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Thanks for mentioning the New Zealand indie scene in the 80's. As a tiny country if you wanted to do anything different you had to do it independently. Flying Nun records really were amazing for what they did for New Zealand music.
You aren’t old enough to make a good video about this. Alt Rock or whateveryou want to call underground music begn dying when Nirvana hit big and it was dead by 1996. Sure there were a few bands here and there that had some punk rock soul in them, but there was no more scene. Let it alone
It seems certain that as long as the system called capitalism continues, this phenomenon will continue to cycle like a treadmill. However, my personal complaint (in terms of music) is that even this ‘treadmill’ seems to have stopped now.
I'm a professional graphic designer with close to 30 years of experience so I know these people and I can tell you exactly what happens. See people that work in advertising and marketing (especially the "creatives") are every bit as materialistic and yuppie as the stereotypical stock brokers, lawyers and other "white collar professionals" but they think of themselves as "Indie", "alternative", "counter-culture", "artsy" etc and as such they listen to the music of those sub-cultures and insist on dragging it all into their work. And their work is to make advertising that will get mainstream normies to part with a buck or two for their clients. So they end up "mainstreaming" non-mainstream art (whether it likes it or not).
@@ThePunkRockMBABut bringing the "edgy" music in will appeal to teens who need to feel and believe it all matters. The edgy/unknown aesthetic will also be cheaper to license and make your product seem hipper. Also, parents grew up with punk and metal, so the kids got into rap and hip hop as a way to "you just wouldn't understand, maaan" it all. Now parents growing up with rap are dealing with kids into TikTok...and those who catch their attention and control the tastes sell the products.
'creatives' in advertising agencies are some of the least creative people around. they're job is mostly looking through fringe arts / films stuff and if anything is getting any buzz or going viral, then they rip it off and stick a brand name on it.
@@bluedeskfan2754 What's worse is a large percentage see themselves as "struggling artists" that are forced to "wh*re themselves as designers (because capitalism is ick)". So they're desperate to be "real" artists which is why they try to shove all their hipster music into their work.
I found indie to occupy the 80s and early 90s. It was called “college radio” then. It meant DIY, Organic “rock” music. It wasn’t punk or grunge. Just varied, underground and it was special then.
In the UK it was called indie, or indiepop, and the fans were called indie kids. Bands like The Smiths, Housemartins, Wedding Present, Pastels. Indie as a term seems to have entered the US lexicon sometime later.
@@henrywallace7996Exactly. That's my personal definition of Indie music - all the British bands from the 80ies you mentioned (and a lot more). It was the perfect time for me being a teen back then. It was awesome regarding music, attending gigs in small venues, lifestyle in general. It made us as people independent to some extend as well. I loved it (still do) and I have nothing but fond memories of that time.
When I think about that time in the US for me key college radio bands: REM, Pixies, Husker DU, Replacements, Depeche Mode, Sonic Youth. There were so many though.
I remember being told the line 'Everything avant-garde must inevitably become kitsch'. Exactly what you said, just put it in your pocket if you want to be pointedly pretentious about it 😂
🇨🇦You gotta blame us Canada too for indie escaping into the mainstream: from Arcade Fire in Montréal to Broken Social Scene in Toronto and Leslie Feist selling iPods, we’re guilty as charged. Oh, and sorry too for American Apparel and Vice.
my wish is that people wouldn't let the drudgery of our economic systems affect the culture of punk/diy/ indie. it's understandable on a personal level that people have to put food on the table, but im not yet convinced that outweighs the macro erosion of the culture. im about 60/40 on the side of keeping everything indie pure with a significant level of sympathy for artists trying to make it. also artists that dont sell out deserve god tier respect for doing the work and figuring out how to not let their personal needs outweigh what's bigger than them.
I'm definitely on this camp. My thoughts at the end of watching this video was, things getting more popular isn't as harmless to me as a lot of people make it sound, because when that happens, the culture surrounding the thing typically changes pretty drastically as well. And to me, that's important to note, even if it does become inevitable at some point.
There is no agreed definition of "pure" nor any strong logical coherence behind it. For example the commercials thing... why is getting paid and exposed by being played in a commercial inherently bad?
@@lightfeather9953it comes down to the contrast between art and commodities, which as you’ve pointed out is innately a tight rope to walk. Adverts are like, the most naked form of commodifying something. You’re providing a background for an institution to sell a product that often has nothing to do with the art itself. The entire premise of the medium is to simply make money. Obviously when you sell music, concerts, merchandise, etc. - you’re commodifying your art, but I think people accept that because it is related to the art itself, and is a direct expression of that art. A commercial is simply a transaction and nothing more. I’m not vociferously arguing this point, I don’t care that much, just trying to provide a perspective.
