‘Twee’ is often used as a derogatory phrase, aimed at naive or frivolous art that is supposedly detached from the ‘real world’. How or why, the critics argue, would an artist retreat into the silly or infantile when there is so much pain and suffering in the world? Shouldn’t the imperative be that art holds a light to this, and challenges the systems that reinforce these conditions?
Such ideas, of course, range from lazy generalisations to dangerous pomposity. Based in Chicago, Joey Nebulous are an example of a band utilising the twee aesthetic for greater ends, their synth-based sugar pop able to explore themes of love, intimacy and identity. Indeed, where such weighty topics lead many bands toward melodrama, Joseph Farago and co. explore them with a playful air, approaching the songs with a near childlike innocence in order to present a fresh and endearing picture of one person’s experience of the twenty-first century.
Back in 2017 the band put out high on daddy’s day with Philadelphia stalwarts Sleeper Records, setting out their tender and quirky sound. Everything about the release, from the short length of the tracks to the titles themselves (e.g. ‘househunter’s intl’ and ‘cher’), suggests a superficial slice of goofy fun, but dip below the surface and there is far more at work. The twee style, Joey Nebulous prove, need not represent a retreat from reality. It can provide sincerity and empathy, and thus become an oppositional force in a world lacking both.
Today we’re delighted to share a brand new album, Give Yourself a Kiss For Me, again out via Sleeper Records. Taking the style of high on daddy’s day and developing it further, the album adds further dimensions to the sound and feels like a realisation of the Joey Nebulous style. The playful nature of the music is unchanged, though this time it’s balanced with wistfulness and longing, as well as a fondness so keen that it registers as a strange kind of suffering.
From the sparkling and subtly carefree lead single ‘New Joey’ to the bittersweet sugar rush of ‘Cheerleader Mom’, Give Yourself a Kiss For Me proves that Joey Nebulous are experts in crafting the perfect queer pop song. ‘Superstar’ is all shuffling drums and dreamily synths, while the slow and considered vibe continues onto the minimally ramshackle ‘I Wanna Be On Tour’ with its improvised percussion and radiantly earnest vocals. But even in this radiance Farago has something important to say, with casually-delivered but still cutting lines such as “I like the sound of my voice but it’s shaking, I’m gay and that hurts / they’re leaving queers off the bills, they’re saying they won’t but they always will.”
This is the case across the album as a whole, the worries and difficulties of being queer entwined seamlessly into the nice shiny pop songs all the way until closing track. One of the album’s longest despite clocking in at barely over two minutes, ‘Pride Month’ explores the what happens after the initial buzz of identity discovery wears thin. “How can i be proud if I’m so unhappy?” Farago asks in a moment of typically naked clarity. But, just like the rest of the record, despite how heavy that sounds, you still couldn’t describe it as downbeat, in fact its undeniably pretty.
It is Pride Month and I haven’t done a thing
haven’t even watched a gay thing on TV
Album art by Halle Farago