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What is Indie?

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jimbunny:
Wow. I think we've just seen a discussion become a metaphor for itself.

No, wait...maybe I'm overthinking this.

But...could it be?

muteKi:

--- Quote from: a pack of wolves on 06 Dec 2007, 01:20 ---I agree with Ballard, Google or lurking are not going to get you a good answer because there isn't one (not a fact that would be apparent from a search either). Basically, indie means independent, in other words not produced by a major corporation. Beyond that you will never get a good description. If it's basically rock music and isn't metal or punk and isn't very deliberately aimed at the top of the charts (even if it gets there) then people will call it indie. I wouldn't worry about it if I were you, just listen to Husker Du and have a nice cup of tea instead.

--- End quote ---

Indie and Alternative and such are horrible ways to define music in terms of a specific sound. An indie band probably is so because they don't want to sound like the pop music that is heavily controlled by record labels. Since these labels have become more and more interested in turning obscenely high profits, they generally try to sign and market bands that will do well, and thus market the rather bland pop music that a lot of people that come places like here tend to dislike. Now, back in, say, the 70s, the average label would be more willing to sign bands that were "weird"; one of my favorite alt/prog style bands had WB publishing a lot of its music at least on this side of the coast. Hence it's a term that's not been in use for very long, sort of like "underground" and such, which mean similar things, though underground was to my knowledge used most with punk musics.
Since indie thus involves a contrast against the less-experimental mainstream record labels, it's hard to really create as unified a definition of the sound as a more popular genre since there is a significant element of experimentation and innovation in sound, as compared to the less imaginative efforts that might come from more mainstream music. Hence indie involves rock instrumentations and even sometimes pop-based chords, melodies, and lyrics, but with a change in the role a specific instrument might play.

For example, Mellowdrone is considered indie through Wikipedia. One of their songs I am familiar with is Oh My. This song is not far off from a pop song in vese-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus, etc. construction, but a lot of the forefront instrumentation on that is more electronic rather than purely guitar-based, and the lyrics seem nonsensical compared to your average "I love you and I'm saying that I love you pretty explicitly, and rather than talk about how I wish I could fly over there like a shooting star or something, I'm going to be mainly concrete in how I explain my love to you and everyone else who is listening" song.

Alternately, a band like Future of the Left is probably more unusual and less palatable to listeners of pop music, since a lot of their music feels like strangely-mixed metal, with near-primal raging about pointing and summer activities and thumbs and pickled onions and Mark Foley, over a heavily distorted and mixed guitar that doesn't use the typical pan-to-center technique of most pop songs that doesn't always come into play -- some songs are near totally driven by a combination of drums and bass, also try Death from Above 1979's Pull Out as a similar style to this.

Yet one would consider both bands to be indie. As such it is that so nebulous a definition for indie exists, but one might think that involves either some sort of rebellious or mature sound as compared to the typical teenybopper pop that plays on top radio.

Jackie Blue:
Sonic Youth have been on a major label for 17 years.

The defense rests, your honor.

Johnny C:

--- Quote from: zerodrone on 06 Dec 2007, 01:11 ---the thought that this board is populated by extremely knowledgable and reasonable people (aside from a very select few) is frankly laughable.

--- End quote ---

I knew MWhaling and you, sir, are no MWhaling.

amok:
Indie is the noise a tree makes when it falls down in the forest with no one around to hear it.

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