schizoid pop en · NOUN
Etymology
From schizoid + pop; short for schizophrenic pop. While the term has seen usage before the 2010s, it gained prominence between 2012-2013 as a descriptor for the hard-to-categorize musical style of the American band Twenty One Pilots.
Meanings
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(informal, uncountable) Music that is erratic, chaotic, or genre-defying, yet anchored by catchy pop structures.
Catch Twenty One Pilots all buttoned up: Twenty One Pilots fire piano-driven schizoid pop at the Mid¬ dle East Downstairs on June 22.
2013, Hannah Lott-Schwartz, “Impulses / Music”, in The improper Bostonian, page 63:Twenty One Pilots: Blurryface Cares What You Think: Are they pop punk? Indieronica? Schizoid pop? Fusing as many different styles as you can imagine, the Ohio duo gam a following for being the band who sounds like everything - and nothing - you’ve ever heard before.
2016, Rutland Free Library-Rutland Historical Society Collaboration, “Popular Music”, in West Rutland High School Yearbook 2016:Game Theory plays schizoid pop.
1987, Howard Wuelfing, Jr., “BIG SHOTS - GAME THEORY SHAKES ITS ALEX CHILTON ALBATROSS”, in Spin Magazine #22 (February 1987), page 11:Enjoyably schizoid pop-rock stylings from this Minneapolis quartet. Seabniss you're in a musty Sunday afternoon drawing room, listening to Suzanne Vega’s love child by Moe Tucker murmuring pensive music-box euphonies; other times it's Ben Folds at Lennon's white piano, intoning wintry imaginings.
2004, Unattributed, “The Owls”, in Shredding Paper 18 (2004 Fall):You never quite know what to expect from Twenty One Pilots. The Columbus, Ohio, duo of singer/ multi-instrumentalist Tyler Joseph and drummer Josh Dun are virtually impossible to categorise. They often perform different musical genres within the same song. “Our music has been described as schizophrenic pop or schizoid pop,” smiled 27-year-old Tyler. “I suppose it’s as good a name as any. Our whole purpose of creating music is to make people think. I guess anyone trying to come up with a name for the style of what we do is thinking about our music so the objective has been achieved.”
2016 January 18, Geoffrey Rowlands, “Twenty One Pilots and the duo’s schizoid pop”, in Gulf Times, archived from the original on 18 Jan 2024:While a few songs could be trimmed down (the schizoid pop/rap of "New Agenda" and the trie "Funky Big Band"), for the most part, the grooves are so solid here that they carry any weak parts.
1993, Bill Peterson, “Jackson Puts new "janet" CD on the Top of the Charts”, in Latest Issue Vol. 5, No. 2, page 19:The sneering public school humour of Viv Stanshall and Peter Cook was a major factor in The Instant Automatons' brilliantly schizoid pop, as it was for many others. Krautrock hadn't filtered through, and although punk was important, it was the pre-'76 mavericks and post-'78 dub experimentalists who made the biggest impression on the world of DIY.
2007, Everett True, “Dance this mess around”, in Plan B Magazine Issue 20, page 51: