TV Girl is an American
indie pop
Indie pop (also typeset as indie-pop or indiepop) is a music genre and subculture that combines guitar pop with DIY ethic in opposition to the style and tone of mainstream pop music. It originated from British post-punk in the late 1970s and sub ...
band from
San Diego
San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...
, California, consisting of Brad Petering, Jason Wyman, and Wyatt Harmon.
The group is now based in Los Angeles.
Though they failed to break into the critical mainstream, TV Girl has amassed a cult following, and their debut album ''French Exit'' is considered a staple in the indie music scene, being called "remarkably solid" by Bandwagon Magazine and "one of the most focused indie-pop albums of the past decade" by The Daily Targum.
TV Girl's 2012 mixtape ''The Wild, The Innocent, The TV Shuffle'' was released and given away for free with an accompanying downloadable coloring book.
This mixtape would have been their debut album, but the duo expressed that this work didn't feel official enough to be their first album and felt that the term mixtape was more appropriate.
Artistry
Influences
TV Girl frequently samples songs and media from the 1960s in their music. An example of this is seen in the song "Lover's Rock," where the backing track is created from a looped sample of the intro to
the Shirelles
The Shirelles were an American girl group formed in Passaic, New Jersey in 1957. They consisted of schoolmates Shirley Owens (later Shirley Alston Reeves), Doris Coley (later Doris Kenner-Jackson), Addie "Micki" Harris (later Addie Harris McFadd ...
' single "The Dance is Over", which was originally released in 1960. In a post to
Reddit
Reddit (; stylized in all lowercase as reddit) is an American social news aggregation, content rating, and discussion website. Registered users (commonly referred to as "Redditors") submit content to the site such as links, text posts, images ...
, Petering writes he "..never gets tired of seeking out old and obscure music. I listen to lots of music and I find my loops and sounds that way."
Musical style and songwriting
TV Girl is generally regarded as
indie pop
Indie pop (also typeset as indie-pop or indiepop) is a music genre and subculture that combines guitar pop with DIY ethic in opposition to the style and tone of mainstream pop music. It originated from British post-punk in the late 1970s and sub ...
,
or sometimes as hypnotic pop.
Similarly to
trip hop
Trip hop (sometimes used synonymously with "downtempo") is a musical genre that originated in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom, especially Bristol. It has been described as a psychedelic music, psychedelic fusion of hip hop music, hip hop ...
, the band blends elements of
hip hop and
electronic music
Electronic music is a genre of music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, or circuitry-based music technology in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromechanical means ( electroac ...
. This is due to their use of
sampling, keyboards, and
reverb
Reverberation (also known as reverb), in acoustics, is a persistence of sound, after a sound is produced. Reverberation is created when a sound or signal is reflected causing numerous reflections to build up and then decay as the sound is abso ...
effects.
The duo was upset when their music was labeled "sundrenched California pop," pointing out that there are no lyrical allusions in their music that warrant the title.
Lyrically, a majority of TV Girl's discography revolves around love and relationships. One example of this could be the song “Lover's Rock”, a love ballad named after the
reggae
Reggae () is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1960s. The term also denotes the modern popular music of Jamaica and its diaspora. A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals, " Do the Reggay" was the first popular song to use ...
sub-genre of lover's rock. Their subject matter is nostalgic and sad, but simultaneously sarcastic and humorous.
Some motifs in the duo's lyrics include women, heartbreak, cynicism, sex, memories, cigarettes, hair, women's first names, and loneliness. They are also known for their use of vintage audio samples that are sampled into many of their songs
Social Media and Band Growth
Brad Petering, the lead singer of the band, has acknowledged the positive impact TikTok has had on the band itself and their album titled French Exit.
However, multiple members of the band continue to express a dislike of this growth, stating that TV Girl has become a band defined by the "Tik-tok teen" (sic) , part of a recent trend in which artists or bands release songs which then explode in popularity due to use on TikTok while having other tracks of theirs go nearly unnoticed by many due to them being overshadowed by more popular songs.
Discography
Studio albums
* ''French Exit'' (2014)
* ''Who Really Cares'' (2016)
* ''Death of a Party Girl'' (2018)
* ''The Night in Question: French Exit Outtakes'' (2020)
* ''Summer's Over'' (2021)
Collaborative albums
* ''Maddie Acid's Purple Hearts Club Band'' (2018)
(with Madison Acid)
* ''Aestheticadelica'' (2020)
(with Bloodbath64)
* ''Summer's Over'' (2021)
(with Jordana)
Mixtapes
* ''The Wild, The Innocent, The TV Shuffle'' (2012)
Extended plays
* ''TV Girl'' (2010)
* ''Benny and the Jetts'' (2011)
* ''Lonely Women'' (2013)
Singles
* "Girls Like Me" (2011)
* "Diet-Coke" (2012)
* "Average Guy (Blame)" (2013)
* "She Smokes in Bed" (2013)
* "Birds Dont Sing" (2014)
* "Natalie Wood" (2015)
Produced albums
*''Posthumous Release'' (2013)
(by Coma Cinema
Coma Cinema was an American indie pop band that was formed by Mat Cothran in 2005. Cothran began writing songs for the band during his high school days in Spartanburg, South Carolina, Spartanburg, but the band was later based in Asheville, North ...
)
References
{{Authority control
Musical groups established in 2010
Indie pop groups from California
Musical groups from San Diego
2010 establishments in California