Maybe for some, the best part of emo is the incorporation of Math-rock into the Twinkle-Daddy sub-genre. If you didn’t know what that last sentence meant, this article will explain it all.

–The History Of Emo: Emo bands through the ages by Isaiah King

So…what are “Twinkledaddies”?

No Luke, according to r/Emo, “Twinkledaddies” refers to bands of the 2010s-era emo revival “with prominent math rock riffs and melodies” which is a fairly straightforward definition. King has this to say in his history of emo:

Contemporary emo, also known as “emo-revival,” has gained some popularity lately. Since most of their influence is taken from the mid-west underground emo of the ’90s glittery sound, some have called this sub-genre “Twinkle-Daddy” in reference to the older age of the artists and the sound.

But where did that particular name come from? In 2015, a Reddit user asked the question, and one u/crocken responded:

it was one of the dudes in TWIABP on either twitter, tumblr, or the topshelf message board.

[. . .] I’m thinking 2011? Basically all the good music was put out by then so what else was the scene going to do while waiting for people to catch on?

TWIABP is emo band The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die (that’s right, even in abbreviation the name is long enough to give typists pause). As told by Tanner Jones of the band You Blew It! in the interview below, former TWIABP member Greg Horbal originated the term in a message board post, and then as a joke began tagging emo revival bands as “Twinkledaddies” on Last.fm in order to try and get the term to catch on as an actual genre (again, as a joke). According to Jones, this eventually led to Horbal being banned by Last.fm.

Be that as it may, the effort was successful enough that we’re talking about it here, tonight. There is even a dedicated subreddit with the slogan “Great minds twinkle alike” and it isn’t tiny:

So how about some actual music? Going into this, I can’t speak with much personal listening knowledge of either emo or twinkledaddydom. But here’s a post soliciting recommendations, from which I listened to this track by the aforementioned TWIABP (Bandcamp’s default volume can be a bit higher than YouTube, but I’m a fan of this sleek embedded player):

I like it. And I guess that I have that Greg guy to thank for starting me on a voyage of discovery that I wouldn’t have taken if not for the catchy whimsy of the term twinkledaddies. The world is a strange, indeed sometimes beautiful place.

Twinkle, dance, chill, emote, whatever moves you tonight 🌟

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^{Header credit: Steven Pisano}