He had a party
He had a band
And a thousand loving friends
He had his reasons
Or so he thought
This should be where the story ends:

Ron Klaus
Wrecked his house
Down on Indiana Street
Ron Klaus
He wrecked his house
Now it's lying at his feet

He threw the doors
Out of the windows
And the windows out the doors
He brought the outside
Into the inside
And the ceiling to the floor...

I I like everything that comes out on 4AD -
You like everything that comes out on SST -
You like almost everything that comes out on Homestead -
I like everything I get in the mail for free!

As in the new millennium catch-all that is the term "indie rock?" I mean, it's a huge field, but when we're talking a specific, sort of defined sound that syncs with that term alone, I think of (often bland) bands like Tapes'n'Tapes, the National, the Arcade Fire, etc. As far as a shared aesthetic, I'd say it's generally straight-ahead guitar music with a few meticulously considered deviations (recently horn orchestrations and Americana influences) that inhabits that sort of middle space between mainstream rock and the experimental underground. In other words, it's pop music for people who define themselves in opposition to pop music."

- Andrew Phillips, music editor/writer


The way I see it there are two kinds of genres - genres that represent living subcultures and genres that are purely marketing constructions (examples of the latter might include 'folktronica', 'IDM', 'electronica',... genres that no musician really claimed while the terms were first being bandied about, more as umbrella terms than as descriptors of unified movements, although then next-gen musicians sometimes claim these terms for their own, these media-created terms that described no living movement at their inception can actually birth a subculture that really *is* aligned around them). So those type of genres have two faces or phases that occur at different moments. Whereas genre-terms I regard as more meaningful-- things like punk, hip-hop, indie, genres that describe living subcultures where the terms are propagated by the musicians and THEN picked up by the media, which have lifestyle accoutrements and organic social dimensions etc..,, these also have two faces or phases, but they unfold simultaneously. So "indie" viably means two things: the fundamental one is music that is recorded outside of the major label system (& this category is very confused now b/c so many "indie" labels are structured so much like major labels and/or have commercial ties with them, and b/c unlike in the late 70s/early 80s when arguably American indie rock was born, there wasn't the massive touring and commercial infrastructure for indie rock that exists now, which made the term less shaky and more meaningful, with bands genuinely just finding their own way around the major label system not settling for this institutionalized subcurrent to it that exists now...plus with the current shakiness of the label system, categorizing a band by their label-affiliation is making much less sense than it used to.) & so the other thing that 'indie' means now is mainstream, record industry bands who emerged from this organic indie scene, who appropriated certain very visible musicological strains of it, and who are "indie" in the same way that a mainstream band can be "punk", we can say they are a punk band and while being mainstream violates every tenet of organic punk-movement culture, people will know what we mean. I guess the bottom line you're asking which of these definitions is the "right" one, and I think they're both right... what can I say, I'm a descriptivist at heart."

- Brian Howe, poet/critic


Indie is short for "independent." There are four major labels: EMI, Sony BMG, Universal and Warner. If a label ultimately answers to one of those four companies - if one of those companies has the power to make direct decisions about what the label does, or signs its paychecks--then it has a dependent relationship with that company, and the artists affiliated with it aren't "independent" either. That's a definition, not a value judgement, although it sometimes has value judgements attached to it. And it's a very useful tool for understanding where certain recordings and artists and labels fit into the economic matrix - what resources they have available to them, etc.

"Indie rock" has a generally understood meaning, largely associated with what a bunch of guitar bands on independent labels did in the '80s and '90s. It is, in fact, a subset of rock released on independent labels - an aesthetic that got its name from its economic circumstances. But the reason it got its name that way is that the idea of deliberate financial independence from a few large companies was, and sometimes still is, an important part of the intention and meaning of a lot of "indie rock" artists' work. To claim that a band can be "indie" without being financially independent of the major labels is to pretend that industrial capitalism does not exist.

- Douglas Wolk, author/critic


The way I see it, "indie" is a definable genre, not just a declaration of limits vis-a-vis the market (since, after all, there are tens of thousands of variously rebarbative musical units far less market-friendly than anything that can be labeled "indie"). If punk is descended from the Stooges, indie is descended from the Modern Lovers. Both subgenres come down from '60s garage rock, but indie takes the introspective, romantic, self-conscious, self-doubting road. Indie is usually friendly, catchy, and openhearted enough that it seems as though it should be accessible to all and therefore mass-popular in that old AM-radio way, but in fact it represents a formerly centrist aesthetic that's been pushed out to the fringes by a bunch of large historical forces. Its self-doubt, a crucial element, also tends to limit its appeal, and I'll let you guess what demographic unit feels sufficiently secure to countenance it. When something that sounds indie makes it to the big show, it's usually either because a freak weather pattern broke its way, or else because an indie wrapping coats something slick and shallow. Indie is a lot like the kind of American novelists who are kept in print by the French. Jim Thompson may speak to the soul of the nation, but Americans would generally rather read James Patterson.