IMO, the Indie scene hit it big with Napoleon Dynamite and Rushmore, thus ushering in the "block letters scribbled on a binder" aesthetic for all those movies and albums that followed.
There was a big shift in the early 2000s when more established main stream artist started allowing their new songs to be used in commercials which helped remove the stigma that this had previously. One example that I remember was Sting's Desert Rose being featured in a Jaguar commercial in 2000. This helped increase the reach of a song that begins in Arabic and doesn't feature Sting's voice until almost a minute in. Today, it is still in his top 5 songs on Spotify with over 100 million plays. If Sting can use the help and exposure that a commercial provides, I can't blame an indie band for doing the same thing to increase the reach of their music.
In the early 80s, punk for us was a way of life. DIY and individual expression were essential. The indie/punk ethos is what set it apart. It wasn’t a style, but a set of values, moral and cultural, that could only be achieved through independent ownership of the entire scene - music, venues, clothing, etc, etc. I was in the indie music industry at the time Nirvana broke and I agree that Nirvana had a gigantic impact so far as enlarging the alternative audience, but Nirvana didn’t stray too far from their indie roots and Kurt was conflicted about selling out. But what came after them was totally different. Green Day and bands that followed had no misgivings at all about making a lot of money and becoming rock stars, which punks would’ve rejected outright. Selling out was acceptable for a lot of bands now and if you hear them tell it, they never were really punks in the first place or at least didn’t share the same values and beliefs. The sell outs isn’t what killed it though. There were bands that sold out in the late 70s and 80s too, but there had always been a new crop. At the same time alternative moved into the mainstream, i saw a huge loss of individual expression and a homogeny setting in to the mid 90s alternative scene, becoming a bore. Younger kids didn’t appreciate some of the noisier, edgier sounds of the past, didn’t appreciate live music as much and venues closed. Add the internet, social media and a couple generations who value group cohesiveness over individual expression and we’ve got a totally watered down ‘indie’ that can be sold with fast food.
I got frustrated when 'indie' began to be perceived as a 'genre'. I remember bands like The Minutemen, Husker Du, The Cure, The Clash , The Smiths and Joy Division being really difficult to put into neat musical boxes. Many bands were 'independent' in that they functioned outside of the big disgusting gut of the music industry - outside of the relentless machine. However you feel about him, Frank Zappa might be the ultimate 'indie' artist in that sense. Maybe I was wrong, but I had felt at the time that built into that was musical freedom - you went where you wanted, not where an A&R man and a producer taking points while sitting on a throne of compressors wanted you to go. In the early nineties 'indie' became associated with a certain way of dressing, certain hairstyles, certain chord changes, certain subject matter, the anointed approval of a certain circle of influential critics. It began to get policed: I woke up one morning to find out Ozric Tentacles (releasing their own DIY cassettes at festivals and then forming their own record label) and Fish were not indie but suspiciously elitist prog-rockers (hey, that is NOT what indie sounds like, man) while the children of millionaires get zipped straight from an expensive rock school onto a big label with a crew of stylists bigger than their sound crew, Zane Lowe fawns over them and someone plays it for me waiting to se me get blown away by the sheer honesty of it all . . . .
As someone in the younger generations I love the noisy, uncategorizable, harsher side indie like big black or the jesus lizard, much prefer it to the soft acoustic folky stuff
From a financial perspective, when everyone else leaves you, even your fans every band is indie. The music industry changed a lot post 2000. These bands either sell songs to car commercials or they play at local gigs for a couple years for their friends before they break up.
The fact I love watching your videos on genres or scenes I don't care about... feel like that says a lot about your research, perspective and delivery. Great stuff!
As far I know, Indie music in general began to rise in the early 2000’s when the White Stripes revived garage rock along with the Strokes and Pre-Brothers Black Keys. Almost a decade later, not only it made officially to the mainstream, it reached its peak in popularity mainly because it wasn’t abrasive as its predecessors in rock and alternative music commercially (Nu-Metal, Post-Grunge/Active Rock, Emo/Scene Kid Rock, and Metalcore), which perceived major labels that it’d would make a lot of money for a long term but it kinda went short.
Indie did NOT begin in the 2000's. Indie goes back to the late 70's, and reached its peak in the 80's and 90's with bands like Fugazi, Husker Du, R.E.M., Camper Van Beethoven, Bikini Kill, Joy Division, Flat Duo Jets, Red Red Meat, The Dead Milkmen, Bad Religion, etc. Indie is so much more than just not being on a major label. Its includes the whole DIY ethos of promoting and booking your own shows, self financing your own tours in a shitty van, and sleeping on people;s floors instead of the local Hyatt.
