i am doing a term paper on indie rock in the 90s

Some of Michael Azzerad's Our Band Could Be Your Life describes the nineties.

I think that will say more about indie rock in the 90s than Nirvana, GBV, or Pavement.

check out the pavement book by rob jovanovic, azzerad's "come as you are", "cinderella's big score" for some of the mid-90's rock [dont forget the women!] and um... im forgetting.

more to come when i can think of them.

some of these books arent going to be the greatest but you'll get a few different ideas about what people think indie rocks about.

id also check out any issue of magnet magazine from the 90s.

I'd have to recommend OUR BAND COULD BE YOUR LIFE as well. The Nirvana book Heavier than Heaven may help you a bit as well..

I don't know much about books, but the liner notes for re-issued albums by Sonic Youth and Pavement go a long way towards trying to define the times. They could be used pretty well, I think.

Also, pretty much any issue of Magnet, since they seem to still believe pretty heavily that it's 1994.

Then again, I don't know how much heart you have in this paper or not.

http://www.plainparade.org/chapelhill_details.jpg
http://www.plainparade.org/chapelhill_details_2.jpg

foxcore! ha! i completely forgot about that piece of jargon.

I agree with jaymc. Local scenes were very important, as were labels that went with them.

You also should cover Fugazi/Minor Threat and the Dischord label. I think they paved the way for a lot of others, punk or not. I think there's some stuff about them in the Azerbad book mentioned above.

was that typo intentional? i believe i drunkenly accosted this man at GBV karaoke this past summer.

xpost No, unintentional typo. Yikes.

Also, Jim Greer's monthly Spin column from '94, "A Year in the Life of Rock n' Roll" (or something like that) would shed an interesting light on the era, but that might be above and beyond what you need.

Also, for that matter, the Spin Alternative Record Guide will give you a good idea of the mentality and tastes of the time.

Sorry, but Spin *was* indie rock in the '90s.

also, when you say "indie" do you mean "alt-rock"? a lot of the bands you've named weren't on indie labels, and while that's probably not a problem it might be if your teacher decides to be pedantic about it. either way, good luck and let us see the paper when it's done!

I'm no grammar nazi, really. But the "e" and the "o" are not even close enough to each other on the keyboard for me to think this a simple hit-the-wrong-key mistake.

Sorry, I'll shut up now.

That was mean of me. It's just that, I mean, it's for an honors class and... nevermind, sorry.

Good luck on your paper. Really.

a) Alt-Rock -- stuff like Nirvana, "indie" rock that crossed over into mainstream and became top 40

or

b) Indie Rock -- stuff on indie labels that made a point of trying to buck the record industry, DIY (do it yourself), etc.

Both are good topics, and there is some connection between the two. I think the second one is more interesting.

Man, I would have been a lot more into high school if I could have done stuff like this!

Take it from someone whose junior-high school "history fair project" about Led Zeppelin was so bad and irrelevant that it was barred from the fair by his teacher.

Especially since you're writing this for a high-school history class, I think it's imperative to really step back and try to address why American indie rock in the 90s was relevant/important to begin with, how was it different from other music subcultures, etc.

remember, lots of college students started getting email access in the early 90s and mailing lists really started up.

http://www.bloofga.org/finley/finley_rev.html

this might be a good place to look at how indie rockers back then communicated with each other, as the site is basically a time capsule.

im telling you, when jenny toomey told me about how she booked the first tsunami tour, it boggled my mind. imagine having to write letters and make lots of long distance phone calls [land lines! no mobile phones!].... suffice to say, things have changed considerably.

http://www.bloofga.org/il/

(I'm going to stop there to avoid being lynched)

take advantage of this while you can! trust me. there's many cold, unforgiving years to come.

everyone's already said everything I could think of to suggest, but I want to third reading This Band Could Be Your Life. It's entertaining, easy to read, and a lot of the bands profiled there lead (often directly) into the era your studying.

Another thing: make sure you listen to the music. that's where you learn the most..........................aside for ILM, of course.

Also, I didn't really overload on it, it's just that any I tried to listen to after '91-'92 just wasn't happening for me. I of course was listening to a lot of house/techno, hip-hop and some UK indie. I just couldn't believe how provincial and backward sounding American indie was. My feeling at the time was that Nevermind, as compelling as it was to so many (it never did anything for me at all), had a really stultifying stylistic effect.

you'll be wanting this book for research

Class, Indie, Materialism, and Intelligence

Class, etc Pt. 2: Indie vs. Pop Culture

Class etc. Pt. 3 - why does African American audiences completely ignore indie, prog etc?

