VMP Magazine

Twee pop: the gentle revolution that could. Often found underneath the indie rock umbrella — twee pop is best defined as melding pop songwriting to an aesthetic that recalls the sweet, the innocent and the past. Twee is as divisive as it is complex; much like emo, there are plenty of bands who have rejected the label out of fear of being distilled into something insulting. For every band like Belle & Sebastian that have staked out a musical identity out of tradition and history, there are others, like the Shop Assistants and Los Campesinos, that have shown how fun it can be to tear up the rulebook and do something else.

Twee pop’s modern roots can arguably be traced to one band that ruled 1980s’ England: the Smiths, a band who took the twee ethos and brought it to a massive audience. Morrissey said it took strength to be gentle and kind and people really took that to heart. But the same could be said about the work done by independent labels like Sarah Records provided a formative ground for acts or NME attempting to will entire trends into existence with their C86 tape. Meanwhile, American bands like Beat Happening and Tullycraft took the simplicity-via-purity ethos and used it to inspire an entirely different set of bands, leveling out the playing field for a more diverse set of musicians.

Here’s a selection of 10 albums that provide a varied introduction to twee, both past and present. And one note: Historically, twee’s strong associations with DIY meant releases were generally designed with the cassette and CD formats in mind, with vinyl releases a rarity. As a concession, albums that were readily available were chosen for inclusion when possible.

Pete Wentz had the best take on Fall Out Boy when he said that his band was comprised of hard-core kids that couldn’t quite cut it as hard-core kids. “A lot of people take it the other way and are pop kids trying to write heavier music,” he told the Independent in 2006. “It gives us a different style because at our core we are always hardcore. That aspect is always going to be evident in the music.” There’s another statement meant to be read between the lines — namely that Fall Out Boy are uncool and they’re happy with that.

Pete Townshend unwittingly named power pop. In the '60s, the Who guitarist used the term to describe the style of his group as a way to link them to groups such as the Beach Boys and other smart, melodic pop acts Townshend admired. Power pop, as it grew, became a lean sister to punk rock’s “burn everything down” ethos yet its musical conservatism gives it a rather nerdy air. The Weezer video for Buddy Holly where the band performed in suits and glasses was not far off from the truth.

Power pop is somewhat easy to define yet it is a sound that is easily malleable. After acts like Big Star and Cheap Trick defined the foundation in the '70s, a lot of acts began incorporating different aspects of the sound with varying degrees of success. It made a resurgence in the '80s with bands like The Knack and the dBs giving it a new wave spin. The 1990s alternative rock boom introduced a new guidebook - Kurt Cobain described Nirvana as the '90s version of Cheap Trick and the paradigm shift they inspired with Nevermind created a fertile ground for pop-minded songwriters and musicians to hit the charts running. With that in mind, here’s an exploration of ten releases that are essential for the power pop genre and also important for your rock/pop collection.

With the spring release of a collected Saetia discography, simply titled Collected, coming out on vinyl through Deathwish imprint Secret Voice, it’s worth taking a look at several other seminal screamo releases that should be cornerstones of your vinyl collection. Most of these are readily available on vinyl, while some will require vigorous eBay crawling.

For a brief moment in the mid 2000s, that nightmare LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy had in “Losing My Edge” came true: bands threw out their guitars and bought synthesizers and turntables. As the Internet advanced into Web 2.0 and burgeoning social media fronts like MySpace and personal blogs caught on, a new movement of dance music caught fire, thanks to a scene of musicians, DJs and producers all over the globe. Spawning out of electroclash, minimal and indie came blog house.

Blog house was less of a genre and more of an intersection of taste and interest; carried by MP3 blogs and MySpace, what was left and en vogue was loud and melodic and plenty of acts rode that wave to international success before the impending wave of dubstep and festival EDM came down and washed everything out. Here are ten of the best records worth owning from this short-lived global era in electronic music in single and full-length format. The emphasis on global is key as this was a sound not limited by distance.

It’s not easy being a Canadian musician. The vast size of the country — and the spread out metropolitan centers — makes touring an incredible slog. That, coupled with a music industry that was, for a long time, behind the times, meant musical luminaries like Neil Young and Joni Mitchell had no choice but to make the trip down to the States to make it. In the ‘90s, the joke was unless you were Alanis Morissette or Celine Dion, your highest hopes were to become household names in the country and learn to deal with playing small bars when you dipped down to the States. All that has changed now. A lot of the top leading lights in rap, rock, folk and pop all hail from Canada. The world’s biggest star is a Jewish guy from Toronto. We did it, and now we’re taking over.

With that said, here’s a smattering of Canadian albums that should be considered essential for diving into the national canon. “Canadian-ness” is a hard thing to define in records, but the idea was to try and pick albums that reflected the times and scenes surrounding it in some way. Sometimes that’s an overt reference to the 6, sometimes it’s something more. The Canadian music industry is a small place; while a lot of the works represented here differ from one another, you’d be surprised at how many players and musicians pop up on others’ work, or how respect for an elder group transcends tribal lines. Everyone likes the Tragically Hip. Chantal Kreviazuk and Chilly Gonzales have appeared on Drake albums.

You might be hoping that listening to these records will give you a better appreciation of the finer things of Canadian culture like poutine, maple syrup and the Hockey Night in Canada Theme Song. Unfortunately, that’s not something easily promised.