17 July 2016

top 100 of the '00s | 70. tullycraft - "the punks are writing love songs"

This was the only Tullycraft song I ever got into, but it really is a stroke of musical brilliance.

"Twee" was very much an established *whatever* (scene? sound? thing?) in the indie rock world by the time this album dropped in 2007, and Tullycraft's name seems to be associated with its genesis dating all the way back to the mid '90s. (Imagine what going to a "twee" show was like in 1995 -- it's pretty funny.) For the uninitiated, twee is lighthearted, lo-fi indie pop, sung in a carefree, almost jaunty manner and with no abrasive instrumentation. It's like the musical embodiment of a children's book or that guy at the office who has potted plants on his desk.

What Tullycraft did so cleverly here is draw a very clear connection between twee and '80s punk. It's a pretty clear nod in particular to the Dead Kennedys.

I took this as their own little way of saying that twee was, in fact, not all that different than punk. It's just its less-aggressive little brother.

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