Who is the core audience for indie rock?

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A few months ago I was made aware of a critical exchange about the soul of indie rock (or lack thereof) that came off last year in the form of an article in the New Yorker by Sasha Frere-Jones, and a response--among several-- in Slate from Carl Wilson. Frere-Jones had posited that much indie rock was boring to him because it was too white, and Wilson had said no, no, it's not really the white, it's the wealth.

Wilson established in his rebuttal that Frere-Jones' article was a bit under-thought, and I happen to agree with that assessment. Further, I to some degree follow and agree with Wilson's counter-explanation of “the soul of indie rock”, supplanting class for race in his analysis of where indie rock now draws its sensibilities.

I do have a bone to pick, however, with what Wilson saw when he held up his class-conscious prism. Being that I'm no sociologist, ethnomusicologist, or any other sort of authority-conferring -ist, I will have to draw simply on my own experiences as the liberal arts educated "upper middle class" city-dweller that supports this music scene Frere-Jones and Wilson malign and semi-excuse, respectively.

Read the full article.

Rollie Fings, Friday, 9 May 2008 19:15 (seventeen years ago)

no

Surmounter, Friday, 9 May 2008 19:17 (seventeen years ago)

Surmounter OTM.

Alex in SF, Friday, 9 May 2008 19:18 (seventeen years ago)

You are.

Dom Passantino, Friday, 9 May 2008 19:21 (seventeen years ago)

John Cusacks

Kath, Friday, 9 May 2008 19:30 (seventeen years ago)

DE BOMBACLAT BOURGEOIS

kl0pper, Friday, 9 May 2008 19:30 (seventeen years ago)

14-25.

ian, Friday, 9 May 2008 19:45 (seventeen years ago)

So, are the core supporters of indie rock in New York and Portland and elsewhere really clearing six figures as a household?

Wouldn't you like to know.

Daniel, Esq., Friday, 9 May 2008 20:12 (seventeen years ago)

pew 2.0

max, Friday, 9 May 2008 20:14 (seventeen years ago)

i enjoy indie rock but i'm a 42-year old black woman and i can't be too rich because i have to take the bus.

how do i fit into your theory, huh?

Roberto Spiralli, Friday, 9 May 2008 20:17 (seventeen years ago)

oh shit, that's Rosa Parks in 1955, not me. nm.

Roberto Spiralli, Friday, 9 May 2008 20:17 (seventeen years ago)

Great thread.

stephen, Friday, 9 May 2008 23:12 (seventeen years ago)

the notion that certain aesthetics are class, race, gender or income-specific is dumb. can I have my five dollars now y/n

J0hn D., Friday, 9 May 2008 23:37 (seventeen years ago)

the notion that certain aesthetics are class, race, gender or income-specific is dumb
ILX cant 101.

contenderizer, Saturday, 10 May 2008 00:09 (seventeen years ago)

didn't we talk this to death six months ago? I'm too lazy to search for the threads right now.

I love these harsh n00b schooling threads. And I say that having been on the butt end of a few.

sleeve, Saturday, 10 May 2008 02:54 (seventeen years ago)

didn't we talk this to death six months ago? I'm too lazy to search for the threads right now.

I love these harsh n00b schooling threads. And I say that having been on the butt end of a few.

That's better than no.

Rollie Fings, Saturday, 10 May 2008 06:38 (seventeen years ago)

certainly the indie "rock" gigs in my town are the cheapest to attend, in terms of entry costs and beer. dunno what that says if anything

electricsound, Saturday, 10 May 2008 06:40 (seventeen years ago)

It definitely says something. It says the people putting on the show are not trying to prey on the people attending.

