The Rise and Fall of Bedroom Pop

Picture this: It's mid-to-late 2018. Your Pinterest is littered with yellow Fjällräven backpacks, Starry Night print socks, and mom jeans. You just heard ‘Pretty Girl’ by Clairo for the first time and fell in love with the dreamy, effortless sound. It's different from what your friends are listening to and it pairs perfectly with Gus Dapperton’s ‘Prune, You Talk Funny’ on your playlist. You have now entered the Bedroom Pop Zone. This surely won't turn into a meme in some odd 3 years, right?

As do most things popularized by Gen Z, bedroom pop has now reached the point of it being both simultaneously nostalgic and widely criticized (See: 2014 grunge Tumblr, the summer 2020 alt aesthetic, etc.) While we miss the simplicity of the time, I don't blame my fellow unqualified critics for taking a step back and asking "Was Cuco even good, or did he just use enough synths to cover up the mediocrity of his music?" The answer is eh, probably.

How did we get here?

There were two reasons we fell for the underproduced lie of bedroom pop: the need to be different and the desperation to find music that was both unique and also palatable to 13-to-16-year-olds. Sure we could have chosen to listen to obscure Russian underground rap, but that doesn't exactly make you feel like the main character when you're riding the bus to school Freshman year. Or, maybe it does. I can't say I've ever tried.

In addition to the easy to listen to music, the bedroom pop era birthed the "art hoe" aesthetic to go with it. Bright yellow sweaters, mom jeans, spending your weekends making subpar acrylic paintings to hang in your room with that one comforter - you know, the one with the pressed flowers and vines from Urban Outfitters. It was simple and could easily set you apart from the girls at school who were still wearing Pink sweatshirts. Ugh, you're nothing like those girls, right? Don't get me wrong, it was a great aesthetic for the early high school girl who didn't quite develop her own personality yet but still wanted to have a sense of individuality. Trust me, I was one of those girls.

Now, for the music side of things, I feel like most people had a similar experience that got them into the bedroom pop scene: ‘Bubble Gum’ by Clairo either coming up in your YouTube recommended videos or your Spotify Discover Weekly. I fell in love with the quiet ukulele and simple lyrics that allowed me to imagine I was in the same situation as Clairo: "Sorry I didn't kiss you / It's obvious I wanted to." I sure as hell wasn't kissing anyone, but at least I could pretend that I was late at night in my room. Then came Cuco, Boy Pablo, Conan Gray, and Jack Stauber. ‘Coffee Breath’ by Sofia Mills, ‘The Loser’ by Verzache, all slow, muted, and just the right amount of depressing for someone who is still excited about what highschool will bring (Spoiler alert: that won't last long). Now, with a much more diverse and experimental music taste, I can split these artists and songs into two categories: "How did I listen to this?" and "Wait I forgot how good this was!".

The Problem I see with Bedroom Pop

Okay, okay, I get it. Bedroom pop allowed for the rise of the "DIY Artist.” The indie equivalent to the Soundcloud rapper. The new age of music production. I can't not agree with these commonly held observations of this genre. But, bedroom pop was not a sustainable trend. The music that came out of it was typically only made with GarageBand, one vocalist, and a couple of 808s and synths - there are not many different directions to go in terms of music production. We've heard the dreamy vocals over the ukulele and the funky synths of Cuco one too many times. They were great at the time, but we eventually moved onto fresher, less recyclable styles of music. With complex genres such as math rock, transcendent-psychedelic indie, and the ever-intoxicating energy hyperop, bedroom pop simply could not keep up. We, unfortunately, grew out of the sweet simplicities that it had to offer.

What I Will Defend

While I always love a hot take about music, I will consistently stick up for a select few artists that were popularized during the bedroom pop craze. Up first is Wallows. They took the genre a step further and produced genuinely danceable indie-pop bangers like ‘These Days’, ‘Ground’, and ‘Pictures of Girls’.

Jack Stauber is a prime example of someone who was lumped into the genre but was able to break away and display creativity that I'd never heard before in the music world. His songs ‘Buttercup’ and ‘Oh Khlahoma’ are strange, slightly unsettling, and addictively catchy.

Beach Bunny and Cavetown are both omnipresent on Spotify bedroom pop playlists, although I think their styles lack the simplicity that most other artists in this genre have. Nonetheless, that is what I love about them. Beach Bunny touches on important topics such as eating disorders, comparing yourself to other girls, and relationship troubles. Cavetown uses interesting tempo changes to bring a sense of rock into the indie-pop world. These artists took bedroom pop and ran with it, while others dropped the ball when it came to innovating on their stale sound after three years. This I see as a sign that bedroom pop was paramount in furthering the indie genre into the end of the 2010s and into the future.

We can all see that bedroom pop is no longer in its glory days. The yellow sweaters have been shoved to the back of our closets and we've traded Clairo for Phoebe Bridgers. While we may look back and wonder how we exclusively listened to ‘Flaming Hot Cheetos’ for over a year, we can appreciate that this genre was the main proponent in the popularization of indie music for Gen Z listeners. And to that, I say Thank you, bedroom pop - but please don't make me listen to ‘Feeling Lonely’ by Boy Pablo ever again.