Not if it is the aesthetic that it has become. I believe the difference between the two uses for the term indie was already well explained in the video. The definition you are describing was not the one they were referring to.@@dathorndike4908
@@dathorndike4908 I’m NOT saying how it started, I’m actually saying how it began to rise in the mainstream popularity that changed the definition of the term.
@@228-n6f Also Indie was the last genre for rock music before it basically died commercially after 2010. Seeing Arcade Fire on stage in Feb 2011 for The Suburbs was that last moment and things downtrend from there massively. It was crazy to see Coachella go from having Vampire Weekend to The Weeknd in a short time. Pretty much as Gen Z got into high school to college the entire scene was shifting hard. I lived by a university in late 2010s and I use to play a game when I was walking around trying to count how many times I hard any music being play that was rock and I could go an entire week without hearing it. With that said it seems TikTok is bringing more variety back interesting enough
True. The Garage Rock Revival only lasted a few years (2002-2005 before the Emo influenced Pop Punk and heavier Post Grunge ended its run in the mainstream although along with it evolving into Landfill Indie) and a majority of that stuff was niche compared to Nu Metal, Pop Punk & Post Grunge (It was popular in the UK though)
Never thought I'd ever see The Chills and The Verlaines on a Punk Rock MBA video!!! The Dunedin scene in New Zealand in the 80s and early 90s was amazing, mostly revolving around one Indie label, Flying Nun. Really diverse bands, the only thing uniting them is their non commercial sound. From sweet jangly pop (Chills, Verlaines, The Bats) to raucous noise (Gordons, Skeptics, HDU) to wiry Indie Rock (The Clean, Straitjacket Fits)to twisted dark Industrial dance pop (Headless Chickens), a truly legendary Indie label.
Pop punk/emo kids of the late 90s/early 00s came to a crossroads in the mid-00s. Either go the "heavier" emo route that was usually more adjacent to aggressive pop punk, or go the "indie" route that was more melodic, mellow, and often used acoustic instruments like Death Cab. I went the indie route at the time.
The OC really impacted pop culture of the early 2000's. MTV had its version of it, called "Laguna Beach: The Real OC". Nickelodeon had "Zoey 101". Music videos, such as John Mayer's "Clarity" leaned into that indie/southern california aesthetic.
Back in the nineties as a young twenty-something I truly embraced the cynical and jaded Gen X slacker culture. I dug the DIY lo-fi aesthetic of Pavement and Guided By Voices and the very loud dense swirling and disorienting beauty of shoegaze pioneers Ride, Slowdive and My Bloody Valentine. The ‘zines were great, too like The Wire, Raygun and even Spin. Thanks for the memories and as indie rock’s elder statesman Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne said, “The sound is so cute when you’re twenty-two.”
The fact that indie music fits so well with commercials is its most damning characteristic. It really is as soulless as elevator music. A genre so worried with looking and sounding cool and aloof that it ends up being completely bland.
I don’t think that’s necessarily an indictment of indie music. I like indie music and therefore I will probably like how it sounds in commercials, why is that bad?
@MrKowalskyfication Because of the nature of commercials. They are, by definition, not a creative work with an artistic purpose. They are a marketing tactic that's used to sell things. So, every element in them has to be bland and not threatening in order to avoid offending potential customers. That's what indie is like, music that anyone can find pleasant (I do), but that doesn't really contain anything of substance. The music is not complex, imaginative, or with any identifiable trait other than 'rock but not too edgy or aggressive', and the lyrics are emotionally detached. It's hipster music.
@@javierpulidofrausto9496 I disagree, I think tons of great songs have been used in commercials, that doesn't necessarily make the songs bland. For example Morricone's Ecstasy of Gold has been used in Modelo commercials, does that mean that every element in that song is bland? Absolutely not. (Other examples include David Bowie's Heroes, Daft Punk's Technologic) I disagree that popular / widely appealing things must be bland or lack substance. I think art can be both popular and have a wide appeal, while still being interesting.
@MrKowalskyfication That is a very valid point. My diatribe is not really against any other genre of music apart from indie. It's just that since I was a teenager, I've defended pop-punk, emo, and other types of Warped Tour music from hipsters who consider indie a superior genre, and deride what I like. So I am quite biased.
