Math pop is a style of Math Rock with a more straightforward Indie Rock approach, combining progressive and polyrhythmic instrumentation with clean, melodic vocals into the more typical song structures of Indie Pop, oftentimes with the driving rhythms of Post-Punk Revival. While typically energetic and uptempo, math pop acts sometimes incorporate Post-Rock's focus on textures and dynamics to evoke similar bittersweet and sentimental moods. Although the term math pop dates to math rock's prominence in the 1990s, during which math rock was frequently fused with Post-Hardcore, the math pop style gained greater prominence in the 2000s. In this period, math pop became associated with compressed, lightly overdriven "twinkly" tones, overlapping with Midwest Emo and its arpeggiated guitar lines.

Predecessors of the modern math pop style can be found as far back as the mid-1990s with California groups Heavy Vegetable and P.E.E., followed by Minus the Bear during the 2000s indie boom. However, math pop as a distinct subgenre did not rise to prominence until the late 2000s and early 2010s, when the term began to be used for a wave of indie rock artists who turned away from the back-to-basics sound of 2000s Garage Rock Revival and the British "landfill indie" that followed. Consequently, many champions of the sound came from the UK indie scene, notably Colour, TTNG, Tubelord, and, to an extent, Foals. Another prominent scene emerged in Japan, known primarily because of the band tricot, which blends Shimokita-kei and math pop. The late 2010s brought a new generation of British math pop bands, including Orchards and FES, as well as Forests in Singapore.