If you, like me, have an unhealthy obsession with emo, you may have noticed that the age of twinkledaddy has died long ago, and the trend of bands in the scene beginning to go faux-lo-fi is at a peak. This is nothing new– these bands are just following the lead of previous lo-fi bands such as Pity Sex, Teen Suicide, and Elvis Depressedly. However, what I’ve noticed about this recent crop of bands is that it seems that they have finally disposed of almost all vestigial emo elements in favor of an approach that primarily blends indie rock with pop-punk. The only thing left aside from some vocal work is a bastardized form of the twinkle, which shall heretofore be referred to as the sparkle– hence the name, sparklepunk.

Never one to rest on my laurels, I created a subreddit for this new genre. Allow me to self-plagiarize that sidebar I wrote, with a few pedantic additions:

Sparklepunk is a style of music rooted in the emo pop revival of the mid-2010s (Modern Baseball, Sorority Noise– essentially bands that rip off early Promise Ring with some Say Anything thrown in for good measure). It takes primarily from pop-punk and indie rock, with some valid elements of Midwest emo in the vocals, which are typically aggressive and heavily strained. Its defining characteristic is its “sparkly” guitar parts, which combine the streamlined, jolly twinkles of a band like Braid with the noodly guitar work and lo-fi aesthetic of 90s college rock bands such as Pavement and Archers of Loaf. Their song structures are usually built around a pop-punk base and often include power chords and sing-alongs– think early Weezer mixed with Superchunk, with some occasional gang vocals thrown in.

Sparklepunk is not to be confused with twinkledaddy bands (Street Smart Cyclist, Algernon Cadwallader, Snowing, Glocca Morra) or #emorevival bands (the Hotelier, Adventures, later You Blew It!). Unlike most of the aforementioned bands, sparklepunk typically eschews hardcore influence in favor of pop-punk, without dumbing down the intricacy of the guitar work or the aggression of the vocals. For example, Panucci’s Pizza is a twinkledaddy band; JANK is sparklepunk.

A sub-style of sparklepunk is weedpop, coined by the band JANK to describe themselves, and is mainly used by bands to refer to themselves (see: Darkle). Weedpop indicates less an actual genre or sonic distinction and more of an aesthetic for weed smoking high school graduates who own TWIABP’s weed dog shirt. Song topics include the typical pop punk subjects of girlfriends and school, in addition to getting blazed to forget how sad you are.

Some examples, you ask? Sure!

Dogs on Acid are probably the ur-example of sparklepunk– it is composed of alumni of twinkledaddy bands like Algernon Cadwallader and Snowing, so it’s pretty easy to hear the shift in song structure from those aforementioned bands, as well as the difference between the twinkles and the sparkles. It is notable that Pete’s vocal approach is much more accessible here, however; although sparklepunk bands may have aggressive vocal work, they never resort to flat-out inaccessible shrieking the way that Petey did in songs like “If It Kills Me” or, well, anything John Galm has sang, ever.

Putting aside JANK’s horrendous flameout last year, I would say that they are probably the band who has done the most to bring sparklepunk to the masses. You may think that their guitar sound is twinkly rather than sparkly, but I beg to differ– listen to Panucci’s Pizza and you can, in my opinion, hear a massive difference between the former’s sparklepunk and the latter’s twinkledaddy tendencies. Two other things that come to mind when discussing JANK– first, Panucci’s Pizza were legitimately lo-fi, while JANK typifies the “faux-lo-fi” aesthetic that I’ve been talking about it in this article and which is central to sparklepunk. The second thing is that JANK, as the inventors of weedpop, have a lot to fucking answer for (well, except for Ruben– he is forgiven because Soul Glo fucking rips).

Mom Jeans. are the band that inspired me to write this article. They are the sparklepunk band. Enough said.

Donovan Wolfington are one of my very favorite sparklepunk bands and they show off both the “faux-lo-fi” aesthetic as well as the genre’s Weezer influence in perfect balance. This band is hooky as all hell. That’s an important factor: most sparklepunk is both a lot more upbeat than #emorevival (which is pretty much catchy-but-melancholic indie rock mixed with very intense emotive hardcore) and is much more simplistic than twinkledaddy bands (who are basically all competing to see who can create the sloppiest-yet-most-complex Cap’n Jazz rip-off)– in some ways it’s like the best of both worlds, and it’s all down to the fact that these bands rarely have any real emo influences!

Prince Daddy & the Hyena are one of those sparklepunk bands that really, really cop Weezer’s steez; see also Rozwell Kid— basically, bands that wank endlessly over the guitar tone on the Blue Album. What sets Prince Daddy apart is the intensity of their vocal performance, as well as the fact that they also identify as “weedpop” (yeah, thanks again, JANK. Janks again? Fuck it, whatever).

I quite literally cannot think of a band that typifies sparkly guitar parts more than Sleep In.. Side note, god, I thought the trend of irritating punctuation within band names was bad even when it was skramz bands doing it. Mom Jeans. and Sleep In., what is the purpose? Should we pause in the middle of the sentence while talking about your bands? That question is rhetorical, no one talks about these bands in real life.

Oliver Houston are really great and catchy, and probably come the closest to actually being twinkly. Close, but no cigar, kiddos.

Perspective, A Lovely Hand to Hold also vie for that tr00 twinkle status, and I’ll be honest, they are the one sparklepunk band who could make a legitimate argument for being a twinkledaddy band. However, the climax of this song is just straight pop-punk, no two ways about it. Bummer. I do like the lyric about watching It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia though.

If one thing should be clear by this point of the post, it’s that sparklepunk is a bit of a wide-ranging style. Prince Daddy hews closer to emo pop revival, for example, while Oliver Houston leans more towards twinkledaddy influence, and Donovan Wolfington are damn near #emorevival. It Looks Sad. (there’s that fucking period at the end of the name again!) are in the tradition of sparklepunk’s lo-fi forefathers, like Salvia Plath, Cigarettes After Sex, and flatsound. Of course, It Looks Sad. are catchier than all of those bands put together. Eat your heart out, Mitch.

Crying play a borderline obnoxious form of sparklepunk that is heavy on the power chords and also incorporates the aggravating noise of a hacked Game Boy as a musical aid. I fucking cherish them– it’s not often that bands this minimalist are able to layer sound this audaciously, and make it work.

Oso Oso’s new album, The Yunahon Mixtape, is Sparklepunk 101. If any of you out there want to start a sparklepunk band, you should immediately rip off Oso Oso. They have literally every convention of the genre down pat, and they’re damn good songwriters to boot.

Darkle are another self-described “weedpop” band. Despite that, they’re fucking great. They sound like sparklepunk mixed with 90s skate punk. Sparkleskate, maybe? In any case, their aesthetic for this video is on fucking point.

And last but not least, we have my favorite sparklepunk band, Posture & the Grizzly. It’s not often that I am in awe of how well songs are constructed– I listen to a lot of music and I am not easily impressed. Additionally, I’m often irritated by the fact that these bands are lumped into the emo scene despite being tangentially related at best. Posture & the Grizzly require no excuses from me, however. They’re fucking fantastic.

And there it is, a comprehensive look at sparklepunk as it is today. Make it a hashtag. Tweet it at Mom Jeans, like I did. Subscribe to the subreddit. Make fun of me for being an overly-attentive dickbag about genres. Get stoked.

You Don’t Need Maps obsesses over things no one cares about every day at his blog. Follow him on Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook for more in-depth analyses of micro-genres that nobody else is even remotely interested in.