@@javierpulidofrausto9496 also worth noting that the guy that runs this channel has a clear distain for "indie" music, he fails I think to realize the varied scope of bands that fall under this supposed banner. He constantly lists the Lumineers as the pinnacle of indie music. The Lumineers, Bloc Party, Interpol, The Strokes, Arctic Monkeys, Gorrilaz, The Killers, MGMT all fall under the the supposed "Indie" umbrella yet their sound and style couldn't be any more different. I'd almost argue that Pop Punk as a genre is one of the most anodyne and pastiche genres going around.; its the same powerchords being churned out band after band over the last 30 years.
Arctic Monkey is on Domino which they claim to be an independent record label but they got extremely commercialized during their fifth album, AM (that album was HUGE world wide in 2013) so I'm not really sure if it's "indie" record label anymore lol
The indie aesthetic hits a little differently this side of the pond, when I think of British bands like embrace, snow patrol and early Coldplay, though it’s probably more accurate to call that post Brit pop if anything
Really enjoyed this look at the indie music history....was in hugh school/college when indie blew up in early 2000s & had a huge crush on Seth Cohen. Only reason I haven't gotten into much newer music is honestly just doing more 'adulting' & not being as active in going to shows, except tried & true emo bands touring now, like the Get Up Kids. Would love a video on how music you discover in hs/college stick so much, too.
My wife and I refer to the music used in the OC and Chuck and Gossip Girl as Schwartzcore. Since Josh Schwartz took such a huge part in choosing the music that would be for his shows and honestly (barring Gossip Girl) the songs are freaking great and really add to those episodes.
At 10:01, there's absolutely no need to show a death scene photo for something that we could learn about. We all know about Kurt's demise. He had other photos of his K Shield out there.
@@brainst3w Ohh I have a total heart on for that man. Honestly, if I had to pick only one artist's discography to listen to for the rest of my life, I think it'd have to be his. And yet I feel like most people don't even know who he is. What's wrong with the world! 😭
i think you’re right about how indie has become more of an aesthetic rather than best kept secret from the mainstream, but in my opinion if they’re signed to a label or not there’s still a lot of indie living. even though the idea of indie has now shadowed most of its roots, indie music for the past couple of years have usually been just random people online trying to make music and putting it out on bandcamp and soundcloud. if you like it, you give them a follow. usually some people in that group end up making it in the mainstream indie scene (what we see first when we think if indie). underground indie is still out there, just in a more digital way.
bands and artists like alex g, frankie cosmos, clairo, and snail mail are indie artists that even though are signed and have a bigger audience, they started from the bottom in the indie scene playing small show and posting their music.
The internet killed indie. First of all it completely destroyed the whole idea of an underground. The whole point of the underground was it was almost a secret society. Once it was exposed to everyone at the click of a mouse it lost it's cool and alternative credentials. Secondly, the promotion and distribution model of indie music was very traditional. Record shops, alternative radio, music press, small venues. The internet destroyed many of these and greatly reduced others leaving a greatly disturbed network. Thirdly the quality of guitar bands dropped off sharply around 2010. Most of the 'Pitchfork' bands were boring (The National) or unlistenable (Animal Collective). The record buying audience mostly saw through the garbage they were being slung. The 'new' thing lost it's appeal and serious music fans went off to investigate back catalogues of obscure groups from previous decades as they were much better than the new offerings. The indie genre became stale and backwards looking. Bands had been ripping off bands like The Velvet Underground since the very beginning of Indie but they usually added their own touches. By 2010 most guitar bands just sounded like poor quality tribute acts. The nadir was around 2015. Since then I think things have been making a slow come back. It's nowhere near what it was but you can at least make a list of decent quality 'indie' bands again - Idles, Squid, Tropical Fuck Storm, King Krule, Fontaines D.C., King Lizard etc.
reminds being 5 or 6 and being with my parents shopping at the mall in the 2000s and hearing the echo's of Modest mouse playing on their PA systems with the smell of Auntie Ann's and Great American Cookies mixed with the smell of chlorine from the mall fountains. And then stopping at EB games to get a Gamecube or a PS2 game. Good times......
I was a teen in the 80's and into Indie type music. I was basically into goth music before it was called 'goth' in my part of the SF East Bay. I saw The Cure in an arena in 87 and it was the worst show I have still ever been to. I have never been into grunge music. I went as a favor to a friend to a Pearl Jam, Nirvana RHCP show on Dec. 31 in San Francisco and my friend and I looked very punk/goth and other people there gave us shit the entire night. I equated grunge fans with scene jumpers because it was soooooo trendy to call oneself 'alternative' during that time. I still listen to punk and goth music to this day because the music genuinely means a lot to me.
