{"id":274376,"date":"2025-11-20T22:35:15","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T22:35:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/274376\/"},"modified":"2025-11-20T22:35:15","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T22:35:15","slug":"indie-pops-big-year-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/274376\/","title":{"rendered":"Indie Pop\u2019s Big Year Out"},"content":{"rendered":"

FEATURES<\/a><\/p>\n

Indie Pop\u2019s Big Year Out<\/p>\n

By <\/p>\n

Hayden Merrick<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00b7
\n November 20, 2025<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Indie pop was invented by Dolly Mixture<\/a> and Marine Girls: That\u2019s the hill that Chickfactor dies on\u2014or, rather, thrives on\u2014in its latest print issue<\/a>. Both bands were made up of teens; the youngest member of Marine Girls was only 14 at the time of their debut album.<\/p>\n

Perhaps it\u2019s because indie pop is always contextualized in relation to its 1980s heyday\u2014and because wearing thrifted mod clothes, naming your album after a long-defunct East German radio station<\/a>, and shooting on Super 8mm is just cooler\u2014but it\u2019s easy to forget that indie pop (the jangly guitars and DIY ethics contingent) has always been driven and defined by young people.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve been anywhere near Bandcamp, your local record store\u2019s staff picks stand, or Pitchfork and other big music blogs this year, you might have clocked this style of pop\u2014shambolic but melodic guitar music\u2014holding sway like it hasn\u2019t for a while. I wouldn\u2019t blame you for conflating this resurgence with some notable reunions. For instance, one of the most beloved Sarah Records<\/a> bands (a label started by a pair of late teens, incidentally) is set for a big tour and new album next year. That would be Heavenly<\/a>, who have drawn newer faces into their orbit with the retrospective music video for \u201cC is the Heavenly Option\u201d<\/a> and the bands they invite to open for them.<\/p>\n

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But the involvement of any legends from yesteryear is merely a bonus, because the newfound interest in indie pop is all thanks to bands whose ages make you go, \u201c2005 was 20 years ago?!\u201d We\u2019re talking about Sharp Pins<\/a>, Autocamper<\/a>, Good Flying Birds<\/a>, The Cords,<\/a> and Horsegirl<\/a>\u2014to name a tight five. Each released an exceptional album this year, demonstrating that the genre not only at its best, but is the freshest it\u2019s seemed since the early \u201910s, when Veronica Falls<\/a> and The Pains of Being Pure at Heart<\/a> were leading the transatlantic charge.<\/p>\n

The zine HALLOGALLO<\/a>, curated by Kai Slater of Sharp Pins, acknowledges that something is afoot. Its sheep mascot, the website says<\/a>, represents \u201ccool things like the \u2606YOUTH REVOLUTION NOW\u2606 and \u2606TEEN-BEAT\u2606 movements,\u201d and if you put a sticker of said sheep on your phone or flugelhorn, you show that you are \u201cpart of the growing network of Radical Youth Sheeple People Rock-n-Roll Punkrockers.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Coinciding with talk of revolution and teen-led movements, The Cords\u2014a sister duo from Inverkip, an hour outside Glasgow\u2014coined \u201cC25,\u201d a playful but overdue update to the fetishized C86 compilation tape that you\u2019ve read as genre shorthand a thousand times, but never actually listened to. The Cords\u2019s cassette and flexi single both sold out within hours, and their self-titled debut album<\/a> (co-released by Slumberland<\/a> and Skep Wax<\/a>) hit vinyl charts in the UK. Its carefree, golden retriever energy has since propelled them onto bills with The Vaselines<\/a>, The Umbrellas<\/a>, and Heavenly.<\/p>\n

Horsegirl\u2019s members aren\u2019t sisters but, as Chickfactor co-founder Gail O\u2019Hara says of her favorite current band, \u201cthe intimate connection of being close friends gives them the type of chemistry you see in some bands made up of sisters or relatives.\u201d Incubated in that same youth-led Chicago scene as Sharp Pins and HALLOGALLO, the trio debuted in 2022 with a fuzz-box masterpiece called Versions of Modern Performance,<\/a> but their sophomore album pivoted towards minimalist clean tones and croaky violins. Slightly more eerie and mysterious than indie pop\u2019s prototypically smiley fare\u2014though with plenty of light and \u201cla-la-la\u201ds\u2014Phonetics perhaps helped reverse some of the wider reticence towards this sound in 2025.<\/p>\n

After all, \u201c[indie pop] is often ignored, treated with contempt, and not taken seriously because the gatekeepers dubbed it effeminate or not macho enough,\u201d O\u2019Hara of Chickfactor says. Jangle used to face historical snubs by the jaded, know-it-all elites at Melody Maker and NME, who trolled Sarah bands with sanctimonious, often sexist coverage (the reason O\u2019Hara and Black Tambourine\u2019s<\/a> Pam Berry started Chickfactor\u2014because no one was covering indie pop\u2014or chicks\u2014with sincerity). But music journalism has become increasingly diffuse and fan-led\u2014the Chickfactor approach, many would argue<\/a>, had the last laugh\u2014and this has created a meet-you-half-way sort of situation where contemporary indie pop albums are being celebrated by \u201cmainstream\u201d outlets<\/a>, while at the same time the genre has been upping its game to the point where you\u2019d be mad to ignore it.<\/p>\n

