting about how their diapers haven't been changed in 6 hours and Daddy don't like me no more. Right? ;)"

Sorry, I live in the US and I know of no such genre or why it would be "probable".

OK, I missed the damned bank closing because I wasted all day on ILE/M, dammit, so if I go broke cause my check doesn't clear, I will KILL YOU ALL!!!

I will try to address both twee the music and twee the lifestyle and why both of them irritate me... Mainly, because both of them are about this retro-fetishisation of their own childhoods, rather like Sebastian from Brideshead Revisited, where one of his college mates describes him as being in love with his own childhood, hence the teddy bear, the obsession with his nanny, etc.

I dislike the music because it is deliberately retro-obsessed, trying to replicate the easy listening sounds of a certain Leave It To Beaver style tiny slice of 60s easy listening landscape, with maybe occasional excursions to 70s singer songwriter types. Predominantly, it is guitar-based, but if often relies heavily on bringing in orchestral instruments, (brass, flutes, violins) usually played in a very inept style, almost as if it has been borrowed from a school orchestra. These days, twee merely just seems to mean "sounding like Belle and Sebastian".

The whole lifestyle thing- the hairslides, the kittens, the Hello Kitty obsessions- is about deliberately concentrating on the most cloying and idealised aspects of childhood. NOT childlike, which I think is a good thing- to keep the wonder, the amazement, the ability to see everything with fresh eyes- but CHILDISH. A refusal to deal with any emotions except the most selfish and infantile, a refusal to deal with any aspect of life that isn't "nice".

As with any other movement, at the very core of the Twee, there are some very good records. Bands like Heavenly, and I'd even go so far as to say early Belle and Sebastian, managed to combine taking a child-like approach to very serious matters into something which packed a deceptive punch. As far as they went in their simple, cute, childlike approach to things, they went equally as far in the opposite direction with *what* they were singing about. Singing about the subjects they addressed in a childlike manner was very powerful, because they combine bitter and sweet in a very effective combination.

I'm not the world's biggest expert on twee (that would be Paul) but much of the stuff that I hear today- the entire Kindercore back catalogue, Trembling Blue Stars, that horrible Marshallow Coast "Seniors, Juniors" song that is like fingernails on a blackboard to me- is just like a refusal to enter adulthood. All of TBS sounds to me not like a man working through his broken heart, but like a small boy with abandonment issues.

It just smacks to me of infantile regression, not to the magical, imaginative, wonderfilled parts of childhood that we should carry with us for the rest of our lives, but to the cloying, immature, self obsessed, worst aspects of childhood that we should really leave behind.

boards of canada. twee? i don't see that one...

hmm, kate, what you describe doesn't seem to sound much like razorcuts/sarah. all this hairslide business seems to have a bit of kitsch and knowingness about it maybe?

Twee has come a long way since Sarah records days. For the records, I've said loads of times that I *LIKE* a lot of Sarah Records, including the Field Mice. It's changed and mutated into something much, much worse. Go out and listen to an Of Montreal record or something like that. Old Skool Twee was that which grew out of C86. Nu Skool Twee, everyone thinks they're Belle and Sebastian without the sense of humour.

Where the heck is Paul when I need him? He could list you the records and bands that I hate, cause I tend to tune them out when they're on.

There was plenty of very very nasty 'old school twee' (I never thought I'd hear such a phrase... I hope I never do again). Strawberry Story come to mind. Nasty.

Maclean, leave that keyboard alone or you'll damage your wrists *again*.

I'm deliberately staying out of this. A lot of bands I really like get labelled with the 'twee' tag, and often it doesn't seem fair. Trembling Blue Stars aren't really trying to cling to their childhoods or anything like that (the key band members are well over 30 and it'd be sad if they tried to be into Bagpuss or something). Calling something 'wibbling twee' is as bad as calling something 'monotonous dronerock', 'bleepy electronica' or even 'black music'. It's dismissing the content without giving it a chance.

And the London Indie Scene is much more than wibbling twee, too...

Let me begin this whole thing by noting that there are and have been significant differences between "twee" or "pop" in the U.S. and "twee" or "pop" in the U.K. (From here on out, I'm going to refer to this genre as "indiepop," for clarity and to piss off the English.) In using the term to pick on bands who want to be childish versions of Belle and Sebastian, you're actually sort of writing off a whole long history along with them.

Initially, the difference was that the U.K. indiepop scene was much more tied to punk and post-punk, meaning that quite a few of the diaper references floating around this forum won't carry much weight against them. This was the indiepop scene as developed in the early- and mid-eighties by the Television Personalities, the Pastels, or Orange Juice---all bands with a definite devotion to non- confrontational pop, but certainly nothing that could be written off as completely infantile. Those elements of infantilism that *did* appear tended to function either as humor (the Television Personalities' quite intentionally wibbling "I Know Where Syd Barrett Lives") or as interesting juxtaposition (Talulah Gosh's ability to play a punky/bubblegum song called "Break Your Face," then jump into the Petula Clark tradition with "Bringing up Baby"). It's this tradition---the 53rd and 3rd label, the C-86 compilation, etc.---that forms the intellectual basis of the crowd on the other end of the diaper jokes, which I think is important to remember: the scene that responsible for labels like Sarah, Slumberland, and K is largely the same scene responsible for the Jesus and Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine (recall their pre-Isn't Anything pop days), and shoegazing as a whole.

