Baroque Indie Pop
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Baroque Indie Pop is indie pop dressed in strings, brass, harpsichord-like keyboards, woodwinds, chamber harmonies, and ornate arrangements that nod to 1960s baroque pop without losing indie intimacy. Songs often move at gentle to mid tempos, with literate lyrics, delicate vocals, counter-melodies, and arrangements that make small feelings sound architecturally grand. It is the sound of a bedroom songwriter discovering a conservatory and using it for heartbreak.
History
The sub-genre draws from The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Scott Walker, Van Dyke Parks, and 1960s orchestral pop, but its indie identity formed in the 1990s through Belle and Sebastian, The Divine Comedy, The Magnetic Fields, Cardinal, and Elephant 6-related chamber-pop experiments. In the 2000s, Sufjan Stevens, Andrew Bird, Beirut, The Decemberists, Camera Obscura, and Jens Lekman expanded the palette with folk instrumentation, brass bands, literary narratives, and elaborate studio arrangements. Baroque Indie Pop influenced chamber folk, orchestral indie, twee revival, and sophisticated alt-pop by proving that ornate does not have to mean impersonal.
Defining artists
Essential listening
Sources
- AllMusic chamber pop and baroque pop overviews
- Pitchfork Sufjan Stevens and indie-pop reviews
- The Rough Guide to Rock
- The Guardian chamber-pop coverage