The four giants of indie music in the *US* in the 80s

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

The four giants of indie music in the UK in the 80s
GoogleImagesILEILM
I Love Music | New Answers | Unanswered Questions | Ask A Question ilXor.com | >ILE

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sparked by the "four giants of indie music in the UK in the 80s"
"When I were a lad in the 80s, the four giants of the US indie music scene were....

REM, Dead Kennedies, Black Flag and the Pixies,
representing IRS, Alt.Tentacles, SST and 4AD.

Which of these were most influencial? Which defined you?"

― Lord Custos Omega (Lord Custos Omega), Monday, 4 November 2002 15:23 (twenty-two years ago)

Replacements, Sonic Youth, Minor Threat/Fugazi and The Pixies.

(and I'm talking about when SY were on SST and Replacements were on... sheesh, who were they on? Twin Tone?)

― kate, Monday, 4 November 2002 15:29 (twenty-two years ago)

Where are the Replacements (Twin/Tone)?

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Monday, 4 November 2002 15:30 (twenty-two years ago)

Jinx, Alex, you owe me a beer!

― kate, Monday, 4 November 2002 15:33 (twenty-two years ago)

Add the Minutemen and Husker Du.

― James Ball (James Ball), Monday, 4 November 2002 15:37 (twenty-two years ago)

I was going to say those two bands too....but both were on SST, and neither were as prominent (at the TIME) as Black Flag.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Monday, 4 November 2002 15:39 (twenty-two years ago)

Ahem...They Might Be Giants?

― Nickalicious, Monday, 4 November 2002 15:56 (twenty-two years ago)

Add the Minutemen and Husker Du.
Hmmmm. Didn't find out about the Minutemen or Husker Du until it was already too late.
But youi have a point. Objectively it might/should be:
"REM, Minutemen, Husker Du and the Pixies,
representing IRS, SST, SST and 4AD."

Or maybe I should replace REM (they were already getting big in the 80s) with either The Throwing Muses or the Blake Babies. Gotta get that Boston Amerindie sound in here somewhere.

― Lord Custos Omega (Lord Custos Omega), Monday, 4 November 2002 15:59 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't remember hearing about the Pixies until the 90's. And I was listening to just everyone else mentioned (except Throwing Muses and the Blake Babies) in the 80's.

― Rockist Scientist, Monday, 4 November 2002 16:07 (twenty-two years ago)

Minutemen, REM, Replacements. And there was no fourth - although you could argue Camper Van Beethoven or Dead Kennedys..

Pixies were hardly known in the 80s. Sonic Youth was known but not appreciated at the time so therefore, not "Giant".

― dave225 (Dave225), Monday, 4 November 2002 16:22 (twenty-two years ago)

Ahem...They Might Be Giants?

Since when are they rap/rock? Oh wait...

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 4 November 2002 16:24 (twenty-two years ago)

They Might Be Giants could *HARDLY* be considered a "giant of the music scene" and/or "influential" in the 80's.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Monday, 4 November 2002 16:27 (twenty-two years ago)

Okay, my bad. Sheesh. It could have been worse, I could have said Dead Milkmen.

― Nickalicious, Monday, 4 November 2002 16:34 (twenty-two years ago)

I knew a lot of people who liked Sonic Youth in the 80's. (=My small circle of music-oriented friends knew about them.)

― Rockist Scientist, Monday, 4 November 2002 16:36 (twenty-two years ago)

Alright - I may want to revise mine to include The Red Hot Chilipeppers - even thought they weren't on an indie label - I think they had a big influence on the indie scene.

Others deserving debate, but not necessarily status:
B52s, Dream Syndicate, Violent Femmes

― dave225 (Dave225), Monday, 4 November 2002 16:36 (twenty-two years ago)

I thought the whole point of the Pixies was no one in America liked them.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Monday, 4 November 2002 17:01 (twenty-two years ago)

nah, the pixies were huge in north america - i mean relative to the rest of their "scene" anyway

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Monday, 4 November 2002 17:05 (twenty-two years ago)

They Might Be Giants could *HARDLY* be considered a "giant of the music scene" and/or "influential" in the 80's.
Hmmm. Y'know...although all the others listed more snugly fit the pre-grunge Gavin-report-endorsed AmerIndie College RAWK zound...and might be arguably more canonically accepted as im-por-tant...TMBG had one powerful advantage over replacementminutemenhuskerdupixies, and that was their music, as bent as it was, got played during the daytime. The videos for "Don't Lets Start", "Birdhouse in Your Soul" and "Ana Ng" actually got played during the day. Granted, it was only once per day on alternate thursday afternoons, but hey...they got played.
Also: I've heard TMBG played over the muzak at the grocery store. And i have not heard "Debaser" or "Pink Turns to Blue" even once over the p.a.