Rollie Fings, Saturday, 10 May 2008 07:00 (seventeen years ago)

Rollie the Music Vampire Slayer

Ned Raggett, Saturday, 10 May 2008 07:03 (seventeen years ago)

Youngish pretty secure people who don't like music all that much

Niles Caulder, Saturday, 10 May 2008 07:40 (seventeen years ago)

i don't know what world you live in but anyone i've encountered who doesn't like music all that much wouldn't even vaguely understand the concept of 'indie rock'

electricsound, Saturday, 10 May 2008 07:47 (seventeen years ago)

Just people I know. They buy lots of it but rarely listen to it. It's weird.

Niles Caulder, Saturday, 10 May 2008 07:51 (seventeen years ago)

aesthetics are (partially) derived from environmental factors which in turn are determined by class

kl0pper, Saturday, 10 May 2008 08:03 (seventeen years ago)

that IS weird xpost

electricsound, Saturday, 10 May 2008 08:10 (seventeen years ago)

I feel guilty about being white for I don't like indie rock.

Popture, Saturday, 10 May 2008 09:20 (seventeen years ago)

It's another country-specific difference here jim. In the UK "indie rock" is the default setting for a lot of students who may or may not be that into music. The overall audience for indie is bigger than that, but it's a high profile subset. I'd've thought the same was true about lots of genres tho, people who say their favourite kind of music is whatever but aren't ueber music-nerds a la ILX are pretty common.

Noodle Vague, Saturday, 10 May 2008 09:28 (seventeen years ago)

I'm in NZ but yeah. It's just what's expected/common. Kinda surprised if it isn't similar in Aust. Noodle it isn't so much that they have to be NERDS about it, it's more that they'll only put it on (and quietly) if they're bored or there's nothing on tv or they're cooking or something

Niles Caulder, Saturday, 10 May 2008 09:33 (seventeen years ago)

I was semi-joking about the nerd thing Niles, but its easy to forget on a music board that there's millions of people out there for who music isn't that big a deal, but they still like to listen sometimes.

Noodle Vague, Saturday, 10 May 2008 09:35 (seventeen years ago)

True. Prob a good thing to remember really, I guess they're like 97% of music listeners

Niles Caulder, Saturday, 10 May 2008 09:36 (seventeen years ago)

this is curious

electricsound, Saturday, 10 May 2008 09:37 (seventeen years ago)

This sort of topic sure seems to come up a lot around here. (Or maybe I'm just running into purely through blind luck.) It's mostly when I encounter that whole "white people can't play blues/can't rap/should stick to 'white people' music" business that I get bothered a little. "White people are genetically and socially incapable of properly achieving the blues" posit always felt more overtly racist and dumb than, say, "indie rockers go to college on their parents' money". Both, though, seem damn stupid.

OTM upthread about music listeners. Holding musicians in contempt for not really caring about music is one thing, but lay off the rest of the world, y'know? It's not everyone's fetish. I hear the same bull from art students re art.

RabiesAngentleman, Saturday, 10 May 2008 12:26 (seventeen years ago)

"With this piece Frere-Jones has demonstrated himself every bit the racist—for buying into this pathetically regressive set of ideas—as any 1950s Southern preacher who decried white interest in animalistic, vulgar race music. That Frere-Jones’ delineates and fetishizes the other—this carnal, black backbeat, this jungle sexuality he insists on placing in contradiction to cerebral, “oblique,” “flat-footed,” white rock—should damn him alongside those who delineate and vilify the other; both visions assign the same traits to blackness."
http://www.playboy.com/blog/2007/10/paint-it-black-1.html

-- curmudgeon, Thursday, October 25, 2007 10:10 PM (6 months ago) Bookmark Link

^^^BAM

RabiesAngentleman, Saturday, 10 May 2008 14:28 (seventeen years ago)

carl wilson of beach boys fame?

Charlie Howard, Saturday, 10 May 2008 15:22 (seventeen years ago)

cool response by the way surmounter. heh

Charlie Howard, Saturday, 10 May 2008 15:23 (seventeen years ago)

"Claass? Whud? Like gym claass?"

Bodrick III, Saturday, 10 May 2008 17:00 (seventeen years ago)


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