Indie Guilt: C/D

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Hi, I occasionally post on ILM but there is one thing that I don't understand that occurs rather frequently.

Why are so many of the ILM cadre of ex-indie rockers ashamed of indie? (that's USA indie, not the UK "Boy Bands w/ Guitars"/Britpop indie)

Yes, y'all wearing your indie clothes, checking out indie girls/boys, closet listening to indie allthewhile suspectly buying other genres to boost your ILM cred... you are among the first to bash "Indie: The Genre"?

<wigga>Why ya frontin', y0?</wigga>

Peer pressure? Diseased with musical fashion? is this a po-mo "ironic" move like the fleeting destiny's child/missy elliot affection of last year?

― http://gygax.pitas.com, Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

i mean, like, how could this person simultaneously claim "defending any year - save perhaps 79 - with indie is very precarious"...

very confusing. Nu-ILM needs answerz, y0!

― http://gygax.pitas.com, Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

tom, delete ilm please!!

― ethan, Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

is this a po-mo "ironic" move like the fleeting destiny's child/missy elliot affection of last year?

Do not feed the troll.

― Tom, Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

I think someone could just as well ask a related question: Why is it that indie rock fans believe that anyone who stops liking it is "fooling themselves"? As if discovering indie is like discovering Christ, and that even if you turn your back on Him, you know in your heart that you're wrong.

― Clarke B., Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

apologetic about liking Indie music...? thread.

― N., Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

i'm just happy i finally know the tag to end wigga, my future posts will be much 'improved'

― ethan, Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

haha nu-ilm = maximumrocknroll.

― jess, Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

he/she really got me there with that survey i knew was going to be posted on a website and easily googlable.

― jess, Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

yeah, but you're one of many, y'all know who you are....

why the shame?

and Clarke B., there's a difference between moving on from something and totally pass/aggr. denial of existance.

― http://gygax.pitas.com, Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

"is this a po-mo 'ironic' move like the fleeting destiny's child/missy elliot affection of last year?" => if all indiethink were as smart as this, what a titan of a cultural behemoth this juggernaut wd be...

― mark s, Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

I do not wear indie clothes. I do not check out indie girls. And I do not listen to "indie" in the closet. Cds on my desk: Luomo, Miles Davis, Ghostface Killah, Romeo Must Die soundtrack, So Solid Crew, Busta Rhymes, Jay-Z, Missy Elliot, Josie and the Pussycats. So there.

― Sterling Clover, Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

(pssst sterl tom declared that if anyone defended j*sie and the pussycats they were forthwith banned from the boards)

― mark s, Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

That old thread is very good - I can't really add anything to what I said there.

― Tom, Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Oh except that Sterl is banned obviously.

(When did I say this Mark? I'm surprised I was so even-handed.)

― Tom, Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

isn't listing a desk full of non-indie being indie apologetic? or am i all backwards on this?

― jess, Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Gwan then Tom, try me.

― Sterling Clover, Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

yeah, but you quote *gasp* SLEATER KINNEY in some pop-culture piece (*ahem*) on your website...

"WHY Y'ALL FRONTIN'?" is the question, and nu-ILM WANTS ANSWERZ NOW DAMNIT!

― http://gygax.pitas.com, Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Jess: that would be if I wuz trying to prove that I listened to all this different stuff and not just indie, whereas I'm just explaining the things in current rotation.

― Sterling Clover, Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

while we were watching j&tp at yr house and i said "this is the greatest movie evah made"

― mark s, Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

*excited writing directed towards Sterling*

― http://gygax.pitas.com, Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

gygax wrote : (that's USA indie, not the UK "Boy Bands w/ Guitars"/Britpop indie)

In that case, I don't even know what "Indie" is. Can someone enlighten me? phil

― phil, Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

If my memory serves you said "this is the worst movie ever made" and left early.

― Tom, Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

sleater kinney are r&b

― mark s, Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Ethan, maybe you should stop being so negative about nu-ILM. A lot of old threads have the same sort of thing in them - some even more so - I think you're just being aggressively eager to find them now. You're coming across as a tad precious and stodgy with all of these smarmy good-ol'-days remarks.

― Clarke B., Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Mark your finger slipped up a key.

― Tom, Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

best/worst like momus i am above such binaries

― mark s, Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

indie rock is sort of like those evan dorkin eltingville comics...you can't mock it unless you are of it, and if you are of it, then by mocking it you're automatically mocking yrself. the assumption that people who once listened to a lot of indie and now don't but are still listening in "secret" is hella indie, to the bone.

― jess, Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

sleater kinner are dub

― mark s, Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Nah, sleater-kinney are godz.

Indie-est albums on my cd rack above my desk = Shipping News, Storm and Stress, Sugababes, Kelis, Pink, Box Tops.

Oh yeah, there's some Piano Magic buried at the back that I haven't listened to in forever.

― Sterling Clover, Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

j&tp was dub too, but harry pottah was WAY worse

― mark s, Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Ballboy > Missy Elliot.

― Dom Passantino, Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

haha

― ethan, Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

to jess not the rest of you wiggaz

― ethan, Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

mark youre really coasting now

― ethan, Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

taking sides: coasting vs cruising

― mark s, Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

/wigga dammit

― ethan, Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Reading back over the defend 1996 thread, I can see why gygax may have started this thread.

― Clarke B., Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Basically what happened to me is that by criticising indie a lot I kind of shamed myself into listening a lot less to it and I'm now a much happier person all-in-all and more excited by music. I used to write about music because I wasn't excited enough about it - now I write less because I don't need to do that any more. (I need to find another reason for writing, but that's a side issue).

Speaking very generally, people who listen to a single genre (or network of interrelated genres like "indie" or "dance") of music exclusively or near-exclusively I find less interesting - on the boards or in real life, talking about music or not - than people who listen to a lot of different kinds of music. In my experience this particularly applies to American indie rock. There are of course exceptions to this and I'm not proposing this as anything other than a personal preference/prejudice.

― Tom, Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

apologetic about liking Indie music...? thread.

eh...that thread never gets anywhere close to an honest answer. it just trashes indie, which is as positive or negative as making fun of anything else, but evidentally not here at ILM, where the "good old days" and the golden hindsight (or is it sepia?) of nostalgia seems to pale anything recent.

― msp, Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

man msp nobody whined about stuff like that back in the day

― ethan, Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

My answers on that thread are as honest as anything else I've written here. I'm not sure what you're looking for exactly? A confession?

― Tom, Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

it doesn't "just trash indie", it includes my observation that LPs with the same number of cuts on both sides are all terrible

― mark s, Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

corny/jokey answers = guilty as charged

― http://gygax.pitas.com, Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

i AM coasxting: i haven't delivered a theory like that for months!!

― mark s, Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

corny/trolly threads = ?

― jess, Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

But mark, then the first three Comsats LPs would have to be terrible, and that's impossible. Not only that, but all 45s would be awful as well!

― Clarke B., Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Gygax - you're not answered the main counter-argument, which is that the ex indie kids here (and the never-were indiekids like Ethan) don't secretly or openly buy or listen to very much indie, if at all. The reason, shockingly, is that we don't like it very much.

― Tom, Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

You'd think ILM was IL Detroit Techno or something, what with all the EXTERMINATE THE TROLL shit getting flung about.

― Clarke B., Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

hey guys stop joking around, the guy who put a wigga html tag in his dumb-ass question wants serious answers!!

― ethan, Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Skipping 544 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

haha

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Thursday, 8 January 2004 08:58 (twenty years ago) link

I miss this thread. I wish it was started every day.

― Johnny Fever (johnny fever), Thursday, 8 January 2004 19:36 (twenty years ago) link

i have indie guilt for the same reasons i have white middle class male guilt.

it's all my parents fault.

― Ian Johnson (orion), Thursday, 8 January 2004 22:01 (twenty years ago) link

I miss this thread. I wish it was started every day.

You mean it isn't?

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 8 January 2004 22:02 (twenty years ago) link

ah, simpler times.

― fiddo centington (dubplatestyle), Thursday, 8 January 2004 22:12 (twenty years ago) link

haha fiddo haha

― gygax! (gygax!), Thursday, 8 January 2004 22:13 (twenty years ago) link

now that Indie Rock is made with Splenda and Olestra, it's totally guilt-free.

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Thursday, 8 January 2004 22:16 (twenty years ago) link

indie will come again, the sinners shall be punished, the faithful shall be er....still miserable.

― Moses (Ronan), Thursday, 8 January 2004 22:22 (twenty years ago) link

sorry gygax, I was not at all sober when I revived this.

...sorry gygax...

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Thursday, 8 January 2004 22:23 (twenty years ago) link

This is officially the stupidest ILM thread ever. "Indie guilt"?? WHAT the FUCK???

― Mr. Snrub (Mr. Snrub), Thursday, 8 January 2004 23:14 (twenty years ago) link

Ha, ethan's Pepsi Guilt accusation still makes me larf

― nate detritus (natedetritus), Friday, 9 January 2004 00:02 (twenty years ago) link

This thread with the names and dates taken out and auto-summarized to 100 words:

apologetic about liking Indie music...? thread.

apologetic about liking Indie music...? thread.
haha your neighbour is indie!!

I like indie. Of, relating to, or being an indie: an album of indie rock; an indie film company.

cure for indie guilt:
So what's indie, then?

Hair Metal doesn't count= indie Pop

INDIE GUILT

alan = indie
-- indie hiphop. Today's pop is tomorrow's indie. not indie girls though. How indie is that?
WALLOW IN YOUR INDIE-NESS! PERPETRATE INDIE-SENT EXPOSURE!
the dandy warhols are indie?
How indie is that?!?
indie = santa. underground is similar to indie. "Indie guilt"??

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Friday, 16 January 2004 02:26 (twenty years ago) link

one year passes...

yes.

― mark p (Mark P), Sunday, 27 February 2005 17:32 (nineteen years ago) link

Three years is a long time.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 27 February 2005 17:35 (nineteen years ago) link

yes.

― mark p (Mark P), Sunday, 27 February 2005 17:35 (nineteen years ago) link

"The Golden Age Is When You Were 12*"

― mark s (mark s), Sunday, 27 February 2005 17:43 (nineteen years ago) link

for all intents and purposes, i was 12 in 2002.

― mark p (Mark P), Sunday, 27 February 2005 17:45 (nineteen years ago) link

the fleeting destiny's child/missy elliot affection of last year

This is the part uptop that amuses me the most.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 27 February 2005 17:48 (nineteen years ago) link

the weird thing is ethan really IS in an oingo-boingo covers band now!

― mark s (mark s), Sunday, 27 February 2005 18:17 (nineteen years ago) link

I have no way of telling if you're kidding, Mark, but him living in London can do strange things to a man.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 27 February 2005 18:27 (nineteen years ago) link

This thread should end with a "Where are they now?" sequence.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Sunday, 27 February 2005 18:33 (nineteen years ago) link

"dom, ned, marks p and s are still posting the indie guilt thread"

― mark s (mark s), Sunday, 27 February 2005 18:38 (nineteen years ago) link

Woohoo!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 27 February 2005 18:54 (nineteen years ago) link

Hey mark s, thanks for linking to I Love Comics without warning us that you were sending us into a different dimension! (You don't expect me to actually read and find out what I'm posting to, do you?)

― RS £aRue (rockist_scientist), Sunday, 27 February 2005 19:39 (nineteen years ago) link

oh my lord. three yars ago. i think i was actually drunk the night i was posting.

― nathalie barefoot in the head (stevie nixed), Sunday, 27 February 2005 20:15 (nineteen years ago) link

six months pass...

I'm finally starting to understand this, I think.

Sterling's comment about feeling Palace was his own, private "special" thing that he couldn't share resonated with me, but for me the special thing was jazz. After a brief stint with classic rock, I was a jazz nerd for most of high school - I was a musician, and I was "serious". I also didn't even really know anything about punk or indie - they just weren't on the radar at my school.

Only in college, in my giddy days at the alt weekly, did I realize that post-rock was kinda like jazz and could be my special thing too, and so could old folk and blues records that were too scratchy-sounding for most people to ever like.

But the point is that, holed up in the office on a Friday night, I could happily wallow in my deep lonliness, appreciating what was going on in the new Paul Bley trio disc, seething at the athletic teams and the administration-ass-kissing daily paper, while the drunken whoops of frat brothers echoed in the distance. I certainly couldn't share my late 60s Miles Davis, my Sea and Cake, my Mississippi State Penitentiary songs with a woman, and I couldn't share much of anything else with a woman either.

Out in the world and away from college, into drab offices and co-habited apartments, we are ashamed of our private, special things. We want, understandably, to experience shared humanity, hence the oft-cited point that indie records don't sell and "nobody" listens to them (and you indie fuxors even think of yourselves as nobodies).