― Lord Custos Omega (Lord Custos Omega), Monday, 4 November 2002 19:34 (twenty-two years ago)

Rem
Minutemen
Husker Du

― Juan, Monday, 4 November 2002 20:14 (twenty-two years ago)

Rem
Minuetmen
Husker Du

― Juan, Monday, 4 November 2002 20:14 (twenty-two years ago)

TMBG = a nyuck, nyuck novelty act.

"replacementminutemenhuskerdupixies" = real bands.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Monday, 4 November 2002 20:30 (twenty-two years ago)

NEVAH GUNNA USE A CRUTCH-AH!!

ALWAYS GUNNA STAY IN TOUCH-AH!!

the rest are paste

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 4 November 2002 20:32 (twenty-two years ago)

I thought the wisdom was "There are only six real [bands] in the world...the rest are paste."
TMBG = a nyuck, nyuck novelty act.
Naw. More like pure pop for mentalists than the thinking mans Weird Al Yankovic

― Lord Custos Omega (Lord Custos Omega), Monday, 4 November 2002 20:46 (twenty-two years ago)

suckas, please.
you know you were listening to the Cure and the Violent Femmes the whole time. posers.

― autovac, Monday, 4 November 2002 21:03 (twenty-two years ago)

Giant, as in influental (as in, most of the indie bands at the time were actually just trying to be one of these bands)

REM
Sonic Youth
Husker Du
Replacements

― David Allen, Tuesday, 5 November 2002 00:17 (twenty-two years ago)

Husker Du
Sonic Youth
Pixies
Dinosaur Jr.
REM

― A Nairn (moretap), Tuesday, 5 November 2002 00:36 (twenty-two years ago)

REM are influential on precisely ONE band, and that band is Idlewild, obv. The Cure had fuck-all influence in the 80s - much more now tho (cf Mogwai, Placebo etc).

― Charlie (Charlie), Tuesday, 5 November 2002 01:02 (twenty-two years ago)

I've never heard a note of: Minutemen, Husker Du, Dead Kennedys, Camper Van Beethoven, any Sonic Youth album before _Daydream Nation_, Dead Milkmen. Somebody please persuade me to care.

― Clarke B., Tuesday, 5 November 2002 02:19 (twenty-two years ago)

I was listening to Springsteen at the time, but I wish I had been listening to SST and T/T...

― jm, Tuesday, 5 November 2002 04:07 (twenty-two years ago)

jimmy: no regrets, no surrender.

Anyway, everyone's forgetting X.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Tuesday, 5 November 2002 05:04 (twenty-two years ago)

Clarke: except for maybe the Minutemen, I can't imagine you liking any of the bands you list.

― charlie va (charlie va), Tuesday, 5 November 2002 05:48 (twenty-two years ago)

WE ARE THE MEATMEN AND YOU SUCK!!

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 5 November 2002 08:51 (twenty-two years ago)

REM are influential on precisely ONE band, and that band is Idlewild...
Uh...no. There's an entire sub-genre of jangly alt.college rock that mimics REM. In fact you could open a Trouser Press Record Guide, turn to any random page and at least one entry on that page will be some REM-esque band. The list is endless: The Blake Babies, Guadalcanal Diary, Let's Active, Game Theory, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Gin Blossoms are good examples (with Dave Matthews, Hootie and Blues Travellers being bad examples.)
obv. The Cure had fuck-all influence in the 80s - much more now tho (cf Mogwai, Placebo etc).
They have very little influence on mainstream pop, but buttloads of influence in the narrow confines of Goth-Pop. In fact, they ARE the PARAGON of Goth-Pop.

― Lord Custos Omega (Lord Custos Omega), Tuesday, 5 November 2002 15:27 (twenty-two years ago)

Who did Minutemen influence musically, apart from RHCP?