- Luc Sante, writer


Wait - I thought the "indie" aesthetic being referred to was actually the "alternative" aesthetic; "alternative" more aptly referring to, say, Nirvana on Geffen, whereas "indie" would have referred to Nirvana on Sub Pop. Or is "alternative" now a sanctioned Billboard category like Country and Western? Anyway, as Tom Frank aptly put it around fifteen years ago in THE BAFFLER, "Alternative to what?"

Indie, anyway, does appear often to be a marketing term (albeit an intrinsically fraudulent one) referring more to a certain flavor of product issued by the majors (whether labels or studios) than to independently produced and released works. As far as the aesthetic it espouses or implicitly promises, it seems generally to be a tepid one, at least by my lights (same with the average "indie" movie).

(I think, incidentally, that the idea may be spreading to publishing as well -- look at Soft Skull's acquisition by Counterpoint. They're really acquiring an attitude, not necessarily just a backlist.)

I have to confess to being somewhat disturbed by your students' unquestioning absorption of the corporate line in this instance, particularly since it's music in which they, especially, have historically had a stake. The carelessness with the language is surely opportunistic for the record companies, but inexcusable in students charged with the task of thinking critically. We're in Orwell territory here; If "indie" doesn't actually mean it, then "organic" doesn't have to either, and we can all easily extrapolate from there.

- Christopher Sorrentino, novelist


My heart wants to side with the indie-economic-model hardliners but my head says that, semantically, that fight is lost: "Indie" has been redrawn by common usage just as "alternative" was before it - the most common musical strains in an oppositional subculture crossed out of that subculture, and the label crossed with them. "Indie" now connotes such a hodgepodge of economic, social and aesthetic associations that it is irrelevant. We can be rueful about that over beers, but that's about all.

So everyone please abandon ship on the word "indie" just as happened with "alternative." The principle of autonomy doesn't have to go with it.

Then again, considering that the four major labels are at the moment losing their hegemonic power like oil tankers spilling crude into the sea, maybe that's not currently the most compelling battle. If your main paycheck is coming from your songs being sold to commercials and TV shows, but you're on a non-major record label, are you still meaningfully economically independent from large entertainment
conglomerates? And as critical as we want to be of popular-culture economics, the indie/alternative subcultures have had their share of pathologies and snobberies that might warrant as much a "good riddance" as a sentimental tear.

The bigger question is whether the autonomy of the "indie" movement from mass entertainment was in fact as sociopolitically progressive and artistically liberating (not the same thing) as people attached to it believed in the 80s/90s - the populist question. And even if it was, as the major labels flounder to redefine themselves, what does true independence in the age of digital reproduction look like? What might "selling out" be?

Maybe the expiration date of the word "indie" provides a good, temporarily unlabelled moment to look at things anew.

- Carl Wilson, author/critic


Apologies for being obvious, but Indie used to mean 'not on a major label' - and the DIY attitude that that implied - and that was the only time we all knew precisely what it meant. When the major labels sniffed money, and bought the bands, it couldn't mean precisely that anymore - perhaps the word should have been more strictly applied at this time: "you were Indie yesterday, but since you signed that contract, you're now Modern Rock" - so it came to refer to the type of music which embodied that spirit, or was at least influenced by it, whatever the profile of the label.

"...with the current shakiness of the label system, categorizing a band by their label-affiliation is making much less sense than it used to."
Hits the nail on the head, and true for a long time.

And now Indie, or Alternative, is a "branding tool" that annoys. But those who still use the word in conversations (rather than marketing meetings) are generally understood to refer to music made regardless of the mainstream, for the love of doing it, regardless of technical perfection, profit etc.... or any combination of the above. I can't speak for those who use it in marketing meetings, but I assume they refer to that, but also to another meaning, which as with all sales terms is a slippery catch-all concept, comprising everything from "people with goatees and tattoos who are, to our delight, happy to make money" via "The spirit of the Kids and their Nike revolution" and "What's New" to "That music I may or may not like that will make me money".

One is a devil-may-care philosophy, the other its commodification - sorry: I can't think of a less Cultural Studies word right now! (Commoditization may be more up to date in Business School.)

Maybe Alternative Music nowadays is like Alternative Medicine?