― Hurting (Hurting), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 04:13 (nineteen years ago) link

six months pass...

</wigga>!!!

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Monday, 10 April 2006 15:55 (eighteen years ago) link

i'm just happy i finally know the tag to end wigga, my future posts will be much 'improved'

-- ethan (ethan...), May 29th, 2002.

lol

― ++++++, Monday, 10 April 2006 16:02 (eighteen years ago) link

back-back-back in the day.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Monday, 10 April 2006 16:12 (eighteen years ago) link

eleven months pass...

I'm shocked to see that the points I was making FIVE years ago, I was making last week in another place. I need to get some new ideas... And maybe finally get rid of my ind1e-gu1lt. ;-)

― byebyepride, Thursday, 5 April 2007 10:08 (seventeen years ago) link

It was downhill ever since. Slip sliding away.

― nathalie, Thursday, 5 April 2007 10:34 (seventeen years ago) link

I thought we did pretty well getting rid of it the other night! You said you liked the House of Love's version of Pink Frost better IIRC! (x-post).

― Keith, Thursday, 5 April 2007 10:36 (seventeen years ago) link

I do! But which is indier?

Also: are you on holiday today? How did the flooring go?

― byebyepride, Thursday, 5 April 2007 11:19 (seventeen years ago) link

I certainly couldn't share my late 60s Miles Davis, my Sea and Cake, my Mississippi State Penitentiary songs with a woman, and I couldn't share much of anything else with a woman either.

but now you're married!

also, gygax RIP.
also, best thread ever.

― ian, Thursday, 5 April 2007 18:07 (seventeen years ago) link

steve shasta lives

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 5 April 2007 18:13 (seventeen years ago) link

what's indie?

― Surmounter, Thursday, 5 April 2007 18:15 (seventeen years ago) link

rock

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 5 April 2007 18:18 (seventeen years ago) link

I don't wear indie clothes but I listen to indie? Does that make me fake? :P

― wesley useche, Thursday, 5 April 2007 18:21 (seventeen years ago) link

also, best thread ever.

otm

― artdamages, Thursday, 5 April 2007 18:23 (seventeen years ago) link

young mc taught jess to love music you fool

-- ethan, Tuesday, May 28, 2002

tears, almost five years later

― strongohulkington, Thursday, 5 April 2007 19:05 (seventeen years ago) link

one month passes...

http://myspace.com/guiltbyassociation

― jermainetwo, Tuesday, 8 May 2007 11:58 (seventeen years ago) link

there'll be fighting on the groves of jacaranda tonite

― 600, Tuesday, 8 May 2007 11:59 (seventeen years ago) link

There have never been any indie boybands with guitar (Oh, OK, I'll give you Menswe@r then)

― Geir Hongro, Tuesday, 8 May 2007 12:28 (seventeen years ago) link

blur

― 600, Tuesday, 8 May 2007 12:29 (seventeen years ago) link

shed seven

― 600, Tuesday, 8 May 2007 12:29 (seventeen years ago) link

Under discussion on this thread

― byebyepride, Tuesday, 8 May 2007 12:30 (seventeen years ago) link

jet

― 600, Tuesday, 8 May 2007 12:30 (seventeen years ago) link

'gimme indie rawk'

― edde, Tuesday, 8 May 2007 14:46 (seventeen years ago) link

five years pass...

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Pitas.com is now offering free and easy to update pages with an easy-to-use web interface. Most people use their pitas page to create some sort of "recent news" page for their site, or a weblog (basically a list of links with some commentary that is updated frequently) Sign up and you can have your own pitas page (with an url like yourname.pitas.com) that you can update from any web browser, without fussing around with uploading, editing pages, and all that time-wasting junk. You can customize it to look however you want, or use one of the templates we've made already, and you can give your friends access to it so you can all have a page you all contribute to, without them havin access to your entire web site (if you have one that is). What fun! Don't you like fun? Of course you do!

― buzza, Friday, 17 August 2012 06:09 (twelve years ago) link

two years pass...

love the talk of nu-ilm upthread from 2002

I miss this thread. I wish it was started every day.
― Johnny Fever (johnny fever),

how about now?

― Cosmic Slop, Friday, 23 January 2015 19:11 (nine years ago) link

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