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Indie pop (also typeset as indie-pop or indiepop) is a music genre and subculture that combines guitar pop with a DIY ethic in opposition to the style and tone of mainstream pop music. It originated from British post-punk in the late 1970s and subsequently generated a thriving fanzine, label, and club and gig circuit. Compared to its counterpart, indie rock, the genre is more melodic, less abrasive, and relatively angst-free. In later years, the definition of indie pop has bifurcated to also mean bands from unrelated DIY scenes/movements with pop leanings. Subgenres include chamber pop and twee pop.
Music critic Simon Reynolds says that indie pop defines itself against "charting pop". Abebe explains:
Indie pop was an unprecedented contrast from the gritty and serious tones of previous underground rock styles, as well as being a departure from the glamour of contemporary pop music. Distinguished from the angst and abrasiveness of its indie rock counterpart, the majority of indie pop borrows not only the stripped-down quality of punk, but also "the sweetness and catchiness of mainstream pop".
Indie pop and twee music scenes have often vocally rejected the sexist, homophobic, and racist attitudes of both mainstream and underground music scenes. However, while it has often been more inclusive than other forms of independent music in terms of gender and sexual orientation, its lack of racial diversity has been noted by critics.
Despite their relatively minor commercial success, the Television Personalities are highly regarded by critics and have been widely influential, especially on the C86 generation,Buckley, Peter. The Rough Guide to Rock. Rough Guides, 2003. while also inspiring Alan McGee to start Creation Records. Reynolds has said that "what we now know as indie music was invented in Scotland", with reference to the emergence of Postcard Records in 1979. Subsequently, Pitchfork cites Scottish post-punk bands such as Orange Juice, the Vaselines, and Josef K as influential to indie pop as well as female led post-punk bands the Raincoats, Marine Girls, Young Marble Giants and the Chefs. However, some have posited that the concept of indie music did not crystallize until the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Brisbane band the Go-Betweens were an early influential indie pop band, releasing their first single "Lee Remick" in 1978. Other influences include the Deep Freeze Mice and the Monochrome Set, the latter's early singles greatly influenced the indie pop band the Smiths, who went on to be one of the most important and commercially successful bands in the genre.
The Cure's early singles have been described as an influence on indie pop with their later song "Friday I'm in Love" being labeled by NME as a "bona fide indie pop masterpiece".
New Zealand's Dunedin sound was a key influence on indie music, with bands such as the Chills, the Clean, Tall Dwarfs, the Verlaines, the Bats and Straitjacket Fits setting the stage for indie pop music.
Manic Street Preachers bassist Nicky Wire remembers that it was the bands' very independence that gave the scene coherence:
Names that indie pop fans use for themselves are popkids and popgeeks, and for the music they listen to, p!o!p, twee, anorak and C86. Abebe says that the Scottish group the Pastels typified the "hip end of 'anorak': Their lazy melodies, lackadaisical strum, and naive attitude transformed the idea of the rock band into something casual, intimate, and free from the pretense of cool".
Although many music critics such as Everett True, a former NME writer, argued that C86 was neither a label nor a defining factor behind indie pop—adding that "C86 didn't actually exist as a sound or style"—they still acknowledged that there wasn't much of an indie pop subculture before the tape's release, noting that prior to the compilation, the indie pop scene mostly amounted to "... boys like Bobby Gillespie and Edwyn Collins wearing their hair like members of The Byrds.".
Bob Stanley (former Melody Maker journalist and founding member of the pop band Saint Etienne) acknowledges that participants at the time reacted against the lazy labelling, but insists they shared an approach:Many of the actual C86 bands distanced themselves from the scene cultivated around them by the UK music press - in its time, C86 became a pejorative term for its associations with so-called "shambling" (a John Peel-coined description celebrating the self-conscious primitive approach of some of the music). The scene included bands like the Pastels, Talulah Gosh, the Bodines, the Shop Assistants and the Brilliant Corners.
Following on from the aforementioned Postcard Records, in the UK, Bristol-based Sarah Records became the archetypal indie pop record label. They began releasing 7-inch singles in 1987 by bands with overt feminist and left wing principles that made "sweet pop". They released bands such as Heavenly, St. Christopher, the Field Mice, and Even As We Speak, before stopping in 1995.
Scotland's Belle and Sebastian began releasing albums in 1996, with their fandom initially spreading by word-of-mouth. They used a more lush instrumentation than the typical rock band format, with their songs including trumpets and violins, closer to what is called chamber pop.
In the US, Beat Happening's Calvin Johnson had founded K Records in Olympia, Washington, in 1982. During the 1990s the label released bands such as Lois Maffeo, Tiger Trap, the Softies, All Girl Summer Fun Band, and Gaze. K and later labels like Slumberland (Velocity Girl, Rocketship, Henry's Dress, Black Tambourine) and Harriet Records (Tullycraft, the Magnetic Fields) encouraged the genre's spread across the country.
In Canada, in the mid-1990s, the band Cub was at the forefront of a subgenre of indie pop dubbed cuddlecore. Other Vancouver indie pop bands of the time include Gaze, and former Cub member Neko Case's later band Maow.
In Australia, Melbourne label Candle Records put out music by bands and musicians with wistful and humourous lyrics, like the Lucksmiths.
In Cardiff, Wales, Los Campesinos! formed in 2006 and The School formed in 2007. The School released albums on Spanish indie pop label Elefant Records.
In 2010, London based band Veronica Falls released two singles on the American label Captured Tracks. They went on to release two albums, Veronica Falls (2011) and Waiting For Something to Happen (2013), on Bella Union in the UK / EU and Slumberland in the US.
Glasgow based band Sacred Paws began releasing music in 2015, formed by Ray Aggs and Eilidh Rogers who initially met when their old bands Trash Kit and Golden Grrrls played a show together.
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