And let's note that at first, the noisy/shambling aesthetic of those early U.K. indiepop bands *did* exist in the U.S., which also blows away accusations of infantilism: probably the best examples of this are D.C.'s Black Tambourine or Velocity Girl's first record (same people, basically), both of which take the white-noise pop approach to a pretty logical conclusion. And let's also consider Beat Happening, who are basically my reason for writing this extra-long post: this poor band continually gets tarred with the diapers-and- kittens brush and the "inability to process adult emotions" tag despite making some of the most emotionally rugged music I've ever heard. Does it sometimes sound juvenile? Yes: but it sometimes sound like kids in a garage trying to play Sabbath with just a guitar and a floor tom. Does the lyrical content engage in its fair share of juvenilia? Yes: but moments later Calvin's on about being the hangman for a village in Spain. Anyone here who's written off all things even remotely related to twee must---*must*---listen to Beat Happening's You Turn Me On and try to re-evaluate at least a little bit. Same goes for a terrific, gutsy, and non-juvenile band like Small Factory, who certainly did their part to popularize the whole kitten-T-shirt thing.

No infantilism, them, until the turn of the 80s/90s decade, at best. And do we remember what happened around that time in the U.S.? Nirvana, grunge: the most rock-oriented of what had been considered "alternative" (now "indie") music hit the big time. I think it was partly as a response to that that American bands in the indiepop tradition dropped out and got cute---as opposed to the British procession toward cuteness, which was a lot more orderly and organic: from Orange Juice, to Cherry Red bands (Felt, Louis Phillipe via El), to the peak of the pop with Sarah. My main argument here is that along all of these lines there have been great artists. There has been a lot of cutesy, soulless crap, as well, but to insult indiepop as a whole on these grounds would be like writing off trip-hop because you didn't like the Mono and Moloko made bad records: scenes invite crappy imitations, and indiepop happens to be one scene where it's very, very easy to step over the line into crappiness.

But to be honest, I don't even want to have to defend the genre by pointing to those practitioners of it who *aren't* juvenile: I think defenses could be made even for those who are *screaming* for the diaper jokes. Is there something fluffy and cloying about the Field Mice? Sure---but this is the point. Throwing fuzzy-bunny insults and bands like that is akin to listening to an ambient record and pronouncing it boring because it makes the same noise for thirty minutes. I tend to be disturbed by those individuals who listen *only* to indie-pop, as I certainly don't think its emotional range really covers enough of life to be self-sufficient. But the genre's point is actually quite simple: to take the most basic thrills of pop music---melodies, handclaps, childish joy---and amplify them. When this is done well, as is the case with, say, Le Jardin de Heavenly, it even become somewhat progressive, I think. But I'll save that argument for slightly later.

In the end, I think, there's a double standard that's applied. When something is a bit *too* cutesy-poppy for someone's taste, it's derided as "twee." But when something actually seems good, people exempt it from the very same "twee" scene that it's coming out of. Which is silly---like saying metal was crappy but you liked Sepultura and Christian Death, who weren't "really" metal bands. If a line is to be drawn between, on one side, the Kings of Convenience and the Clientele, and on the other, Trembling Blue Stars or whatever Kindercore band you hate most, it shouldn't be a genre division: it should be that some of the genre is good and some is shameful.

Search: Heavenly (Le Jardin de Heavenly), Blueboy (Unisex), Beat Happening (You Turn Me On), Television Personalities (And Don't the Kids Just Love It), Pastels (Illumination, Mobile Safari).

And Kindercore scores, now and then: Japancakes (If I Could See Dallas, The Sleepy Strange), Of Montreal (The Gay Parade), Kings of Convenience (Quiet is the New Loud), Birdie (Some Dusty).

It seems that while I was pecking out an epic response, Kate sort of made the other half of my point: a lot of recent indiepop/twee has pretty much sucked.

But the pop, I tell you---the pop will rise again!

my last and perhaps most unreasonable interjection of the evening will be to ask you never to class my band with the Kings of Convenience EVER again.

And Tim, are you threatening my wrists cos if so I'll connect you to a big beer funnel until you once more resemble the fat ignorant drunk we all knew and loved.

We have this whole "don't dismiss the entire genre" thing about many styles of music, from techno to indie to rap to chartpop.

Look, in any genre, there is going to be good and bad. There are going to be originators, and there are going to be cheap copyists.