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So what other factors might be nudging jangling music from the fringes towards the center\u2014from champions such as Chickfactor and The Jangle Pop Hub<\/a> to Pitchfork\u2019s Best New Music plaudit<\/a> and the phenomenon where a band like The Cords sells out shows and tapes in mere minutes?<\/p>\n

\u201cIndie pop shares an ethos with punk, meaning you don\u2019t have to have attended Juilliard to form a band\u2014you can just start one with your friends,\u201d O\u2019Hara says. This makes it consistently appealing and prevalent, not something reserved for rich kids or learned musicians. \u201cIt does not require huge resources, it doesn\u2019t require refined musicianship, and it tends to come from the ground up, rather than being created somewhere in the music \u2018industry,\u2019 so it\u2019s always available,\u201d agrees Heavenly\u2019s Rob Pursey, Skep Wax<\/a> Records co-founder.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also, quite simply, the bleakness of this year: insurgent fascism, state-sponsored genocide. \u201c2025 is one of the worst years in decades,\u201d O\u2019Hara says, \u201cso if people need to escape, relax, or find community, music is the answer.\u201d Maybe listeners are increasingly seeking out the balm of, as O\u2019Hara puts it, \u201crelatable lyrics, chiming guitars, [and] catchy melodies\u2014sometimes you do need a bit of sunshine pop in dark times.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alongside this, Pursey observes \u201ca reaction to the cold, dead world of big tech,\u201d with his label championing physical music formats. \u201cIn particular, there is a fear of content being artificially generated,\u201d he says. \u201cThat anxiety, I reckon, is partly why this kind of music appeals. It\u2019s imperfect in a way that guarantees a human made it.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just the AI slop flooding Spotify\u2019s made-for-you playlists that causes fatigue. The popularity of bands like Squid<\/a>, Black Country, New Road<\/a>, and Geese<\/a> this year means the landscape of alternative music has been dominated by more challenging, maximalist art (and in Squid\u2019s case, unrelatable lyrics about cannibalism). \u201c2025 has a lot of shouty music and disaffected noise,\u201d Kai Slater says, \u201cwhich is all fine and dandy, but melody\u2014much like the notion of \u2018rock \u2018n\u2019 roll\u2019\u2014is like a plant genus that, despite all the odds, always finds a way to thrive and exist. And in certain periods there\u2019s more of a yearning for that sound in the music world, like in 2025, when you\u2019re surrounded by bleak post-punk poets or whatever.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cI think that in most eras there\u2019s been a need for less aggressive\/noisy\/nihilistic rock music and more sequined, sparkly sounds for dainty melodious people,\u201d Slater continues, having released some of the most strikingly melodious, out-of-time tunes of the last year or so in Radio DDR <\/a>and, hot on its heels, this month\u2019s Balloon Balloon Balloon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Projects like Sharp Pins are not here to reinvent the wheel. More important is simply to keep it spinning\u2014to shock those foundational genre cornerstones with fresh life and color. Sharp Pins succeed in adding to the lineage, not phoning in a rendition of what already exists. This means, unlike the 4000th shoegaze band whose publicist promises they\u2019re turning the genre on its head, indie pop gets to be more unabashedly referential. Manchester\u2019s Autocamper<\/a> can have Tom Crossley of The Pastels<\/a> play flute on their album, What Do You Do All Day?<\/a>, and lather the arrangements with the fizzy organ tones we instantly associate with Rocketship\u2019s debut<\/a>. They borrow from and pay homage to the past, but swerve being derivative by pushing forward with brilliant pop music that, to bring it back to basics, holds your attention and makes you feel something\u2014all you can ask for really.<\/p>\n

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Similarly, Good Flying Birds\u2019s debut album Talulah\u2019s Tape<\/a> nods to the revered Oxford group Talulah Gosh,<\/a> while the band name itself pluralizes a Guided By Voices fan fave<\/a>. Like Slater, Indianapolis-based Kellen Baker wrote and recorded everything himself, and it pops with so much personality. The interstitial skits\u2014monkey noises, SpongeBob SquarePants samples, random audio-meme fragments\u2014make his squiggly solos and boxy riffs sound even more euphoric in contrast. See the transition into \u201cEric\u2019s Eyes\u201d or the uplifting, endlessly re-playable groove of the album opener. The latter, \u201cDown on Me,\u201d is introduced by a vintage interview snippet<\/a> in which William Reid quips \u201cmy favorite color is gold\u201d in answer to a lazy, polarizing question about whether the Jesus and Mary Chain<\/a> are the best band in the world or the worst. As the album\u2019s very first word, it\u2019s positioned as a kind of rallying mantra against those that underestimate or infantilize indie pop.<\/p>\n

I view Baker\u2019s approach to the anachronistic Good Flying Birds website<\/a> as a reaction to big tech hegemony that Pursey mentioned, an uncynical compromise between unplugging completely that still lets bands engage with fans online in a way more akin to the wholesome MySpace era. Like the album\u2019s sincere\/silly push-and-pull, the site supplements its retro pop-ups, animations, and goofy word art with wisdom-dishing blog posts: \u201cIts freaking september 2025 yallll we are playing music in light of a crushingly fucked world, make something pretty while you can,\u201d and \u201chighly recommend putting on a tune that speaks to u and dancing in ur room right tf now [sic].\u201d I tried it and can confirm: That\u2019s really all there is to it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FEATURES Indie Pop\u2019s Big Year Out By Hayden Merrick \u00b7 November 20, 2025 Indie pop was invented by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":274377,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[96,128,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-274376","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=274376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274376\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/274377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}