Fugazi - The Strokes: The Graying of 'Indie'

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Are the founding philosophies of the late 80's/early 90's Indie crop obsolete? I mean when it is common practice, in 2002, for 'Indie' labels to drop $20,000 just promoting a record, where online banner adspace will cost you upwards of $700-$900 a month...'Indie' is Big Business. Is it still possible to survive with integrity adrift in a sea of MajorIndie publicists, promotional agencies, and massive marketing money?

― RMS, Wednesday, 18 September 2002 21:52 (twenty-three years ago)

more importantly: will ian stop shaving his head and grow a fabritzio style dylan-afro?

― jess (dubplatestyle), Wednesday, 18 September 2002 21:53 (twenty-three years ago)

fuck yeah...and start wearing patchwork brown leather

― rms, Wednesday, 18 September 2002 21:56 (twenty-three years ago)

I mean when it is common practice, in 2002, for 'Indie' labels to drop $20,000 just promoting a record

Is this true? That seems like an awful lot of money.

― John Darn1elle, Wednesday, 18 September 2002 22:00 (twenty-three years ago)

...so I've heard on more than a few different occasions...Think about the cost of high profile web/print adspace, printing costs for hundreds of thousands of promotional cards, posters and other items, promo-cds, packaging/shipping/misc...and that doesn't factor in the Promotions people/firms hired to GET the records reviewed by the high-profile reviewers/magazines/online resources...

― rms (rms), Wednesday, 18 September 2002 22:19 (twenty-three years ago)

$20,000 to promote a record is bugger all.

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Wednesday, 18 September 2002 22:44 (twenty-three years ago)

I can attest that $20,000 is actually a fairly normal to modest amount to really push a record. A video will cost a lot, and then the promotions company to push the video will take an additional 3K; radio promotions (commercial AND college), zine advertising, etc. I'll tell you this: Warner spent a lot more than 20K pushing the Hives, who weren't even really a Warner band; and then the band went and signed to Universal! Ha!

But the underground thrives on, and sometimes records come out of nowhere. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs is a great example of a record selling itself...

― andy, Wednesday, 18 September 2002 22:47 (twenty-three years ago)

insofar as the main philosophical thrust of the late 80s/early 90s indie crop was borrowed from punk DIY ethos - it's all about eliminating the middle-man. Making yr own records, booking your own shows, having as much control as possible over your "product". Middlemen like indie-promoters are just bloodsuckers anyway, and there are just as many (if not more) avenues and methods available now to performers to make records with no money and get them to people virtually free. My band is hardly a paragon of "success", but we do what we want, on a budget of $0, and seem to reach a fair amount of people. Anybody who drops $20,000 on a record is an idiot who should be spending that money on more interesting and more valuable things (like gear or, I dunno, books, or the space program).

― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 18 September 2002 23:13 (twenty-three years ago)

I wouldn't exactly say the Yeah Yeah Yeahs record sold itself.

― sammy, Thursday, 19 September 2002 02:29 (twenty-three years ago)

It played itself.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 19 September 2002 05:08 (twenty-three years ago)

you played yourself?

and anyway like with the effect of inflation I'm sure that 20,000 was worth a lot less in 1980/90 ...I remeber when a Cheesburger used to cost ........I also remember when *so called* indie didn't get played on the local commerical video thing.

IDM is the new indie anyway... DIY electronic IDM bshit.. no budget / no sales.. blah blah..

― dsico (dsico), Thursday, 19 September 2002 05:56 (twenty-three years ago)

''you played yourself?''

Naughty naughty Ned!

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Thursday, 19 September 2002 09:31 (twenty-three years ago)

Depends what country you live in I suppose. Sloan have done alright with their distribution agreement, Rheostatics as well have come and gone from the majors. It all comes down to how well you can fill in a FACTOR grant I guess.

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Thursday, 19 September 2002 13:24 (twenty-three years ago)

"Anybody who drops $20,000 on a record is an idiot who should be spending that money on more interesting and more valuable things..."

Look, the labels have the bands to answer to as well, and most bands want to see a major push.. they want to know that posters were printed, ads were taken out, that the record was actively promoted with whatever resources are available. There are free ways to promote, but I don't know any bands right now that proudly talk about the number of 'hits' on their MP3 site or something... they want to sell records, and making a record sell costs alot of money.

There are ways to recoup the expenditure outside of sales, and that is to try to get a tune into a movie, a video game, a TV show, etc... it's all distateful but the money can be more helpful than you realize, for bands with fucked up teeth and shitty, broken vans and borrowed amps.

― andy, Thursday, 19 September 2002 16:33 (twenty-three years ago)

I wouldn't exactly say the Yeah Yeah Yeahs record sold itself.
Having someone infuential ,say Kim Gordon, telling the Pavlov's dog hipsters that you dig this record helps.

― brg30 (brg30), Thursday, 19 September 2002 18:40 (twenty-three years ago)

well, my label sure as heck isn't spending $20K on promotion.

As far as surviving: well, we aren't profiting, but we aren't out of business. yet.

As far as the real question: well, indie rock has become a business. There will always be people who keep doing the DIY thing, but as any music genre becomes defined and the profit potential becomes obvious, people will move in with the principal goal of making money.

But this is hardly new. I mean, how long has it been since SST has been associated with those "founding policies"? Or remember Sub Pop flying journalists over from England? Or all those "fake indies" that the majors created back in the mid-nineties?

― doug, Thursday, 19 September 2002 19:13 (twenty-three years ago)

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