To me, when indiepop goes bad in that cloying, annoying, childish way, that to me is twee. When twee or indiepop or whatever goes bad, it irritates me far worse than the most shamelessly derivative of crap shoegazer bands. That's called personal taste. There is a lot *less* that I like in twee, and yes, that's a subjective opinion. But the previous few paragraphs I have written were the subjective opinion that I think Gareth was asking for, about why I start ranting, slagging of "wibbling twee" as I frequently do.

Can I just say that the Call and Response lp which came out on Kindercore is my favourite record of the year so far?

Gareth: Boards of Canada can sound quite childlike (albeit in a less twee and, to me, more likeable sense than Plone) and I suspect that's what Omar meant with his definition of this territory which seems rather wider than that of many others here.

But my favourite period of childhood regression in music remains early 90s kiddie-rave, admittedly hardly the subject of this thread.

"My last and perhaps most unreasonable interjection of the evening will be to ask you never to class my band with the Kings of Convenience EVER again."

Well, I should say that it's not a comparison I would make in any other context, since there's a pretty wide gulf there in terms of both method and intent. And if it helps, I'd put the Clientele on the winning side of any competition that happened to be going on there.

The sense in which I made the comparison was this: both groups, if their songwriting happened to be terrible or their performances piss- poor, would probably be slagged off as unnecessary fluff in about the same ways a lot of "twee" records are. Now that I consider it, this is far, far more true of the Kings of Convenience than of the Clientele---so the former's a much better example to start with--but I do think some arguments could made concerning the latter, not in terms of their actual music, but in terms of the way listerns *perceive* it, and the criticisms they'd choose to level at them if Alasdair happened to write really terrible songs. (I'd argue that at present, it's the element of soulfulness in Alasdair's songs that wards off the "too-pleasant" criticisms.)

This, Kate, is more what I'm saying about sort of constructing the genre around good and bad rather than sound. I completely agree with you that the cuteness and whimsy have grown affected in recent "twee" material, to the point of boredom and soullessness---a single March records sampler can attest to this. (The last, "Moshi Moshi," couples about 35 brain-numbingly useless soundalike tracks with a half-dozen serious standouts.) But I think some people tend to make it easier to pick on the genre as a whole because whenever the genre produces a decent artist, they're suddenly no longer considered a part of the genre. It's a bit like how certain white Americans have this idea of "good black people," whereby black people who act a certain way are sort of exempted from actually being considered black- --thereby creating a cycle in which no person can be considerd both "good" and "black" at the same time.

Perhaps it's just that the word "twee" now functions both as an insult ("Ick, this band's so twee") and as a genre signifier ("I dig a lot of twee bands"). If that's the case, should we just clear up our semantics and refer to the genre as "indiepop" and particularly horrid examples of it as "twee"?

Also, Alasdair, note that my construction links the Clientele and the Kings of Convenience only as closely as one could connect Trembling Blue Stars and a Kindercore band like Of Montreal. It's a really, really wide net.

Besides, there is that whole Freudian idea that we direct most of our dislike toward those who are actually most like us, in an effort to distinguish the few minute differences that exist. Hmmm . . .

Eagerly awaiting the "Kings of the Clientele" double concept album,

I don't really care for twee music, unless possibly Felt counts as twee? I also don't really care for the kitsch-y, hair slide look.

However, I do collect some Sanrio stuff so it's nice to know all of the sweeping generalizations (and put downs) made about me based on that.

sorry Nitsuh, I'm just jealous cos Erlend got all the money. He used to come to our gigs and take notes - that's why I developed the mumbling singing style, so he couldn't get what I was doing on record first. And my comments on Kindercore were actuallly ill informed and stupid, I just don't like their website. I *love* Richard Davies. I will now go to bed and stop being grumpy. But I meant what I said about Tim.

Nicole- you are drawing sweeping generalisations where they were not made. You need to go back and study set theory, my dear.

Statements made: All twee kids suck. Some twee kids like Sanrio.

Logical conclusion you can reach from the above statements: Twee kids who like Sanrio suck.

Logical conclusion that can NOT be reached from the above statements: All people who like Sanrio suck.

You know, it's that "all dachshunds are dogs, but not all dogs are dachshunds" logic that you need to examine there before you leap to conclusions about what I was saying.

Thanks Robin, you're right, probably a bit of static in the translation where I take twee at face-value and start saying "twee, but in a good way." I was thinking particulary of AFX on Analogue Bubblebath 3, track 9 0r 10, which is the sound of a horde of My Little Pony's on E running over a hill towards the rising sun. Ergo: Twee Sublime. :)

Ah so, kindercore is a label...proceed. (and apologies for any hurt American feelings re. fantasy genre ;)

Kate: I'm very touchy about the sanrio, having been picked on before by a cretinous chucklehead (as opposed to a chuckleheaded cretin). I totally overreacted.

Nicole's parodies are so feather light, they make me wonder. And she says she can't write?!?!

