When I was in high school--in Death Cab for Cutie terms, this was around the release of We Have the Facts and We’re Voting Yes--I would debate how, exactly, to explain my musical tastes to an outsider. “Punk” would be taken as “mallpunk,” so that was out of the question, and “indie” specifically connoted the bland, simpering stuff they played on the university radio station, bypassing the cathartic, intense music I loved. I settled on “independent music,” which was vague enough to need clarification, which I was only too happy to give.
But then there was indie rock’s gradual creep-up on the mainstream, culminating with Garden State and The OC and Arcade Fire topping the Billboard chart last year. And along with it, innumerable debates about whether the term has any descriptive power--what’s the point of calling a band indie if they’re on Atlantic (or an Atlantic subsidiary, like Vice)?
Although it’s not as savage as the Jonathan Swift essay it shares its title with, Michelangelo Matos’ recent Idolator piece implores readers to reclaim “alternative” as an, uh, alternative to “indie.” And, hey, he knows it’s asking a lot for us to use the term when alternative rock and post-grunge dominates the modern rock radio format, but then again:
The thing is, "indie" isn't working anymore. If anything, it has more specific and limiting baggage than "alternative." Sure, you can ask how music that's supposed to be an alternative to the mainstream keeps that status once it goes mainstream, but calling something on a major label "indie" is some fourth-level-of-hell stage of kidding yourself, in a far more concrete way.
So, how about it? Can we do a test run here on Prefix? Or does the thought of lumping your new fave blog buzz band in with, like, Buffalo Tom really raise your hackles? [Idolator]
good article.
i absolutely agree. indie now days is an absolute fallacy.