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Tag Archives: twee as fuck

Pleased To Meet You: Mr. COCKROBIN

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If, for whatever confused reason, you feel you need to appear on this blog in order to boost you’re popularity, let me tell you a secret way to definitely earn you’re way onto these hallowed WordPress pages. I’m a sucker for indie-pop. If it sounds vaguely twee and isn’t completely off-putting, it has a 95 percent chance of being written about. I’m a big shy sissy, so this type of sunny music appeals to me in ways a lot of other sounds won’t. Hit up my e-mail in the about page!

You don’t even need fully formed songs…poorly named outfit Mr. COCKROBIN (emphasis by them) only have a few demos and snippets from, I guess, an album on their MySpace. These are REALLY TWEE samples, though. I’m talking twinkly guitar-driven melodies and horns. “Coffee Cup” is almost too cute for it’s own good, but the generally happy sappy tone never gets too unbearable. “Piece,” meanwhile, plows forward as much as an indie-pop song can, hardly original but totally lovable. There is a lot to dig through there, but it’s all worth taking a listen to. Plus now you know the secret to Make Believe Melodie’s heart! Please think of a better band name though.

Love You Forever: Hminh

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According to MySpace, Hminh’s influences: “Beat Happening, The Magnetic Fields, Minor Threat.”

Now, I can hear a little Stephen Merritt in this duo’s indie-pop, and I wouldn’t be shocked if they subscribed to the same DIY philosophies of Minor Threat. But when it comes to Hminh’s actual sound, only the first band listed comes through. The track “S” even snatches the same structure of “Indian Summer” and just mixes things up ever so slightly. Not a big deal, though, since that might very well be the best indie-pop song ever and Hminh pull off the whole twee thing very well. “S” is pleasant enough, but the real pop champion would be the dreamy stroll of “I.” It’s a classic skippy indie-pop song easily described as “sunny,” though it always feel likes clouds are waiting just out of the scene. Listen here.

I’m Not Going To Write Those Words Again: The Caraway

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The words in questions…”indie” and “pop,” joined together by a hyphen. Though I love the jangly sound immensely – click the “twee as fuck” tag to see just how much – attempting to write about it can be a challenge because a lot of “twee” songs sounds alike. The Caraway’s “Bedroom Suburb” features all the hallmarks of the sound – sunny melody, some goofy organ – and really doesn’t feature any breathtaking new levels to explore. The vocals stand out a bit, a little more muffled than most indie-pop…but it’s not as crazy as something like, say, Black Tambourine. “Bedroom Suburb” is just a great little piece of twee pop. No need to elaborate too much on that. Listen here.

Twee As…Oh You Know: Lilacs In Bloom

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I should have grown out of indie pop. Just read Nitsuh Abebe’s description of the genre more typically referred to as “twee,” from his wonderful history of the style – “Happy pop geeks in love with all things pretty, listening to seven-inch singles released on tiny labels, writing songs about crushes, and taking a good deal of pride in the fact that everyone else found their music disgustingly cute and amateurish and girly.” Sounds pretty teenage-ish right, the type of music made by and for the kids who don’t even get screen time in a high school comedy. It is, and years removed from feeling like a total dweeb during my academic life, I should have outgrown jangly pop about crushes and sunny days. Yet I haven’t, regardless of how many times people call me “effeminate” after browsing my iTunes library.

Japan’s Lilacs In Bloom remind me why I’m so starry eyed over the genre. Like most indie pop, this Tokyo band don’t set the musical world on fire one bit – they play sunny little melodies complete with mumbly vocals and some horns thrown in for good measure. It’s simple, it’s a bit crude and I can’t close the tab open to the bands MySpace. It’s all a hand drawn cat away from being too much. The sound is definitely familiar…skippy, sunny guitars and awkward singing coming together with horns and organ in a way that sounds like nearly anything off Sarah Records. It’s perfectly twee and, if these type of admittedly wussy tunes appeal to you, Lilacs In Bloom will find a very happy place between The La’s and The Lucksmiths.

Let’s end with one more quote, this one from Olav Bjortomt’s look back at If You’re Feeling Sinister – “And I acknowledge the fact I love wussy songs about boys feeling sad and bad about the opposite sex. If you don’t like that, as Ed Hamell would say: Go fuck yourself.”

Oldie Goodie: Miniskirt

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We try to stay current here on Make Believe Melodies, but I’m willing to buck the rules I barely enforce on myself in special situations. “Special situations” here really meaning “finding some bomb-ass twee music that could have been posted last month or five years ago.” Tokyo outfit (cue laughtrack) Miniskirt make pure, wimpy indie-pop in the style of Sarah Records finest. It helps that the lead singer sounds a lot like the guy from The Field Mice. The most played track on the band’s MySpace page is “Blue Contact Lenses,” which deserves everyone of its 3,302 hits. It’s all about new found crushes, a peppy number about a guy actually leaving his house to say hi to a pretty girl and invite her “to go sit down somewhere.” Elsewhere, “Be Here With Me” manages to name drop a handful of juice flavors while adding a little zing to their jangle-pop via some background organ. Like the best indie-pop, it doesn’t come with an expiration date. This stuff is timeless.