I remember an album by Heavenly that was just perfect for the time... "Le Jardin de Heavenly", I think. I'd lay on the sofa with a beautiful 17 year old girlfriend, with the sun streaming through the blinds... aww, it brings me back just thinking about it. Recently they did a club night at a bar in San Francisco dedicated solely to Amelia Fletcher's songs... there was a bunch of hotties there too.

rock that "goes against what 'rock' is supposed to be" = (usually) good . what does wibbling mean, is it an actual thing in its own right or is it a mere intensifier of 'twee'. if it's what TVPs do on that "syd barrett" song, they're better when they don't actually "wibble'.

kindercore is mostly a disaster save for of montreal who might have a child-like view of the world but make extremely complicated music these days and also birdie though no points for licencing records from overseas. also, kindercore's predilection for appalling 60s clip-art covers is infuriating. i can hear some richard davies in the clientele, especially when he was still the moles like around say 'instinct' though i've no idea if alasdair has that album and really richard has lost it on his last two solo albums. i have a soft spot for what many would consider twee stuff, but only to a point i find all of the infantile j-pop horrid and stuff like strawberry story and the haywains is just too saccharine for me but lovely "twee" records have been released so far this year by harper lee, club 8, girlfrendo(though they have gone all odd and lost the bis-ness), orange peels(it came out in the US this year) and probably others i forget.

i think the kiddie element of indiepop tends to get overplayed by those looking for something to attack and actually only exists in small doses. cuddlecore was a joke (made up by the girls in cub, i believe), not a movement. beat happening may have written songs about bellybuttons and climbing trees, but they really wrote songs about sex (like the cramps without the distracting stiletto heels and tight leather pants).

the sanrio element, when it is displayed, is largely tongue in cheek. case in point, steward (stewart anderson from boyracer, who were on sarah records, which qualifies him as officially twee) may play a pink hello kitty guitar, but he plays it like a man possessed.

i remember a few years ago at one of the popfests (indiepop festivals) that they printed up t-shirts that read "twee as fuck", and i think that expresses the general sentiment of most people who embrace indiepop fairly well.

mb - thanks for the insight about different versions of childhood. Now I can understand what bothers me about wilful naievete - like children can be tough and not always naive, and all that stuff. As opposed to openness. I can understand it also in relation to sentimentality, which is bad because it obscures part of the whole picture.

Doing things tongue-in-cheek is surely a bit rubbish though? I'd prefer it if they were all hardcore Sanrio fans, especially since (as Nicole proves) you can easily be one and be ace.

Also the barbed-lyrics-with-cute-backing must be the oldest trick in the book by now?

But Sebastian Flyte was old before his time. In fact, I think he was wise and old from the start of the novel. This is hardly relevant musically, but there's that line in the Replacements' song 'Kiss Me On The Bus' that goes "Don't act so adult now". I think twee is a reaction to how things are supposed to be between the ages of say 20 to 40, a reaction to a Friends way of life where people are predatory - a once over, checking each other out and summing each other up. That's supposed to be "adult". Last Sunday I went to a cousin's wedding and sat at a table with his old friends from Beverly Hills High School. I made a stupid joke about how they must watch The Breakfast Club and reminisce, and this lovely blonde woman who wore sunglasses at the table said she must have been about six then. So another said I must mean Clueless. This has all been commented on before somewhere on ILM where Nick D linked to a post from the Pinefox on sinister about a post from Tim H about SR's article Against Health and Efficiency. (Tim's post is from 13/11/97; I don't think I can link directly to it.) I think the comment about anorexia has been misunderstood: the similarities are in the causes, but the reactions aren't necessarily the same. (Anorectics probably lack awareness.) It must be limiting for the inspiration for a band to be based entirely on reaction. As Tom pointed out, it's hard to think of bands that are just 'wibbling twee'.

OK Youn but the thing is that 'twee' if it is what you say it is, seems to be such an overreaction to the problem. It's so crude, somehow. I mean, a rejection of the cynical adult world, great, but surely this is what all pop is on some level, so why should be give this subset of it extra credit?

What annoyed me about the tail-end of the 80s indie scene (which obviously I also loved in bits, too) was their annexation of the word and idea 'pop', too - this idea that they were reclaiming or saving pop from those nasty charts, which would sometimes be quite explicity expressed. Is that still a rhetorical trick of the kindercore-ish scene? That explicit contrast to the Top 40?

"All pop", Tom? Reminds me of a theory I once had...

I think your theory deserves its own thread, to be honest.

What annoyed me about the tail-end of the 80s indie scene (which obviously I also loved in bits, too) was their annexation of the word and idea 'pop', too - this idea that they were reclaiming or saving pop from those nasty charts, which would sometimes be quite explicity expressed

Exactly. I'm not sure to what extent this is still prevalent, but have come accross it a few times recently. Even once in a thread on here, when someone mentioned in passing comparing Bowlie to ATP. I can't remember the precise wording, but Bowlie was described as pop (definitely not indie-pop) and ATP as post-rock. I have also been asked when DJing at SF to play some pop music by a B+S fan whilst actually playing something not a million miles away from chart-pop.

but bowlie had godspeed and turgidry rev!

