what is indie rock again?

US "indie rock" was typified by the big 3 - Sebadoh, Pavement, and Superchunk. Sebadoh represented the lo-fi aesthetic (enthusiasm outweighing technical proficiency), Pavement was the quirkier, art- damaged sector (self-referential, musically diverse), and Superchunk was the punky representative (guitars, guitars, and loud drums). Of course, there are offshoots, and these 3 poles often intersect (for instance, Pavement once was lo-fi as fuck; Superchunk covered Sebadoh & the Chills & Magnetic Fields).

When "indie rock" is said, I think of the US model. Of course, "indie rock" has become a catch-all term for any music that's slipping & sliding underneath the major media outlet radar - hence, John McEntire (drummer for Tortoise) can be called an "indie rocker", and it works (though it rankles the hell out of me). Slint, the Magnetic Fields, Fugazi, Rachels - indie rock, one and all.

Funny how my US definition is all-encompassing (and maddeningly vague) while the UK definition tends to be detrimentally exclusive.

In the UK now indie has two meanings. On the wider stage it means Coldplay, Starsailor etc. - the stuff which gets into the charts and has guitars and is broadly based on a songwriting/real music ethos. I think of this stuff, pace I think Big Black, as 'commercial alternative'. Then you have 'indie' in the US sense - indie pop, mostly, i.e. stuff with a 'pop sensibility' (usually meaning catchy and a bit wimpy) on independent labels. This stuff, oddly, is hardly ever covered by the music press, Belle And Sebastian aside, but its what the London scene seems to run on and when "indie" is used to talk about our club then that's the "indie" that is meant.

The UK indie scene has a distanced but reverential attitude towards the US, I think - records are listened to and studied quite closely but it's very selective, and the rocky, post-hardcore end of stuff is not generally well understood (At The Drive In are classed as a nu- metal band here).

?

are you making a connection between coldplay and big black? or between 'commercial alternative' and big black? or am i misunderstanding the "pace?" or is there another big black?

thank you for the explanation. it seems like the british use of "indie" is close to what a lot of people around here would call "brit pop" or "brit rock." so when reynolds was discussing 80s "indie culture" and its zines, etc and its fascination with childhood and the 60s, i take it he was referring to the less- mainstream twee-pop stuff? like, i'm guessing that radiohead and coldplay fans in the uk aren't all about fanzines and backpacks and androgyny and dressing like 12-year-olds circa 1966. did the smiths sort of fall in both camps? or were they the "true indie" band who made it big? i was always confused about how they were perceived in britain as they seemed to be both a top 10 phenomenon and the ultimate "indie" band.

a lot of british writers, around here anyway, also seem to use "indie" in a broader historical sense sort of like i might use "alternative rock" or "postpunk," one that would include a whole lineage from the velvets through punk rock through postpunk and new wave and modern rock and indie rock.

was huggy bear british?

The retrogressive Reynolds argument refers to UK underground indie pop yeah - back then almost nothing got in the charts.

Incidentally the current wave of twee US bands - Kindercore etc. - seem to me like people who read that Reynolds stuff without hearing the music and thought "WOW, THATS A GREAT IDEA" and created a whole scene from it.

Huggy Bear were British yes.

??? Is it cliche to actually like B&S under it all, but fucking LOATHE all B&S flavoured bands like the plague?

And not to get uppity, but not all indie clubs in London should be tarred with the same feather. OK, so most of the "we only play Oasis, the Stone Roses and the Manics" indie clubs have been replaced by "we only play Belle and Sebastian" indie clubs, but maybe I am being biased, but Strange Fruit has been for a year the sort of club that you are requesting, where the Field Mice are followed by Destinys Child followed by Add N To X.

Not to toot our own horn or anything.

