Aesthetics & -cores

Fiction where everything is bleak, everyone is morally compromised and hope is a rookie mistake — grimdark — from a Warhammer tagline into the label for a whole wave of fantasy, and the record's entry for the adjective that fans use as praise and critics as a sigh. Its cheerful opposite is hopepunk.

Green roofs, art nouveau curves, windmills, a solar sail and a society that fixed things — solarpunk — as the optimistic sub-genre proposed on a blog in 2008, given a look on Tumblr in 2014, and by 2021 a TikTok aesthetic, a yoghurt advert and an argument about whether it can be an aesthetic and a politics at once. The record's entry for the future with plants.

The quirky, colourful, ukulele-adjacent woman who exists in a film only to teach a sad man to live — the manic pixie dream girl — as the critical term coined by Nathan Rabin in 2007, universal by the time of '(500) Days of Summer', and disowned by Rabin himself in 2014 once it was being applied to any woman with a fringe. The record's entry for the trope that named itself into overuse.

Analog synth arpeggios, gated drums, a purple sunset with a grid, a Testarossa and a palm tree — synthwave — as the French-born genre of the mid-2000s that scored 'Drive' in 2011, peaked with 'Stranger Things' in 2016, and gave the internet its default 'retro' image. The record's entry for the 1980s as remembered by someone born in 1988.

Backcombed black hair, white face, Siouxsie eyeliner, fishnets, a Bauhaus record and the 1980s Batcave as a reference — trad goth — as the term goths used from the early 2000s to distinguish the original look from cyber, mall and pastel variants, and which TikTok adopted in 2021 as one more aesthetic on the shelf. The record's entry for the goth who is not a genre of goth, but the goth.

Tripp pants, a Slipknot hoodie, chains, a spiked collar and a devotion to Hot Topic — the mall goth — as the early-2000s term, half insult, for a teenager who got their goth from a shopping centre rather than a Bauhaus record. Revived on TikTok in 2021 with the same trousers and a great deal more affection.

Steampunk's younger, grimier sibling: the aesthetic of the 1920s–40s run forward — art deco, zeppelins, riveted steel, film noir — named in 2001 for a tabletop game and living since in games like BioShock and films like Sky Captain. The record's entry for the -punk that runs on oil.

Neon dreadfalls, goggles, gas masks, platform boots and a dance that looks like stamping out a fire — the cybergoth — as the late-1990s club subculture that fused goth with rave, peaked in the mid-2000s, and lives forever in a 2011 YouTube video of a group dancing under a German bridge, resurrected by TikTok remixes from 2020. The record's entry for the goth who glows.

Dozens of hair clips, layered neon, plastic toys pinned to a cardigan, and a colour count that cannot be completed — decora — as the Harajuku street style documented by FRUiTS magazine from 1997, exported through Gwen Stefani and Tokyo travel blogs, faded in the 2010s, and revived on TikTok in 2022 by teenagers with a very large clip budget. The record's entry for the outfit that is a craft drawer.

Tan, bleached hair, dramatic lashes, platform boots, and a deliberate rejection of Japanese beauty norms — gyaru — as the Shibuya youth subculture of the 1990s and 2000s that had its own magazine, its own slang and its own sub-tribes, declined with them, and was revived on TikTok in 2022 by a generation who found it on YouTube. The record's entry for the girl who wore the 2000s as a protest.

Victorian brass, goggles, airships and gears glued on a top hat — steampunk — as the genre named by K. W. Jeter in 1987 as a joke, reborn as a maker and costume subculture on the 2000s internet, and by 2010 so pervasive that 'just glue some gears on it' became the criticism. The record's entry for the aesthetic that peaked at a convention.

High tech, low life, rain, neon, a megacorporation and a jack in the neck — cyberpunk — as the genre named by Bruce Bethke in a 1980 story, defined by Gibson's 'Neuromancer' in 1984, and turned into an internet aesthetic of purple-and-teal cityscapes that peaked in 2020 with a video game that did not work. The record's entry for the future that has, in many respects, arrived, minus the cool jackets.