Not that I could actually analyse it — least, not without devoting large chunks of my time to it for some while — but some of this pop vs Pop distinction comes down to the kinds of harmonies and progressions used in the song-writing. "Twee" is primary fixed within guitar-shapes which go MAJOR, MINOR, 7 [= dom seventh, maybe dim seventh]. But NOT sixths, let alone major sevenths, or ninths or more, OR the "altered chord" stuff which souses eg jazzlite, jazzsoul, jazzfunk... And by association and session-musc contrib and (and sampling), R&B.

Twee thus has a sense of distinct prettiness and palpable (harmonic) movement, albeit in v.limited territory, where "Chartpop" is abt vamps and texture (the movement is primarily rhythmic: intensified by the gently shimmering glue of the, er, jazz-scape of eternal chordal return...)

Harmonic language = something we respond quite deeply, w/o necessarily having the slightest idea why. (Let alone the will to broach this most rebarbatively muso of territories...)

(Hey, look: Rebarbative: repellent, unattractive, objectionable [Fr. rébarbatif, f. barbe, beard])

Ah, Mark has managed to put his finger on, in a few muso paragraphs, why twee music irritates me on such a level. I always thought it was the sheer 60s-aping unoriginality of the melodies which irritated me, but you're right. It's more the arrangements, and the inability to go beyond any but the most standard and dull of chords. Maybe this musical naivete deliberately goes along with the lyrical and image naivete, and maybe it's that deliberate "not-very-good"ness that indie bands so often seem to *aspire* to. (I remember a friends' band getting a drubbing on another, super-indie list for being "too tight" and "too professional" as if these were bad things to be avoided.)

Anyway... as to "Wibbling" Twee since I coined the phrase, thank you... no, wibbling is not neccessarily a pre-conditon of twee, it is a modifying adjective in its own right. Twee is the genre, (or sub-genre, meaning ineffective indie-pop) Wibbling is the descriptor. From "Wibble", the verb, meaning to go on and on, to meander purposelessly, to vascillate, to be unable to reach a decision.

This is how I expressed the difference which we have now agreed to express as "indie-pop" vs. "twee". Twee was, to me, the whole genre, "wibbling twee" was the particularly bad examples thereof. I guess now we've decided that twee is itself the descriptor which includes that which I thought of as wibbling.

And BTW, Twee is not the only genre which suffers from wibbling, and I often use it to describe other music. However, with some genres, wibbling is actually a *good* thing, or even the purpose of the music. Hence why "wibbling spacerock" is a very very good thing, and why "wibbling twee" (pop is not supposed to wibble, it is supposed to be clear and concise and succint in its emotion) is a very very bad thing.

lovely "twee" records have been released so far this year by harper lee, club 8, girlfrendo(though they have gone all odd and lost the bis-ness), orange peels(it came out in the US this year) and probably others i forget.

Y'know, I always liked Club 8 but thought they were more in a St. Etienne/Dubstar sort of vein? I guess this does make me officially twee.

I don't own a hairslide though, honest.

Kate,

Just to get clear on this: weren't *you*, at some point, in a band of the sort we're discussing here? (The good kind, I'm sure.)

Wibbling twee? Good god, no. I've been in gothic folk bands, spacerock bands, shoegazer bands, 60s garage bands, kraut-hop bands and now a sugary girlpop band. No twee here, trust me. By the definitions presented here, we'd be hard pressed to even conform to "indie-pop".

"Sugary girl-pop" but not "indiepop" or "twee" (even in the non- pejorative sense)?

I guess I'd just have to hear the band, but that sounds like a fine line you're drawing . . . :)

I like how Kate is always the first to complain about dance subgenres ;)

The only explanation I can offer for my band not being twee = we have been universally LOATHED by the twee kids. I neither know nor even fucking care what genre we are supposed to be in any more.

It's really hard to defend why your band isn't a genre that you hate when you find that you increasingly can't find anything that even engages you about the music that you are creating. Maybe you're right, and you hate most in other people what you loathe in yourself and I'm a big hypocrite. Maybe I can't fucking stand any "indie-pop" music any more, including my own band and I'm trying to cast the whole fucking thing off.

I am really in too bad of a mood to be on the internet at all today. See you later.

wibbling twee???

search and destroy????

I take a personal disliking to Apples in Stereo. But I do like Primal Scream's Sonic Flower Groove, if that counts????

Other favourites:

Kings of Convenience, Twisted Nerve label, Birdie, Great Lakes, Moore Brothers...

Is the clientele album any cop?