This seems to be a pretty good way to do your paper. The indie scene in the 90's was pretty big -- not large or popular, just vast. Where do you start? As mentioned up thread: Seattle? DC? Olympia? Chapel Hill? So many different ways to tackle it you might just get lost. It might be easier to focus on Nirvana and then move out from there. Some of the other things you might touch on are the Olympia/DC connection, riot grrls, etc. You might even be able to draw a parallel to indie rock and the political climate at the time (but again, that might be stretching things).

I have found Ilxor is not the best learning resource.

Since there has been chart-topping, stadium-filling, corporately-manufactured mainstream music, there has been a group of musicians pushing in the opposite direction, striving to create something new and unique. The 1990s saw this alternative or independent (“indie”) scene flourish and bloom to such an extent that it was as if the whole dynamics of popular music had been flipped. Propelled by several key bands and record labels, the 1990s were the most progressive and innovative decade in the history of underground music.
Although their largest creative peak occurred before the 90s began, Sonic Youth crafted the sound and aesthetic that would fuel many of the bands to come in the next decade. Sonic Youth were birthed from the early 80s New York art scene that was headed by Glenn Branca and his symphonies for guitar and the no-wave bands such as Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, as well as DNA, both of which who were featured on Brian Eno’s No New York compilation of the unique sub-genre. Branca especially became a major influence of the sound and production Sonic Youth used, which concentrated on sonic capacity and experimentation rather than the catchy song-writing that filled the pop radio charts at this time. One of the unique qualities of Branca’s guitar sextet was that they performed on guitars strung with the same gauge strings to the same note to enhance different effects the guitar produced if turned up to extremely loud volumes (Azerrad Our Band 243).
Sonic Youth was formed by guitarist Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon, an art-school student who later became Moore’s sweetheart. Gordon wasn’t exactly a musician but after experiencing a performance of Branca’s, she decided to take up music and played the bass with Moore. Soon after their inception they recruited guitarist Lee Ranaldo, who had been in Branca’s ensemble, and drummer Richard Edson (Azerrad Our Band 235). Edson left soon after the recording of their first mini-LP and was replaced by Bob Bert, another art-school student.
During their early recording sessions, Sonic Youth started a tradition that would become a defining feature of their noisy music. Totally ignoring the conventional rock n’ roll, and even punk rock, standard guitar tuning of E-A-D-G-B-E Moore and Ranaldo de-tuned their instruments to emit ghostly sounds, letting patterns emerge that had never been used before on the guitar. This technique was most likely culled from Branca’s ensemble as well. Using odd devices to play their guitars was also standard fare for the band. On “(She’s In A) Bad Mood” from their Confusion Is Sex album, they use a cowbell smashed up against the twelfth fret to create percussive sounds (Foege 186).
Their rising popularity in New York leading up to 1985 and the release of Bad Moon Rising was a product of their European tour and the glowing reviews especially from the English. During a particularly frustrating show in London, which was attended by reviewers from NME, a popular hipster magazine, the equipment began to fall apart from extensive touring and electical system failure. Moore began to scream, “I hate the English! Bomb London!” repeatedly, and destroyed equipment on stage, which led to great reviews. When the band returned to the United States, their popularity had skyrocketed (Azerrad Our Band 250).
During the time leading up to their most significant record that would define indie rock for not only the next decade, but for as long as it exists, Daydream Nation, Sonic Youth were very busy recording and touring. They even made a video for “Death Valley 69," their single off Bad Moon Rising,. Sonic Youth had become obsessed with Madonna and their fascination with the newfound sexuality of the mainstream music showed through on their two albums EVOL and Sister. On songs like “Shadow Of A Doubt” Gordon whispers, “Kiss me, kiss me / Kiss me in the shadow of a doubt” in a breathy sing-speak while a dreamy guitar line meanders behind her. This sexuality showed the indie world that women could be play a dominant role in the very male dominated field of music.
In a way Daydream Nation was a result of the political atmosphere of 1988, where George Bush Sr. was trying to extend the Reagan era another four years and a shadow of conservatism had spread out over the United States. Sonic Youth left their previous independent label, SST, in search of a major label that would offer them better distribution and a more legitimate accountant. This foreshadowed the migration of many 90s indie bands to major labels such as Geffen or Capitol. Daydream Nation was the culmination of everything the band had been working at for the six years of their existence, an album with sprawling sound-scapes, energetic homages to punk rock, sexual tension and release, and prominent songwriting by Moore, Ranaldo, and Gordon. The critics agreed, the underground scene would never be the same.