Not all indie people are narrowminded, which is the accusation I hear slung around again and again. If that could be so, how could Paul and I both be termed "indie kids" and yet when we were trying to keep our (both quite substantial) record and CD collections separate, found we had almost no overlaps?

this actually doesn't strike me as especially broad. tortoise even included former slint members. they still sound like they have a lot of elements of that sound to me. i don't think it's a stretch to make a musical connection between slint and fugazi in terms of guitar sounds, time changes, raspy nasal vocals, etc. rachel's also come out of a similar scene as slint. while they are obviously going for a "chamber" sound, their melodies still sound like they have strong elements of that style. the mf are, of course, something different, and are rarely seen as the same thing as fugazi or slint or tortoise, "indie pop" more than "indie rock" or "post-hc" or "post- rock" (more appropriate terms for most of the other stuff you're referring to). indie pop with a retro-new-wave bent.

::sticks tongue out at Tom::

You know, Strange Fruit *started* in Oxford. Back when you lived in London and Paul lived in Zone Seven. My impression is that he started it for very similar reasons to you, but because this was several years ago, the music they reacted with was very different.

Wow, in 1998, you rebelled against "indie" by playing GSYBE! and Autechre. In 2001, you rebel against "indie" by playing Britney Spears. What does that say about the universe? Or rather, the UK?

Gimme Indie Rock just give me indie rock! started back in ‘83 started seeing things a differently and hardcore wasn’t doin’ it for me no more

started smoking pot thought things sounded better slow much slower, heavier black magic melody to sink this poseur’s soul

renew Stooges undeniably cool took a lesson from that drone rock school manipulate musicians halfway to school

getting loose with the Pussy Galore cracking jokes like a Thurston Moore peddle hopping like a Dinosaur and J

rock and roll genius ride the middle of the road milk that sound, blow your load shoot it further than you ever said it go four stars in the Rolling Stone

oooh sludge rock, that’s hard as harsh

just gimme indie rock! it’s gone big come on indie rock just give me indie rock

take an inspiration from Husker Du it’s a new generation of electric white boy blues

come on indie rock it’s gone big come on indie rock just give me indie rock

breaking down the barriers like Sonic Youth they got what they wanted maybe i can get what i want too

come on indie rock it’s gone big come on indie rock just give me indie rock time to knock the hard rock on it’s side time to knock the shit right up a storm turn to amaze with the indie sludge grunge!

aaah!

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We actually had a dude writing for our college paper who talked like this -insulting everyone who didn't worship the Stooges, etc.

I guess I feel like I came out of indie rock, but I really didn't, because I tended to like bands that were either much weirder or noisier or too commercial. I shared the historic interests, I guess, but I made a left turn before grunge. Still bought loads of indie records, though. Anyway, Lou Barlow seems to be pinpointing a certain notion of "authenticity" here.

And thank you, Sundar, for calling me on my laziness. I was stumped on bands to actually throw in that sentence, and just typed whatever. And it's a damn fine reason to state why I fucking hate more modern attempts to categorize music. Indie rock has become a useless term; emo is a useless term; power violence is a stupid term. Any recent band that brings to mind one of these labels is hopelessly derivative; the bands that typified that sound don't resemble what the sound became.

Could indie pop be the only genre of recent years that has maintained a consistent identity? (Or is this just more of the same, where folks try to ape B&S & the Field Mice, while other groups go in search of something more?)

As far as the US goes, though, I'm pretty sure there's been a moratorium on "indie rock". Unless we're back to clamoring for more of those gold sounds again. I guess The Shins are the "new" indie rock. And, of course, there's Modest Mouse.

Talking about genres makes my head hurt.

I was confused there, for a tick. A mo. An instant.

These days (and, to be fair to you, for much of the last 15 years) indie seems just to mean guitar-based pop / rock. Or do I mean guitar- based rock-pop? Not sure. The track listings of the NME tapes C81, C86 and C96 are quite instructive, I think.

anyone remember st. vitus? did a slow and spooky cover of black flag's "thirsty & miserable". the missing link between sabbath and today's "stoner rock".

*Note= Otherwise known as Post-Punk in the early 80s, College Rock in the Mid-80s, Post-Modern in the Late 80s, and Alternative ever after.

Ergo,
band on tiny independant label but sounds like NSync == "indie"
band on megalocoporate major label but sounds like Velvet Underground == "Indie"
or at least, thats how I deal with it.< /SNIP>

But aside from the Charlie Parker thing, Cunga's def. is pretty accurate -- it's a catchall for bands in some way under the umbrella of rock music that appeals to affluent, educated, mostly white late teens to early thirty somethings but doesn't fit the genres likely to make pop/top 40 radio right now.