It's really hard to defend why your band isn't a genre that you hate when you find that you increasingly can't find anything that even engages you about the music that you are creating. Maybe you're right, and you hate most in other people what you loathe in yourself and I'm a big hypocrite. Maybe I can't fucking stand any "indie-pop" music any more, including my own band and I'm trying to cast the whole fucking thing off.

erf. this is rather a heavy admission to be making, kate. i've been there so i can relate but it's not a situation you want to be in before playing a major festival, is it?

when i said that any rock that did stuff other than what it was expected to do was good, did i take into account that groups with the "cute nerd" image seldom actually DO do anything that you wouldn't expect them to? don't think i did. 'cause they probably usually don't. but obv music that panders to any whole readymade music-ideology-&-matching-handkerchief is probably going to be lacking something important... i don't hardly know any of the bands you all been talking about, sorry, but who I was thinking of as an example of something really good in this line is Half Japanese...I think they presented lots of good contradictions for anyone who tries to apply a pat taxonomical monotype...it was cool how there'd be people in the group who could hardly play & they'd be chugging away alongside someone like Pippin Barnet or all those kind of guys...their lyrical & other extramusical content encompassed just as much "confusion"...a band like that is worth 2 or 3 whole "scenes" of people who're just trying to do the same thing as each other. so i guess i think you can wibble tweely if it's not the only thing you've got in your trick bag.

I have no use for the music, but I have some sympathy for the reverting-to-childhood Beat Happening cute-pop thing. What with the emphasis on cool and/or rudeness during adolescence, I can see why someone would react in the other direction by going for a sort of idealized childlike sweetness, even if it disregards what obnoxious little fuckers real children usually are.

mono.type (n.) - (1) an impression on paper of a design painted usually with the finger or a brush on a surface (as glass)
(2) keyboard typesetting machine that casts and sets type in separate characters
(3) neologism for "like a stereotype, except in mono"

but the thing is that 'twee' if it is what you say it is, seems to be such an overreaction to the problem. (Tom)

Well, at least it must be interesting sociologically. But if my interest is limited to the music, I don't see how it's an overreaction. Isn't "good art" often extreme? You know, how clothes that look inspired on catwalks, in Vogue, might look a little silly on the street, at the dentist's office, in the grocery store... Surely music can be less utilitarian than clothes?

It's so crude, somehow. I mean, a rejection of the cynical adult world, great, but surely this is what all pop is on some level, so why should be give this subset of it extra credit? (Tom)

I probably don't know enough about chart pop to comment on this, but it seems like part of the cynical adult world. I'll just accept that we disagree. Wait - I sort of wish I could listen to 'Billie Jean' again. I think I'll appreciate it now.

1. Alasdair 'C' - you were right about the KofC. Stick to your guns, son.

2. I really appreciated Mark S's musicological intervention I sometimes think this kind of thing is terribly helpful and there should be more of it - BUT I'm not sure what he means about 7ths (if that's what he meant), or about the absence of 6ths, for that matter. (And 9ths?)

3. Tom Ewing accusing people of annexing the word Pop to mean stuff they like and exclude other stuff? Excuse me while flabbergastedly I choke on my Ribena.

Ha, Pinefox, you have me bang to rights. Except only sort of:

My exclusionary definition of Pop (I'm assuming you're talking about the Pop Is Dead thing) wasnt designed to include stuff I do like and not stuff I don't - it was meant to be an attempt (pointlessly) to produce a tight definition of a kind of 'Pop' that could be considered separate from other tightly defined musics like 'Rock' and 'Jazz'. These kind of tight definitions of music are both classic and dud, though (cf. Joe Carducci and Wynton Marsalis). And my definition includes a *lot* of stuff I don't like at all (LeAnn Rimes, A1, Westlife).

This I think - perhaps vainly - is a little different from saying that one type of pop is 'perfect pop' or 'pure pop' because it sounds a bit like West Coast 60s pop did, which as far as I can tell is about as far as the indiepop argument goes. (The pool of acceptable pop influences has jumped a generation to include keyboard-led new wave stuff too.)

(To go back to yet another old FT pop schema, it's the difference between Real-Fake pop and Fake-Fake pop, again.)

As I think someone says in Richard II: Well have you argued.

I don't know Joe Carducci (?) or some of the artists (?) you mention. But never mind. How about this: your Pop Is Dead article was still (as far as other people's accounts of it go; I found it hard to understand in its own right, as you know) defining Pop as Recent Chart Pop Like Wot You And Stevie T Like. You did not, I think, mean the Beatles, the Supremes, Slade or whatever. Therefore I'm not totally convinced that you were working towards a Tight, Non- Evaluative Definition.

But maybe this is the result - once again - of my not really being able to understand your article? Let me register once again the hope that the follow-up will be written in language like what folk like me can understand, like.

The next article will be written looking out over a meditteranean harbour in the sun, not drinking gallons of cola and writing furiously to meet a self-imposed relaunch deadline. So it wouldn't surprise me if it's a bit more lucid.

Saying Stevie T and I like chartpop though is a bit unfair. We are simply more disposed to respond favourably to it - I can't imagine he likes all of it (and I know I don't - I like about 10-20%).

