It's Time to Retire the Term "Dad Rock"

Six years ago, I wrote a piece for this publication called “In Defense of Dad Rock.” It wasn’t a defense of the term itself, but rather the music that often gets unfairly slapped with the meaningless label. A lot has happened since then, and yet here we are in the year 2025 still cringing at critics calling a hilariously wide swath of music “dad rock” just in time to snatch up those Father’s Day clicks.

The latest example comes courtesy of GQ, with a piece that asked, “Is This a New Golden Age of Dad Rock?” The story never succinctly clarifies what exactly constitutes “dad rock” these days; none of the artists he cites as examples of this dad-rock revival are actual fathers, and two of them — Waxahatchee’s Katie Crutchfield and Wednesday’s Karly Hartzman — are women. Perhaps most head-scratchingly, Nick Catucci, who penned the article, mentions that “Waxahatchee is opening for Rilo Kiley (whose own tour is the mom-rock reunion of 2025) in October.” Why, exactly, is Rilo Kiley “mom rock” while Waxahatchee is dad rock? Both indie-rock acts feature women (though Rilo Kiley also includes three men). Why is one for dads and the other for moms? And what about those of us who aren’t parents yet but still love these bands? Where do we fit into this arbitrary binary?

It’s clear that Catucci — and really anyone who uses “dad rock” to describe a certain subset of music — is playing fast and loose with the term. But even if we concede that a musician doesn’t need to actually father any kids or even have a Y chromosome to qualify as dad rock, what the hell does it mean? Is it supposed to convey a level of dorkiness, the way “dad jokes” do? All the groups he mentions are extremely buzzy and, frankly, too cool for that. Is it simply music that this one particular dad and his friends happen to like, grouped together under the assumption that no woman could possibly enjoy the same things they do?

That’s ultimately what’s so infuriating here. “Dad rock” perpetuates the outdated stereotypes about who supposedly listens to what kinds of music — stereotypes that, by the way, were inaccurate 60 years ago too. The idea that Catucci and his friend group of dudes who procreate are the only ones who love and appreciate these artists is preposterous. But he seems pretty convinced that this is a creative space solely designed for white men in their 40s. At one point, when citing a quote from Jon Dolan of Rolling Stone about The National’s Matt Berninger, Catucci calls it “the kind of evocative rock-critic language that’s receding as quickly, and tragically, as our hairlines.” I understand what he’s trying to do here, but that self-deprecating quip about male pattern baldness also serves to erase the legacy of countless female rock critics.

In Defense of Dad Rock

Used to describe everything from Steely Dan to Vampire Weekend, it’s time to stop using the term as an insult

Is it possible I’m being too sensitive about this because I happen to be a woman who has written about music professionally for 15 years now and spent the entirety of my adult life being asked dumb questions like “Oh, you like [insert band here]? Name three of their albums,” or “Wow, how do you know about the Ramones?” Totally. I can concede that this is a hot-button issue for me. But then the GQ piece introduces the concept of “wife-repeller music” and I’m once again compelled to crank up a Lambrini Girls song and hurl my laptop into the sea.

Wife-repeller music, according to Catucci, “would be Vermont singer-songwriter Greg Freeman. The first two singles off his forthcoming second album, Burnover, are very good, and I’m also confident that my spouse, who is allergic to Big Thief singer Adrianne Lenker’s ‘warbling,’ isn’t going to tolerate his Neil Young meets Squeaky-Voiced Teen style of singing. The man for whom the term was coined, however, is the powerfully warbly and doleful Cameron Winter, the breakout dad rock star of 2025. While only in his early 20s, Winter earned some dad credibility fronting the noodly Brooklyn group Geese, but he fully cemented his status with his debut solo album Heavy Metal, which none other than grouchy GQ columnist Chris Black called ‘staggeringly good.’ Still—not karaoke music.”

First of all, Catucci is writing about Greg Freeman and Cameron Winter like they’re inaccessible avant-garde acts. They are not. They’re both very good — great, even — indie singer-songwriters who have voices that I guess theoretically some people could find off-putting, but no more so than, say, Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst. Again, I’m biased here because I’m a fan of all of these artists, but the wife-repeller concept is painting with an insanely wide brush. Just because his spouse doesn’t like Big Thief doesn’t mean they don’t have a large female fanbase. (Some of us are even out here profiling guitarist Buck Meek.) “Wife-repeller” implies that we women with our delicate feminine ears can’t possibly enjoy this music. If you’re talking about one specific wife, say that instead of implying we’re all a bunch of disinterested nags who can’t possibly get it.

It’s all proof of why it’s time to retire the term “dad rock” and get a little more inclusive when we’re talking about music fandom. At the end of the day, it’s a meaningless term. Catucci ultimately attempts to put some parameters on it: “It has roots in country, roots that have branched through bands and songwriters—like Young, Wilco, David Berman, and Bill Callahan—who infuse their ache with noise and tape hiss. If he doesn’t have a wife-repeller voice, today’s dad rocker probably likes a feedback squall.” He points to MJ Lenderman, Friendship, Hurray for the Riff Raff.

Hurray for the Riff Raff’s frontperson Alynda Segarra is non-binary, so lumping them into this gendered description feels a little weird. But okay, so by this definition, “dad rock” is basically any alt-country or Americana-tinged indie-rock artist with an underlying sadness to it. Nothing about any of that is particularly unique to dads, and it’s certainly all stuff that’s currently being made by and listened to by women and young men who would rather die than be associated with anything their dad used to dig.

That’s what “dad rock” doesn’t get: that part of what makes a song or an album great is its ability to tap into universal truths and resonate with people from all walks of life. So please, as a woman who has seen Wilco in concert more times than I can count, I’m begging you: let’s ditch “dad rock” once and for all.