BV Interviews: Heavenly on 1st album in 30 years, reclaiming "twee," finding community, more

""It always happens at some point," Rob Pursey says in reference to "twee," a descriptor that has dogged he and partner Amelia Fletcher's bands for 40 years. It was a word often used as derogatory by music journalists, but like a lot of genres - shoegaze, trip-hop - it's become accepted and embraced by many who have listened to their band Heavenly in the nearly two decades between breaking up and reforming in 2023."

""We've sort of dealt with that quite a bit because we, initially, we were just resistant to it in the same way we would have been if some, you know, lardy-ass male journalist in the '90s had said, oh, this is twee, they wear cardigans or whatever they said, or 'they read books' or something else equally damning," Pursey says. "And then you realize that people of our kids' generation, it's just a word that refers to a kind of music is quite innocent.""

""And some of them, I think people would think that they were in the Twee Pop category, but we can't quite put that on the press release, even though it would probably help themself. It's just too deeply embedded in us that even though we recognize it's a genre, we'll say they're punk when they're clearly not really punk. We're indiepop. We use DIY, we use indiepop.""

Rob Pursey and Amelia Fletcher have had the descriptor 'twee' attached to their bands for 40 years. Music journalists originally used the word derogatorily, but genres like shoegaze and trip-hop show how labels become accepted. Pursey says initial resistance gave way as younger listeners treated 'twee' as an innocent genre label. Amelia notes that press releases for Skep Wax bands sometimes conceal a Twee Pop tag, instead calling them indiepop or DIY. Heavenly reunited in 2023 and released Highway to Heavenly, their first album in 30 years. The album mixes sugary melodies with dark lyrics. TikTok turned their '90s song 'P.U.N.K. Girl' into a 2020s viral hit.

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