- Wesley Stace/John Wesley Harding, author/musician


The first entry cited in the OED comes from a 1928 edition of the NY Times: "Indies, independent producers of pictures." More to the point however is a 1945 Billboard heading: "Indie diskers new collection ache for publishers royalty." What's relevant is the association of the term with vendors rather than with artists themselves. Additionally, there is the English idiomatic use which refers to scruffy but apolitical music as far back as Happy Mondays and Stone Roses. The term is now used internationally in this manner to class music as a broad commercial category. I think the term is helpful in the U.S. for drawing a line between groups who are oppositional (punk, free jazz) and groups who are totally cool with making it (indie). It's worth mentioning, however, that "indie rap" still seems to describe a fairly cohesive venue for intelligent, countercultural music (J Live, The Coup). But I think the elliptical return of the early citations is relevant: film and music, in a standard bid for commercial synergy, converge somewhere around the end credits of most romanticized youth dramas (Garden State's anointment of The Shins being only the most obvious example). As it stands now, indie means operational freedom from social consciousness; it's about as atomized and self-interested as the Victorian Novel. Actually, we can go slightly further by noting the current coincidence between Jane Austen films (affirming the virtues of marriage and estate ownership) and the commercial fiefdom of indie (affirming the virtues of Urban Outfitters and Apple). Both, I think, offer the consumer a provisional show of "hardship" (or authenticity) before moving on to an easy retirement.

-Blake Schwarzenbach, musician/professor


my "alternative" OED, different than the usual overground edition cites "in-die" as opposed to "out-die" ie to die on the inside generally defined as selling fewer records than everyone believes you should have and/or having driven a seemingly popular or commercially viable style or approach into mercantile disrepute versus "out-die" to die on the outside to sell more records than is seemly or good for the state of your carbon footprint and/or soul in the larger sense of such things hence the paradigmatic in-die band would likely be big star -- taking beatle-esque pop hooks, attractive hair, hetero love motifs and settling into underperforming "cult" inner-death (i.e. no one else really cares) status while paradigmatic "out-die" band is certainly the rolling stones -- who dragged oppressively morbid delta blue fetishivism and drug-death-spiral somehow through four decades and counting of overdog arena-selling "outer-death" (i.e. we're all appalled to have to witness their dollar-soaked decrepitude)

a simple measure of the difference is often the function of a cover song -- out-dying cindy lauper propelling in-dying jules shear number onto the charts vs. in-dying galaxie 500 or yo la tengo burying out-dying kinks or george harrison tunes in the "in-die pantheon"

one of the paradoxical cases is the velvet underground, long understood as the "ur-in-die" band but they were actually out-die -- leveraging john cage dissonance, cellos, homosex motifs and bad singing into some shred of popularity and lasting fame -- yet the innumerable bands adopting them as a model have achieved treasured "in-die" status (i.e. gloriously no one cares)

(meltzer would have taken this and run for fifty pages, whereas I have to get to work)

-Jonathan Lethem, novelist

Labels: alex, indie

Labels: indie, power-pop, rock, soul, ted barron

Labels: ben, indie

Video

Labels: indie, James, NZ

?

?

Surprise Us:

& Make Us Love You:

Tell The Truth, But Eschew The Obvious -

& Off Point:

& Omit Those Words That You Find To Be Needless:

Labels: alex, country, gospel music, indie, pop, radio, reggae, soul

Ten tons against me and you've gone
I put your favorite records on
and sit around
it spins around
and you're around again.

Labels: ben, calypso, indie, power-pop, soul

I am! I am Superman!
And I know what's happening!

Labels: alex, curios, indie, rock and roll

Labels: indie, joanna, pop

In the end, I think people end up busting Brian's balls because his writing can be, well, precious. - "Avery"

Labels: brian, indie, swede pop

Labels: indie, joanna, love, oldies, pop

I was embarassed because I'd been caught listening to Billy Joel. This is not something I am prone to do, but we all indulge secret passions sometimes and I am no exception. Even worse was that I'd tried to cover it up.

By the time my relatively new friend Carla and I were buckling our seatbelts after the rock show, I had completely forgotten I'd been listening to Billy Joel's Greatest Hits Vol. 1 on the way to the club. Carla and I were sweaty; our ears were ringing, and we basked in the post-show, pre-bar glow. The dark windshield glimmered furtively in the light rain. Carla was in the passenger seat saying something I couldn't hear through my teal foam earplugs, which I proceeded to plop greasily into an empty coffee cup. I rememeber she wore a navy blue denim jacket with a lot of brightly-colored buttons, a lot of mascara and silver glitter. I turned the key in the ignition and the car woke up sputtering, gouting light everywhere.