During the early 1990s, Sonic Youth signed to DGC, an alternative offshoot of Geffen Records, under a unique contract that gave them several privileges. One of these privileges, along with complete artistic freedom, was the power to actually sign smaller bands to the label. The members of Sonic Youth had seen Nirvana play live several times during the latter part of the 80s, and recommended that Geffen sign the band (Foege 218). Geffen was interested in more alternative bands at this time due to Sonic Youth’s record, Goo, that had become a minor commercial hit. Nirvana seemed like the label’s next logical step toward a lineup that consisted of forward-thinking alternative bands.
Nirvana was formed by guitarist/vocalist Kurt Cobain and bass player Chris Novoselic in 1987, and were originally named Skid Row (AllMusic.com: Nirvana). The band had rough beginnings that included disagreements with various drummers in their employ, many problems with drugs, and the stifling atmosphere of their hometown, Aberdeen, Washington. Despite the immense success the band would have in their later years, their first few years of playing parties and practicing in Cobain’s dirty apartment no one seemed to care much for their melodic brand of energetic punk rock.
Failure was nothing new to Cobain, who’s childhood and adolescence was marred by an absent father, frequent drug use and constant torture from the athletic “jocks” in high school. Many of the girls he went to school with thought Cobain was attractive, so the jocks tried to buddy up with him, only to get left out in the cold. This left them angered and ready to deal out beatings to Cobain (Azerrad Come As You Are 30).
Inspired by his friends in the punk rock band The Melvins, Cobain began engulfing himself in the punk lifestyle of graffiti, drugs, and even homelessness. By the time he and Novoselic started Nirvana, the music was the only constant going through his life besides the promise of a new high (Azerrad Come As You Are 58). Although their heavy brand of metal infused punk didn’t resonate well in Aberdeen, they played partites in nearby Olympia, Washington, the home of Calvin Johnson’s K Records which had such an immense following in Olympia that Cobain called the followers “Calvinists” (Azerrad Come As You Are 46).
In January of 1988, Nirvana recorded the demo that would get them a contract with Seattle’s top indie label at the time, Sub Pop Records. Sub Pop was created by the highly-regarded music critic Bruce Pavitt who had been using the name for years before the record company every came into existence as a column in Rocket magazine and as several compilation tapes he released. Pavitt created the name “Sub Pop” to establish that there was a growing alternative scene below the radar of most Top-40 pop listeners. He set out to create a hype-machine to generate press for local Seattle bands and to move the cultural hub away from east-coast cities such as New York and Boston and show the nation and the world that there was a validity in these independent bands in smaller towns. This was a radical call to arms for the Seattle scene, which was producing exciting bands like Mudhoney and Soundgarden when the label started up. Jonathan Poneman became partners with Pavitt, and the label began to release records from local Seattle bands.
Sub Pop released the band’s first album, Bleach, in 1989 after their “Love Buzz/Big Cheese” single. Bleach became a minor college radio hit into 1990, which gained more national press for the band, but this would be nothing compared to the praise they would receive in a few short years. The album combines the metallic crunch Cobain’s guitar had always possessed with the standard production for the new Seattle/Sub Pop scene. With the album, Sub Pop sent Nirvana on tour to places the band had never gone. Cobain was startled to see what a following they had developed in the mid-west especially, where their shows, while in small venues, were almost completely sold out almost every night.
By the time the band had toured most of the United States and began to tour Europe, Pavitt and Poneman were beginning to aggravate Cobain and the rest of the band with the way Sub Pop was advertising the band. Instead of focusing on the music, Sub Pop was promoting Nirvana as a hick band from Aberdeen that were oblivious to the fact they were producing groundbreaking music. This was the exact image Cobain worked so hard to dispel by renouncing his Aberdeen roots and playing pranks on the more rural residents as an adolescent (AllMusic.com: Nirvana).
In late 1990, Sub Pop started to go the way of SST and lose money faster than they could make it. The label was owing many bands money, and couldn’t deliver it. The bands on the label were beginning to shop around to different labels, including some major labels.
Nirvana was recording demos of the material that would become Nevermind, the album that would define the decade and change the shape of alternative music for years to come.
