frick me i'm twee!!

Fwick me i’m twee…

First blog entry?? What okay?? Sure right??

This summer I am feeling very moody, experiencing a bit of PDSD (Park that car, Drop that phone, Sleep on the floor, Dream about me). But wallowing is good for lots of things, including writing dramatic blog posts lol.

THIS BLOG IS ABOUT: My favorite musicians, songs, videos, and media - specifically in the twee/indie pop realm but not strictly. I thought I’d start this blog by defining its namesake, twee. The actual, ye-olde definition of the word is “excessively or affectedly quaint, pretty, or sentimental.”

The main association with the word nowadays, at least with a lot of people in my generation, is Zooey Deschanel and her music and acting career, probably because of the modest, naive, way she dresses and the similar light-heartedness of She & Him’s music. Don’t get me wrong - I LOVE Zooey. I love her. BUT! Her music and vibe in the early aughts was not the origin of the word twee pertaining to music and media. Just the other day, I saw a TikTok where someone was shaming people who were calling their colorful/cute outfits “twee” and correcting them by presenting pictures of Zooey’s old outfits as “real twee.” This peeved me off!! Anything can be twee! But also you don’t even know about twee before Zooey so maybe shut up about it. Lol.

SO! Let’s start at the beginning! When/why did people start describing music as twee? To begin my research, I watched the documentary “My Secret World: The Story of Sarah Records.” Before watching this documentary, I had the vague idea that the genre of twee began sometime in the 80s with the start of small indie labels like K Records in Olympia and Sarah Records in Bristol. HOWEVER - I had no idea that twee began as a derogatory descriptor used by music press and critics in the 80s and 90s in England to diss artists signed to Sarah Records because they didn’t fit in with the popular nihilistic grunge scene at the time.

Sarah Records, started by Clare Wadd and Matt Haynes, was a feminist, political label that refused to rely on popular approval or support from big music press, sticking to their fanzine roots. The press, disgruntled by Sarah’s continual success and avid fans, used the word twee in many hateful reviews to discredit the art made by Sarah bands. Their more emotional and “feminine” music didn’t match up with the press’ definition of “good music” at the time, whose standards were defined by bands in the mounting grunge scene such as Nirvana and Oasis (sorry kurt luv you). So yah, me and tons of other fans of this music that was called twee as a diss are here to say: yah it is cute and catchy and jangly and emotional! Sooo?? I think some people were just a little jealous…

Here is an example of one of these sexist reviews from NME that I found in the documentary:

The ironic thing about this quote is that the majority of Sarah bands had male lead singers. The fact that the label was co-founded and co-run by a woman, Clare Wadd, really pissed off press writers. The documentary describes how sexist men in the music industry would call the Sarah phone number and refuse to speak to Clare because they assumed she was just Matt Haynes’ boyfriend or the receptionist and not an actual representative/founder of the label. Sigh. As a woman in the music industry, majoring in Music Production, I’ve experienced my fair share of sexist comments and assumptions, but I can’t imagine what Clare and other women in the industry had to put up with in the 80s/90s. Therefore, I use the word twee slightly ironically and partly as a reclamation of the word for women in the indie pop genre in this blog.

K Records, which was founded by Calvin Johnson about 5 years before Sarah was founded in 1987, also hosted a long list of “twee” artists, starting with Calvin’s own band Beat Happening. Their music was a complete rejection of the popular hardcore punk scene in the U.S. at the time, paralleling Sarah’s objective. As a side note, it’s funny to think about how Kill Rocks Stars and Riot Grrrl developed in the same scene as K as a reclamation of punk my nonmen. Anyways, the most notable overlap between the K and Sarah was Calvin’s affinity for the British band Talulah Gosh, which later signed to Sarah Records as Heavenly and eventually to K Records, as well as their later iterations Marine Research and Tender Trap (more on Amelia Fletcher’s swath of amazing bands at a later date).

Speaking of which, here is the MEDIA OF THE WEEK!

“C Is The Heavenly Option” by Heavenly with vocals from Calvin Johnson

According to Amelia Fletcher of Heavenly in the documentary “My Secret World,” they recorded the song with Calvin transatlantically through tape recordings sent in the mail!

The specific title of this blog, Frick Me I’m Twee, is in reference to the Tullycraft song “Twee” and was inspired by the genius of my bestie (check out her blog oldoldmold.xyz). “Surf Beat Fun” by Tullycraft was released on another amazing label out of Portland called Magic Marker Records, which I don’t think exists anymore, but has released records from some of my favorite artists, including Dear Nora and All Girl Summer Fun Band.

OKAY! I think that’s enough for today. I could ramble on and on about this stuff, but I hope it was informative or entertaining! Thanks for reading!