I like to relish the moment, right after starting the car, when the CD player resumes its work, especially when I can't immediately place the music. Sometimes I wait for an appropriately anonymous section of whatever I'm listening to before I turn off my car so I might get to experience the mysterious instant of not recognizing the familiar when I return, setting up a little wonder pit-stop for myself in the future. It doesn't always work.

Then I try to prevent myself from identifying the music that's playing, delaying the jolt of recognition for as long as possible by shutting down mental file-searching and concentrating on the sound of the music. It feels great to hear something so good and unencumbered, if only for a moment. But when I started the car on my pseudo-date with Carla, something about the texture of the music, which I couldn't identify at first, bothered me. Something about its jittery piano and deep-throated vocals gave me pause. With dawning horror, I realized - Oh my god it's the freaking Billy Joel CD - and I stabbed the off button. The silence of the ocean floor flooded the car.

Carla and I had known each other for about a month - we met through a series of events that has nothing to do with this story. We definitely had a spark, but we were also co-workers and were involved in vague relationships and would probably wind up being too good of friends for anything to come of it.

My real mistake wasn't listening to Billy Joel; it was trying to hide it. It's one thing to get caught doing something embarrassing, but it's much worse to actually appear embarrassed by it, which implies that you meant it. Had I just smiled rakishly, started belting out the lyrics ironically, or made a wisecrack instead of quickly turning off the CD player as if she wouldn't notice... I can't help but wonder what might be today.

We both stared straight ahead. I affected a studious aspect; her gaze was more searching. The silence was enormous. No cars passed through the gravel lot to make a munching sound. We were almost the last to leave the club, because we always stay until the bands are heading to the afterbars.

"What was that?" Carla asked, not unreasonably or without sympathy. Still, her voice sounded like a parody of casual curiousity. Her reflection looked slightly baffled in the windshield, brushed in broad dim strokes on the dark.

"Huh? Nothing," I said, in way I hoped would register as absently, feigning surprise at her question as if she'd jarred me from a pleasant reverie. I might have even yawned and stetched my arms. I suddenly developed an intense fascination with the web of cracks I had put right above the inspection sticker on my windshield. I'd been moving large furniture. Running my finger along the bright water trapped in the black glass, I furrowed my brow as if to say, These fissures are no longer acceptable; how might I bring my ingenuity to bear on a solution?

"That was Billy Joel," Carla said defiantly.

"No, it wasn't." My god, what did I mean?

"Yes it was!" Carla said in a scandalized tone. "That was 'Only the Good Die Young.'" She was smiling, but in an astonished, kind of affonted way.

Fucking "Only the Good Die Young." It was. It really was. It wasn't exactly "We Didn't Start the Fire" bad, but still, it was bad. My jaw lolled like something with a busted hinge. I felt like maybe my eyes did something that might be construed as goggling.

She said my name plaintively, taken aback by the sudden disappearance of my usual bravado. I had to think in terms of damage control. I needed a ripping bon mot, something witty and cutting and dismissive.

"No it wasn't."

Oh dear. Like Peter in the Garden, I had opted for a third denial. I could see where it was heading. Like Peter, I was going to get called out.

Carla must have enjoyed the pliant, come-hither resistance of the stereo's knob as she purposefully depressed it with a stiffened finger. The song began right at the titular chorus. "Only the good die young," Joel proclaimed, with what seemed to me a smug satisfaction. He would not be denied. I peered intently through the windshield as if trying to discern portents in the confusion of orange street lights refracting through the irregular rain. The part of the song right after the chorus that sounds like a used car commercial accused me from the air. Carla's gaze burned into the side of my head like a brand. Defeated, I turned down the volume a little, but let the song continue to play. Carla smirked at the floorboard as we drove off into the weeping night. At last call, she left the bar with some guy wearing earlobe expanders and a neckerchief. I went home alone. Although we remained friends, the tenor of our relationship was markedly different from then on, we never spoke of that night again.

[A friend of mine told me recently that she sometimes just had to listen to the Arcade Fire even though she "felt guilty about it," and it reminded me of Joanna's recent Shins-anxiety post. Around the same time I discovered a cache of old writing, stuff from my late teens to early twenties, that I'd thought long destroyed. This little Billy Joel thing was among that writing, and it seemed of a piece with this concept of taste-based guilt that keeps popping up for me recently. I barely recall writing this and certainly don't remember living it (my late teens and early twenties being a particularly blurry period in my life), so I'm not sure how much of it is autobiographical and how much is character sketch. I still don't wear earplugs, for instance, and I never knew anyone named Carla. But I did find a burned copy of Billy Joel's Greatest Hits in an old Case Logic CD binder, and I was terribly indie at that time in my life, so...who knows? It was probably a spot of both.]

Labels: brian, indie, rock