Capitol and Columbia Records were the first two major labels to seriously court Nirvana; they paid immense amounts of money for the band to travel to the company headquarters and speak with the president, have lavish dinners, and have their heads filled with near realities of rock stardom. Geffen became interested when Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon brought them to the attention of the executives, and Sonic Youth began to encourage Cobain to make the move to Geffen, even if Columbia or Capitol were offering the band larger monetary gains (Azerrad Come As You Are 162). Cobain listened to his friends, and signed to DGC in April of 1991.
Although the band was now officially a part of the Geffen roster, they were still attached to their contract with Sub Pop. The agreement between the two labels gave Sub Pop two percent of sales on their next two albums and $75,000 upfront. They didn't know it at the time, but this single-handedly saved Sub Pop from becoming bankrupt in the near future.
In the spring of 1991, the band meandered down to Los Angeles to record Nevermind with producer Butch Vig. Cobain had recently began using heroin, but his songwriting had progressed so much that Vig was stunned when he was presented the new songs such as "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and "Come As You Are." The songs were taken in no more than three takes each, and much of the recording style Cobain insisted on using was taken from the early punk recordings of the 70s and 80s. The only song that was difficult to record was the soft "Something in the Way," which was the only song that every instrument had to be recorded separately and pieced together later. The recording was strenuous, and the mixing even more so, but by the end Nirvana had created a masterpiece, even though none of them knew it quite yet.
In the weeks before Nevermind was released, the band enjoyed what they have claimed to be their best period as a band. They toured Europe with Sonic Youth and played England’s Reading Festival, where Cobain pulled a muscle flailing himself around the stage. They trashed their record release party, and partied for days on end, enjoying the money that a major label brought them in true punk rock style.
On September 24, 1991, 46,251 copies of Nevermind where shipped. MTV, the barometer for what was popular at that time, began to play the twisted video for “Smells Like Teen Spirit” constantly at all hours of the day. The album debuted at #144 on the Billboard charts, and skyrocketed upwards. “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” the song Nirvana almost cut from Nevermind due to its similarity to the 80s band The Pixies, was becoming the voice for the new generation of youth (Azerrad Come As You Are 199).
What Nirvana had managed to do was not original, as so many people had claimed. Though the album is groundbreaking in so many ways, the general idea that they brought forth had been in existence since The Stooges, The Buzzcocks, Wire, Sonic Youth, and The Pixies. What made Nirvana special and so important to the history of alternative music is the way they made the noise and aesthetic acceptable to the mainstream. Cobain was in no way a glamorous person, and even less like the conventional rock star, despite the constant alcohol and drug abuse. Tight guitar hooks and lyrics that beautifully captured the angst of the youth of the time period brought Nirvana into the forefront and made them into the revered characters that they became.
The timing of the album’s release was also crucial. The United States was moving out of a predominantly Republican run government as Bill Clinton was elected president in 1992. The stale popular culture of the 1980s was losing ground, not only with the record industry, but with the fans as well as they hungered for something with more flavor and power. Upon its release, Nevermind was seen as a statement from the disaffected youth; it was a musical revolution based on the despair and anger built up in the youth of America.
Nirvana’s popularity was astounding as the “grunge” scene, as the media was calling it, rose to prominence above any other type of rock or pop music. The popularity was starting to wear the band down once they reached Europe, where they were doing up to fifteen interviews a day. It was on this tour that Cobain fell in love with Courtney Love of the band Hole. He said ironically that in the midst of all the commercial success that he wanted to find some excitement, and it was most easily found with her (Azerrad Come As You Are 205). While in Europe Nevermind went platinum, selling one million copies in the United States.
Cobain’s decent into drug abuse and suicide was more evident on the band’s third and final album, In Utero. Since the insane stress of touring for months after the release of Nevermind Cobain had developed a strong addiction to heroin, although he went through detox several times. In the years in between Cobain had developed a stomach problem that many thought was a euphemism for his heroin addiction, but was actually a serious condition for which he went to several specialists (Azerrad Come As You Are 304). He was in pain and the whole world was watching him suffer. Cobain was not meant to be idolized; he was still the quiet, upset kid from Aberdeen that had beaten the odds and created something so immensely popular that it could change a society.
