In the early aughts, during my college years, I was in a synth-pop duo based in Richmond, Virginia. There was no synth-pop “scene,” so we shared bills with mostly local punk and hardcore bands, whose audiences were at first confused and sometimes later delighted by our aggressively catchy brand of dance music with strange, goofy lyrics.

We had balls, opening up for Lamb of God and playing our silly, happy songs. There was something punk in our attitude, if not…