Something similar to Pinefox's comment above occurred to me on the bus to work this morning, but I was going to suggest that genre definition is pretty much always an ongoing battle. See many of the comments on the '"Jazz": classic or dud' thread. It might be possible to charaterise the 'perfect pop' position Tom criticises as the Crouch-Marsalis position: using genre definition (in an attempt) to fix and ossify.

"Saying Stevie T and I like chartpop though is a bit unfair."

Excuse me while I SPILL my Ribena.

If twee imitates sixties west coast pop's sounds then surely it would mine a rich seam of jazz chords (Bacharach), quasi-flamenco (Love) odd folk twiddlings and tunings (the Byrds), 6ths, 9ths, everything but the kitchen sinkths (Webb) rather than the grey, barren 7ths, 1st 4th and 5th major and minor chords Mark s attributes to it. Also I could point out that chart pop other than R&B is never very keen on straying from those self same chords much either. But then what do I know, I gave up listening after "Cotton Eyed Joe" hit it big. I was fucking frightened.

Sundar: erf. this is rather a heavy admission to be making, kate. i've been there so i can relate but it's not a situation you want to be in before playing a major festival, is it?

And tour! Don't forget tour!

Knowing Kate for the master (mistress?) of promotion that she is, she is probably either setting the stage for a Richey-style disappearing act or else the Lollies abandonning indie entirely for IDM, and Kate and her ginger friend going up there with nothing but synths and drum machines and spouting forth squelching noises, a la Radiohead. No wonder she fancies Tom York so much.

On to the topic...

Are we actually talking about genre, or are we talking about defining music by whether we like it or not? Personal tastes aside, I've been to enough shows in London in the past few years to think we are actually talking about a genre. Twee is a sub-genre of indie pop which has no relation to whether certain scenesters like it or not. This is all semantics, really, but some semantics are sillier than other semantics.

(now back to lurking)

Alasdair C makes his point beautifully. I'm still not sure about this supposed predominance of 7ths, though.

the "hell" of "and your kitchen looks like hell" from you know what song by you know what Scottish band, ends on a kind of wry 7th chord doesn't it? I know what you mean though, 7ths are full on status quo territory. (Dodges rotten fruit from muso-hating crowd)

7ths and the Quo: yes. I think of them as either camp, sleazy or corny, I suppose, depending on context. (Maybe I think of the Quo that way too.)

But no, I don't know what you mean about Scotland and kitchens.

Look, there's 7ths and 7ths: doms slip by sweet as any ordinary major triad root position, dim is close enuff fer twee... Minor 7ths maybe. But major sevenths? Hmmm. Besides, I'm not really talking abt nionw- and-then use for colour, I'm talking about species of progression. A lot of chartpop doesn't use harmony for progression/motion AT ALL: it's vamps (if that), or blues arcs so routine as to be totally inconsequential (matters of consequence happen elsewhere). Twee does: but in a distinctly limited way (this is what I'm suggesting: as a proprosition towards definition). Jazzed-at R&B uses supersophisto chords (maybe) but NOT to effect motion. In fact, effect is a kind of stasis.

Even if twee imitates nay venerates some west coast, it's still SMALLER than west coast, or we wouldn't be arguing. I was suggesting this was an unconscious mechanism of limitation: that the mimicry passes through the tyrannical valley of the shadow of the bar-chord and the guitar shapebook, and INADVERTENTLY DISALLOWS a lot of scope.

I shall not be analysing "Cotton-Eyed Joe" (despite fave memory of long ago when I was cheeky jazz-punk shaver: sitting at a table at Bracknell Jazz fest with aging crit-God Charles Fox, and oh-so-coolly mentioning that orig, Star Trek themetune opens with a minor ninth interval leap. He was surprisingly gracious... )

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I wish we all (or even just me) understood musical terminology properly, and then I could fully understand what looks like a fascinating contribution. As it is, I'm not even quite sure what you mean by dominant vs major 7ths. What has been described to me as major 7ths (I always used to think they were 9ths; then I was told different) is - yes! - major twee sound - so it would be the dominant 7ths that were Quo territory. No?

I don't know what you mean by 'progression' vs 'stasis' (in this particular context) either. And I especially don't know what you mean by 'nionw'. Really, does anyone know what 'nionw' is?

Like I say, what I wish I had is some common ground for understanding. My guess is, a lot of the biggest insights are probably most economically expressed musicologically.

Also, what is a Major Triad Root Position, and what does a Dim (inished?) 7th sound like? (Examples?)

Pinefox: the scottish band is your beloved B&S. A major triad root position, - in my understanding, which is by no means pedant-proof, or correct - is simply three notes that form the core of a major chord.

A minor seventh sounds like a minor chord but a bit more spooky (scientifically speaking).

If I understand Mark correctly, I agree with him on two points: twee, even more than ordinary indie works in progressions - e.g. eighteen million songs with the progression E, F#7, A, B exactly like "beginning to see the light" by the Velvets, whereas chart and R&B sometimes have only one chord/musical motif which they VAMP.