In Utero was recorded by Steve Albini, who was an extremely influential producer at that time in the underground scene. The album was recorded in a remarkably un-corporate fashion; the band would not even let any representatives from Geffen listen to the album before the product was finished (Azerrad Come As You Are 315). The songs were angrier, more sarcastic, and showed a side of Nirvana that many fans of mainstream music had never seen before. The two sides of his song-writing clashed, the softer more accessible side, such as “All Apologies,” going head to head against the furious punk rock of songs like “Scentless Apprentice.”
Soon after In Utero was released in 1994, Kurt Cobain committed suicide in his garage on April 8th, 1994, with a 20-gauge shotgun. Cobain was twenty-seven years old (Strauss “The Downward Spiral”). The music world was in mourning for some time after the musician’s death, and mourners gathered around his house to pay homage to their hero. Most of Cobain’s close relations had lost touch with him in the months before his suicide. Although he would not create any more of the music that so many loved, Cobain’s legacy in the history of alternative music was set and nothing could take that away, even death.
Washington, D.C. was a haven for punk bands in the 80s and 90s. During the 90s Fugazi rose to prominence as the leading band coming from the capitol’s top label, Dischord Records. Dischord provided a unique counter to the ideas of Sub Pop with their radical views on the way record companies should be managed. Ian McKaye, the label’s president and the frontman of Fugazi, was the leader of this revolution in the business of independent rock.
During the course of their existence, Fugazi was presented offers from many major labels, but declined, citing that they wanted to stay at home on Dischord. This prompted them to want to buy the whole label, but McKaye made sure the labels realized that the label was not for sale and was not going to turn corporate (“A History Of Dischord So Far”).
Fugazi set a policy to never play a show that charged over five dollars, in order to make the alternative scene available to anyone who wished to be a part of it regardless of economic standpoint (Azerrad Our Band 389). Dischord was seen as one of the most politically based labels of the time not only because of its stance on label independence, but also because of its past. Dischord had been the home to many of the first hardcore-punk bands in the 80s such as Minor Threat and Rites of Spring, both of which were very politically influenced. Fugazi recorded several important albums in the 1990s that blended punk rock, reggae, and experimental music, Their two most successful albums being the punk rock call to arms, Repeater, and the feedback filled Red Medicine.
Other labels flourished in the 90s, including Matador Records which was established in 1989 by Chris Lombardi. It was run out of his apartment in New York City during the early years (Matador FAQ). One of their first truly successful bands was Pavement, one of the most prolific bands of the decade.
Pavement was the quintessential indie rock band who personified many of the ideals the whole genre covered. They were lanky, awkward guys, with affinities for punk and pop music who blended these genres to create a style completely their own. Pavement was formed by guitarists Stephen Malkmus and Scott Kannberg in 1989 after they jammed a few times and decided they might as well have a try at recording. Both musicians had been experimenting with different guitar sounds and static, and wanted to see how the ideas they had been working out in their basement would sound on tape (Jonanovic 61).
Pavement recorded Slay Tracks (1933-1969) in a primitive garage recording studio owned by drummer Gary Young. Malkmus had met Young through mutual friends, although he was much older than both Malkmus and Kannberg. Kannberg decided he needed a more punk rock name, and chose Spiral Stairs to be his pseudonym for the band. The session was very loose and improvised, and produced a unique EP that foreshadowed some of their later work. The short record made its way farther than the duo expected and even found its way into the hands of John Peel, the influential BBC radio DJ. Malkmus and Kannberg were excited, but still thought of the band as more of an afterthought than something that could actually produce anything worthwhile.
Pavement always seemed like an afterthought for the band members, and it showed in their next batch of EPs, which were lo-fi and scratchy, but still showed promise in the melodies that Malkmus, who was the principal songwriter, was capable of composing. Bob Nastanovich soon joined the band as a second percussionist for an upcoming tour to support the EPs they had recently released. The world was opening up for Pavement as their name spread throughout the underground through the fanzines and college radio.
Slanted and Enchanted, the bands first full length album, was recorded in Young’s garage on the same eight-track recorder that had produced the early EPs and singles. This debut album for Matador was something almost unheard of at the time; Slanted and Enchanted was filled with quirky lyrics, powerful guitar lines, and lo-fi tape hiss. Many critics early on tagged the band as a “slacker” group because of the way Malkmus delivered his vocals, but actually when they were in a recording session both Malkmus and Kannberg were meticulous about the way the songs sounded and did multiple recordings of almost all of the tracks.