"when i think of indie rock now i think of people not trying all that hard."

Not in general, anyway. I know there are a million indie bands that I never really listen to much. But name me an indie rock album from the '80s that tries 1/3 as hard as something like Of Montreal's The Sunlandic Twins.

oh please, don't even start!

on their first album maybe. and i don't even mean literally "screaming". i just mean more of a desperate quality, a nervousness that was shared by freeks and geeks around the globe. i feel the same way about punk and hardcore. i'm paraphrasing something i wrote elsewhere, but punk and hardcore used to be made by LOSERS and the pretty people didn't want to have anything to do with it. i felt more at home there. but then i was a kid with my own issues, so i would have. it's cool now for kids to make weird noises. has been for a long time. having said that, i am a Hatebreed fan. but then i'm xCTHCx from way back.

Haha, sorry!

Fair enough. My main point was that the music is relatively irrelevant and that what would theoretically make him "indie" would be the fact the Beats thought he was one of "them." Similar things go on today.

If this is correct, then at what age do people naturally outgrow indie rock? 25? The day after they graduate from college?

When coined, "Indie" originally simply meant independant of the major labels. This became a problem, however, when the indie charts were becoming increasingly filled with music that the typical indie fan felt didn't appeal to him at all. Some of the most guitar-biased indie kids would be pissed off already at the time when Soft Cell, Depeche Mode and Yazoo were in the indie charts, but the indie charts were not seriously threatened until Stock/Aitken/Waterman founded their own label PWL, meaning that most S/A/W productions would indeed top the indie charts.

I would never call Sufjan or The D-ists indie rock. They're indie pop if anything.

And I will continue to object to usage of the term "indie" to mean anything but "not on a major label" for this reason: if indie doesn't mean "not on a major label," then no one can pin down what it means, and it becomes meaningless. Obviously this is already happening/has happened, but I'll still fight it valiantly.

Geir what is indie rock?

Fremme neppe venette.

Any music that people who like indie rock like, even if it is not rock or indie.

keane

or even music
x-post

keane is music...wonderful, melodic music crafted with sumptuous production values

and when they started didn't have a fanbase so therefor indie rock

https://i.imgur.com/5JJOm8C.jpg

those are certainly words you could write

Karan Mahajan is the author of two novels, including The Association of Small Bombs, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. He is an Associate Professor of Literary Arts at Brown. (September 2023)

a brief effluence more like

Millenial indie rock act on new album: This time, we wanted to go back to Salafism

in this analogy is the gen X ethos more like ottomanism or secularism or nationalism or imperialism or...? what are we doing with this

also emo and slacker seem like two very different vibes to me but what do I know maybe this is just how the indie dialectic works

read the piece and it doesn't elaborate on the salafism comparison at all, it's just a throwaway line lol

i guess i get what they're going for but it's still ridiculous especially as a throwaway

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYYjo5-N7zo

salaf innit?

most of that article is fine, but I did raise an eyebrow at "James Murphy's self-referential and deliberately dumb and fun electroclash."

LCD Salafsystem

also emo and slacker seem like two very different vibes to me but what do I know maybe this is just how the indie dialectic works

― your original display name is still visible (Left), Wednesday, September 6, 2023 4:46 AM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah they are totally at odds
but people have been using both the words free of meaning or context for so long it probably doesn't matter

fatwa issued on jams murphy for the apostasy of doing a film about how you're breaking up then unbreaking up

also for his music

also emo and slacker seem like two very different vibes to me but what do I know maybe this is just how the indie dialectic works

― your original display name is still visible (Left), Wednesday, September 6, 2023 4:46 AM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah they are totally at odds
but people have been using both the words free of meaning or context for so long it probably doesn't matter

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, 6 September 2023 13:21 (thirty-six minutes ago) link

Feel like it's a mislabeling of heart on sleeve post-punk/hardcore and noise/lofi pop... where slacker = messy unrefined playing and recording with emo = lyrics. IDK.

White Stripes - Salaf Nation Army
from their album “Efflorephant”

doorag did you ever find your answer?