I was 15 when the 80s closed so forgive my ignorance.

― meirion john lewis (mei), Tuesday, 5 November 2002 19:58 (twenty-two years ago)

Sterling, I was listening to lots of X (well, not that there's much to listen to) and I like them better than perhaps any other bands mentioned here, but I somehow don't remember them being connected to what was happening in indie by the mid-80's. Their reputation is largely based on three albums which were already out by--what?--1981/1982?

― Rockist Scientist, Wednesday, 6 November 2002 00:11 (twenty-two years ago)

I just remember thinking of X being in a separate category from many of the other bands I was listening to at the time, and I don't think I saw them mentioned much in mainstream media as a band to watch.

― Rockist Scientist, Wednesday, 6 November 2002 00:18 (twenty-two years ago)

haha thus "indie music".

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Wednesday, 6 November 2002 03:54 (twenty-two years ago)

hey guys, it wasn't called "indie rock" until sebadoh wrote that song in the 90's! before that, in the 80's it was genrefied as "underground" or "post modern". indie rock was coined mainly in response to the huge corporate alternative explosion of the early nineties. disagree with me if you wish, but if you were into the DK's, or the Minutemen, or Flipper, or Pussy Galore, or Husker Du, or the Circle Jerks in the 80's, you basically referred to yourself or were referred to by others as "PUNK". The rest of us were "New Wave". there you go, you were either punk or new wave, or into the "underground" music sceene. I realize SST had their motto, "Corporate Rock still sucks" ,but I'd like to find out when exactly they started using that motto. was it in the beginning? or in the later part of the eighties?

also, i'd like to say that i was a new wave kid all the way back then, my favorite bands from 1985- 1988 were Love & rockets, The cure, Cocteau twins, and the Sugarcubes. I didn't get into Sonic Youth or Spaceman 3, or Dinosaur Jr until 1989- 1990. I graduated HS in 88' maybe that's the reason why.

― jenny Sellars, Wednesday, 6 November 2002 16:06 (twenty-two years ago)

Jenny, I have an issue of Option from around 1983/1985 in which "indie" is used in more or less the sense it's being used here.

You have a point though. In the 80's I would have described X and Black Flag as punk. In fact, I would still describe them that way, but I see how they can also be considered "indie."

I was being made fun of for liking New Wave (whatever that meant to these people) as early as 1981. So there.

― Rockist Scientist, Wednesday, 6 November 2002 16:14 (twenty-two years ago)

This thread has brought me down memory lane. There was this Hardcore club in Connecticut pretty close to where I grew up called the Anthrax, and somehow I have this image in my head of the token kid in the pit with longish hair and a "Death to the Pixies" t shirt on getting his ass kicked at a "Youth of Today" show. Maybe I actually witnessed this, but I can't remember for sure.

But other than the hardcore jockos beating people up once in awhile, everyone pretty much hung out in the same circles back then. It wasn't so cliqueish as it is today, and sub-genre-fied, it didn't really matter what exactly we listened to specifically because we were all considered freaks by the preppies and the classic rock kids.

remember when there were still skinheads running around?

― jenny sellars, Thursday, 7 November 2002 18:48 (twenty-two years ago)

the pixies were huge here? when? they didn't get any notice until doolittle and when was that released? '89? this means they dominated the 80s? i'd say the list had three too many, REM was/is the only significant band mentioned so far.

― keith (keithmcl), Friday, 8 November 2002 02:53 (twenty-two years ago)

The Pixies were huge among the college radio set from the time "Surfer Rosa" was released.

― jenny sellars, Friday, 8 November 2002 14:52 (twenty-two years ago)

Fugazi? pioneers of the whole DIY thing?
Bad Brains? pioneers of the concert-that-becomes-a-riot?

― nickalicious, Friday, 8 November 2002 15:00 (twenty-two years ago)

people who contribute answers on this site is ok. we live in a democracy! but why the fuck leave details saying you've never heard of husker du or the much of the pixies and screw your face up in despair towards some of us that do. fuck off, go home and put " thriller" back on!! husker du are cited by most bands of the same genre more than most_ than christ!!!

― don sanchez, Sunday, 17 November 2002 08:12 (twenty-two years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.