It took several months to get a final track order for the album and to decide which label they wanted to release it. Malkmus finally decided to release the album on Matador because he wanted a New York label since that was where he was living at the time. It was right after this time their final member joined the band: Mark Ibold on bass for the Slanted and Enchanted tour.
The success of the album and the tour looming before them, the members of Pavement that still attended college quit school to focus on their band that had just began to really move records and had become truly critically accepted. The critics loved the album’s laid back vibe and sloppy delivery while the melodies were creative and catchy. The tape hiss of Slanted and also Guided by Voices’ Bee Thousand inspired many bands to start recording on four tracks and a new craze of lo-fi bands hit the underground scene.
Touring was stressful for the band since none of the members spent much time together outside of band practice. Many of the members lived halfway across the country from one another, especially later in the band’s existence. Young was a developing alcoholic and was drunk for many of the shows. Despite this handicap he performed up to the band’s expectations for the tour, and even became an attraction to many fans.
Sonic Youth, as in with most important bands of the 90s, brought Pavement on tour with them after the release of Dirty, what is seen to be one of Sonic Youth’s most marginalized album. Young’s drunken antics were starting to get on the rest of the band’s nerves, and before they finished the tour to record their second album, Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain Young was ejected from the band. Steve West, a friend of Malkmus, filled Young’s spot, although he wasn’t as technically talented as Young (Jonanovic 130).
Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain has been described as the only Pavement album that really sounds like Pavement. Crooked Rain was recorded in a small apartment in New York with no windows and only two rooms (one of which was a bathroom). Although Malkmus and Kannberg had a better idea about what they wanted to do with the album, the provisions of the studio were restricting. The album was a departure from their lo-fi roots and utilized a more polished studio sound. They used multiple tracks to compose tracks such as “Range Life,” the track that started a feud between Malkmus and the Smashing Pumpkin’s Billy Corgan, which uses piano and pedal-steel guitar (Jonanovic 135).
Crooked Rain, released in 1994, while it never did as well as Nevermind, Simease Dream, or other of the more popular alternative albums of the time had two songs that charted on the alternative singles chart: “Cut Your Hair,” a rant against the corporate rock of the 1980s, and “Gold Soundz,” a song dedicated to the Kurt Cobains of the world that are afraid to express themselves in fear of being ostracized by others. These amazing songs influenced many of the indie bands that came after them.
Although Pavement would release three more albums before they broke up in 1999, they never reached the peaks they achieved with Slanted and Enchanted and Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain. Pavement became a victim of the decline of alternative music that occurred after Kurt Cobain’s suicide. The mainstream eye switched its focus from the exciting alternative scene of the early 90s to the bubble-gum pop that would infiltrate MTV and pop radio waves until the boom of hip-hop and nu-metal in the early 00s.
Although the excitement of the early 90s were over, independent music would continue to push against the grain to produce exciting groups, even if they were not so accessible to the mainstream since the grunge era was over. In recent years, 2004 saw a resurgence of independent music in the mainstream with Modest Mouse, who rose to prominence in the indie world in the late 90s with albums like This Is A Long Drive For Someone With Nothing To Think About and The Lonesome Crowded West, scoring a hit with their anthem “Float On.” Scottish dance-punk band Franz Ferdinand also scored big with their hit “Take Me Out.”
All of this wouldn’t be possible without the influence of Sonic Youth, Nirvana, Pavement and the whole alternative boom of the early 1990s. This creative period was important not only in the history of underground music, but of popular music as well. This may be the only time when the two radically different styles overlapped in such a dramatic way, and both landscapes have been radically effected by their confluence.

Then again, I'm not really sure what the assignment is, so expectations might be different from what I'm used to.

it's a good history on these bands, but maybe you need to make your conclusion more detailed

good work though!

Also, try to refrain from statements like:

During the time leading up to their most significant record that would define indie rock for not only the next decade, but for as long as it exists, Daydream Nation, Sonic Youth were very busy recording and touring.

You're saying that "Daydream Nation" will define indie rock forever. "Forever" is incredibly bold ... you don't really know what the future will hold for indie rock, so I would refrain from making these sorts of unsubstantiated oracle statements.

I actually missed it the first time around, but I think it's a fantastic title.

However, you'll want to go through the essay again as there are a few spelling errors and words that were used incorrectly.