But this helps define R&B better than Twee because most western music works in such progressions....1st, 4th and 5th chords strung together, from Mozart to Chuck Berry?

Secondly, Heavenly have less melodic sophistication than Jimmy Webb. (and infinitely uglier production). (dodges the bullets which have replaced rotten fruit from the onlookers)

>>> the scottish band is your beloved B&S.

Beloved?

>>> A major triad root position, - in my understanding, which is by no means pedant-proof, or correct - is simply three notes that form the core of a major chord.

But what's the core?

>>> A minor seventh sounds like a minor chord but a bit more spooky (scientifically speaking).

I think I know what a minor 7th is.

>>> If I understand Mark correctly, I agree with him on two points: twee, even more than ordinary indie works in progressions - e.g. eighteen million songs with the progression E, F#7, A, B

But 'progression' = just another name for 'chord sequence'?

>>> But this helps define R&B better than Twee because most western music works in such progressions....1st, 4th and 5th chords strung together, from Mozart to Chuck Berry?

I agree (but don't know the classical).

>>> Secondly, Heavenly have less melodic sophistication than Jimmy Webb. (and infinitely uglier production). (dodges the bullets which have replaced rotten fruit from the onlookers)

Oh, god, yes. There's not a doubt.

Examples of minor 7ths at work. Song chosen wildly at random: "Joseph Cornell" by the Clientele.

v = Bm7-E7 (c.7fr) // c = E7 ("")-Bm7 (hey! this is like the, like, verse in - reverse!) / + Am(7?)-Gm(7?)- E7 // etc.

Right?

There's a few minor (and, um, dominant?) 7ths, anyway. And - hey! - they sound good.

O.k...

Sorry to break up muso discussions (which is fine with me....). I ended up getting the clientele album: brilliance!!! Reminds me of cardinal/eric matthews/richard davies but not at all.

Definitely, defiantly, not wibbling wee.....

Anyways...

Carry on.

thank you for the nice words, but i think the clientele LP is slightly overrated generally! Hopefully with the next one we will be able to escape any lingering accusations of wibbling twee.

Joseph Cornell's chords are not quite what you claim Pinefox, but I'll show you them at Pam's next party, rather than subject non musicians on the board to any more misery.

and what I meant by the core of a chord in terms of a triad are its three basic notes, i.e. EB and G sharp in the case of E major.

is gassed by muso riot police

Surely you're not going to tell me it's not in Bm at all. I've only ever done it by ear memory, but that would be an error too far.

Why would anyone think the Clientele were twee? There is nothing remotely twee about them. Red herring.

The 'tele are twee. And yet they are geezers. A paradox such as this requires a neologism, namely: TWEEZERS.

I think the twee comments are boring, really. Music grabs you or it does not. Clientele are good. Beachwood Sparks are good. Elliott Smith is good. Micheal Head is good. And is good, twee? Dunno............and the round-about goes back gain.

Where it just says 7 (eg E7, G7) = "dominant" 7th — as opposed to Emin7, Emaj7, Edim7m etc [ps I think I'm tripping over any kind of signif. presence of dim7ths... I pulled out ten song books and found none: I know Beatles uses somewheres — closing string bitsz of Glass Onion...?]

Yes, I'm distinguishing between a progression and a sequence, I guess: obviously ay bunch of chords one after another is a sequence, so anything not actually atonal (or too polyrhythmic to pin down) will ciontain SEQUENCES. By progression I mean something with iner logical motion: WHICH IS NOT GOING TO BE SO EASY TO EXPLAIN AND YOU WILL HAVE TO GIVE ME A BIT TO THINK PROPERLY.
When I said R&B, I meant R&B now really, not back in the day (which wasn't v.clear of me, but = context of twee). Part of my argt wd be that a progression 20 years ago might just be a sequence now: because imitated so OFTEN that it no longer causes musical motion. But I also need to define "motion", and I also need to go to bed...
ps Root position means the note in the bass = name of the chord ie C for a Cmajor chord (CEG).

sequences vs progression: I dunno, I agree with your argument that chart / modern r&b uses such well worn instrumental motifs that they probably aren't registered by that average fellow on the bus, the casual listener (who is apparently more into the texture or rhythm). But I think indie as a whole is the same - it just nicks old progressions from different records, and the listener is too into the allusive wryness and self-deprecation to care whether the production and progression have been done nine million times before.

p.s. in order to definitively be classed as twee, surely a twee band needs members comprised of the sourest, most frequently sexually betrayed, miserable, bitter and self-hating individuals possible, all trying self righteously to create something "pure". If they are dramatically ugly it helps too. Or is that musicians in general?

So... are you saying that the Clientele ARE twee?

yes - except for the sourest, most frequently sexually betrayed, miserable, bitter and self-hating individuals possible, all trying self righteously to create something "pure". And the dramatically ugly bit. and the twee bit. I fucking hope.

Take those away, and what's left?

do you mean in the universe as you see it or our music?

If the latter: fucking hope