Post-Britpop, major labels viewed indie as viable music for the commercial mainstream. In recent times, indie culture has been criticised as homogenised, snobby and decidedly lacking in the strong socio-political messages it was once renowned for. Musically, what used to be termed indie is now a multitude of subgenres.
The stripped-back, lo-fi production aesthetics and traditional song form heard in the music of Fleet Foxes Sub Pop and Bon Iver 4AD exemplify current, indie-folk subgenre. Today, indie music is most relevant when performed to festival crowds.
With their unique brand of art-indie, Montreal-based Arcade Fire Merge have played to global audiences in the hundreds of thousands. Gordon began as the voyeur but ended up as the person fans came to peer at through the wall of noise. Having a beautiful yet elusive woman up front was, it turned out, good for selling discordant music to a bigger audience.
With Gordon as the lyricist, Sonic Youth turned to the sorts of subjects that resonated with s identity politics—producing feminist songs about Karen Carpenter and the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. You could almost call her the purest of the outsider purists. So did the indie revolution fail?
The lights were dimmed and the theater, an Art Deco—era movie palace, was already packed, strong, by the time I took my seat. The audience was made up mostly of middle-aged fans, with a crop of new-generation riot grrrls in their midst. At best, Gordon made a reluctant interview subject, without affectation but also without much visible urge to engage. She stopped herself every few words and sometimes ground to a halt altogether.
If you knew her only from her steely, self-assured performances as a musician, such hesitance was a perplexing sight. But the Chicago crowd that had gathered to see Gordon was proof of a different sort of influence. Leaning forward in their seats to hear what she had to say, these were people who were obviously still enthralled by her. They admired her for getting up onstage and delivering powerful performances and speaking for women. They respected her for putting on the leather pants—and for keeping them on.
Bands that hardly performed at all, such as Slint, are suddenly revered. The past decade has featured reunions for many bands, including Bitch Magnet. Erstwhile indie rockers have returned to music they wrote as teenagers or, as in the case of Sleater-Kinney, recorded new albums. Maybe the bands have even hoped to make some money, though the struggling music industry is no better-equipped to serve them now than it was two decades ago.
Here is where the line between the audience, the performer, and the critic began to unravel and wear away. The start-up peddling the latest moneymaking app has roots in the nonremunerative start-up that took cutting-edge dissonance on the road. And the indie story, as Fine and Gordon tell it, reminds us that even the most inclusive DIY vision has its insiders and outsiders, its purists and compromisers, its pressures and its disenchanted pioneers.
If nerdy boys still reign supreme in Silicon Valley and venture capitalists overshadow artistic adventurers, that goes with the territory: revolutions often confound their creators. For a movement born in basements and powered by the geeky and the self-taught, indie did pretty well. Skip to content Site Navigation The Atlantic. Popular Latest. The Atlantic Crossword. Sign In Subscribe. Yet a wealth of contradictory evidence abounds. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.
Search uDiscover Music. Click to comment. If an indie artist is no longer independent, can it still be said that they make indie music? If it has the indie sound, is that a good enough reason to call it indie music? The truth is, a lot of indie rock could also be considered alternative rock, and as indie rock becomes popular, it becomes a part of the alternative genre. Indie music is interesting because it's always evolving and always influencing mainstream music.
It's hard to discern exactly where the history of indie music begins. Generally, people talk about indie music originating in the United States and the UK in the s. There is a long list of artists from the 60s and earlier who've had a lasting impact on indie music. These artists directly inspired the artists in the s at the forefront of the indie scene, and their influence can still be felt. The Beatles inspired indie music not just in sound, but in attitude as well.
The Beatles were one of the first popular bands to take full control of their sound and make album orientated music. They were socially and politically conscious and were pioneers of new recording methods. The Beach Boys had a similar effect on indie music. Their legendary album Pet Sounds had intricate production that inspired artists like Grizzly Bear today. Nick Drake was less commercially successful, but still influential.
The Clash were an English rock band formed in that led directly to post-punk — one of the first truly indie genres. They fused genres like reggae, dub, funk, ska, and rockabilly and inspired a generation of musicians to come.
These pre-indie legends allowed later musicians to push their genres to the limits. Channeling independence and a disregard for invention brought music to where it is today. The Buzzcocks, a band from Manchester, released an EP independently of a major label and coined the term indie. By the mids, the term indie was being used to describe the sound of bands on post-punk labels. A couple of key bands to define the sound of indie music in the s were The Smiths and R.
Even though they were independent of a major label, they ended up achieving mainstream success including a number-one album called Meat Is Murder. The Smiths inspired bands like Oasis, the Libertines, and their influence can almost certainly be traced to any artful young guitar band, especially in the UK. They are one of the first alternative rock bands.
Their lead singer, Michael Stipe, has a unique voice, wrote obscure riffs, and had a captivating stage presence. Their music is also characterized by arpeggiated guitar riffs, melodic bass lines, and minimalist drumming.
Their influence brought us bands like Nirvana, Pavement, and Sonic Youth. The charts in the early 80s were dominated by synthpop. Indie music rejected the popular song, and popularized jangly guitar rock.
Throughout the 80s, indie music became more popular. This is due in large part to the mainstream success of the indie bands that came up in the late 70s and early 80s. It's also due to the greater proliferation of recording equipment and advancements in consumer priced recording gear. The mids ushered in a golden era of independent record labels releasing avant-garde independent music.
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