I love The Cure live, that said, '87 may have been the end of the bands heavy drug use. Was Simon back by then? He left the band after he and Robert got into a fight involving a glass of beer. I forgot who hit who.
@@Podus81 Yeah, they broke up a few times in the late 80's. I honestly can't remember. I was hugely into U2 during that time and I made a DIY U2 back patch for a denim jacket I used to wear constantly. I wore it to that Cure show and not a single person gave me crap.
Indie scene in UK and Scotland is still huuuge. I would guess it's one of the most popular genre over there. When I lived there and you wanted to start a band you would play indie - it's like a base for making music. There was also MTV2 (now MTV Rocks I think) that played mostly indie music, and sometimes even less known bands.
Indie music has definitely turned into a stylized gimmick of itself, but no more than any other genre or subgenre of music. When i was younger, (15-30) I tended to like what i liked, whether or not it was cool or suddenly became uncool, though my taste lived in Top 40 radio and whatever music i could purchase in the next town over (my town was pop. 5000, the nearby one, pop. 15,000). I still really like Right Said Fred's Up album (that's where the infamous "I'm too sexy" is from). Now that I'm in my mid 40's, i just listen to whatever i find interesting and assume it's uncool or cringe. I am surprised when I like or buy something that is actually trendy or "fire". In the process, my music and shows I've gone to has expanded all over with some of my last few shows being Arctic Monkeys (w/ Fontaines DC), NF, Joe McIntyre (from New Kids on the Block), Fozzy (w/ Ugly Kid Joe), and Wax Tailor. I have tickets to see Playboi Cardi (my nephew's favorite and 2nd time) and Rayland Baxter. Labels are helpful. They give you an idea of what kind of musical experience to expect. I'm glad these artists were able to connect with larger entities so they can reach more people and (hopefully) get better compensated for their time, talent and effort.
Modern Rock encompasses all this music. Punk started it all. Then New Wave. Modern Rock was coined to include both. REM changed things, they were called Indie because they were originally on indie, IRS. They were also called College Radio. As we headed to the end of the 80', Alternative start being used. From then on, Altrrnative included Grunge. It all started from Punk and Modern Rock is a good overall name.
While signed to a major label, the Beatles run their show from day one. Like deciding against the producer advice that their first single would be one of their songs, what type of portrait would be on their second album, how loud bass and drums would be in the mix, selecting who would write and direct their movies, stating in gigs contracts that audiences should not be segregated while all the time creating the highest art ever made
My cousin was on a battle of the bands and won and was touring on the vans warp tour at age 17 thru 18. They gained a lot of traction in their band that they had a couple record deals going their way. They were a punk rock band and they were so punk rock they ultimately turned the deals down and remained unassigned until they eventually broke up a year or two later lol I find that story hilarious because they got in the way of their own success because the idea of being punk and anti establishment got in the way of their own successes and money potential.
On the OC Seth had a Falling Sickness poster on his wall. I played a show with those guys and they stayed at my house on that tour. They are a very obscure punk band on Hopeless Records and it was always funny to me that they ended up on his wall in that show. Someone that worked on that show had to know those guys.
Shoutout to the Taco Bell marketing team for making commercials with songs ranging from Doja Cat's to Turnstile's and Scowl's...there are millions of kids out there who have been introduced to hardcore now, thanks to Taco Bell. In the words of Doja Cat...get into it (yuh)
I don’t care if indie music isn’t really indie or is commercial-core or whatever nowadays, there’s so much good shit in that genre/aesthetic/community and it’s the music itself that actually counts
What I think is interesting is that so many of these ‘Indie’ bands can’t even be found ok mainstream radio anymore. My go to station is one run by Colorado Public Radio and they play everything under the sun, and a fair amount of what could be called ‘Indie’. The station has a big following of people of all age, but it definitely plays stuff you just simply don’t hear anymore. In many ways Indie has gone back, maybe not underground, but definitely down the dark ally off Main Street.
I was an indie kid in the 80s. The popularity of the Seattle sound in the 90s kind of put us older Gen Xer's who had Cure posters on our walls on our own island. I was at Lollapalooza 1995 (Tinley Park). The one that Sonic Youth headlined. Very few of the concert goers even knew who SY were! Or Beck, for that matter. But they sure knew who Courtney Love was! The scene needed to go back to the underground. By the way, Iowa Public Radio 90.9 KUNI is my go-to. Has been since 1985. From Bowie to Tame Impala.
This was an interesting video. I always thought the term "Indi" was a genre or music related to post punk or alternative rock. Did Alternative have a similar history? Going from music heard on collage radio or outside of the mainstream and eventually moving into the mainstream.
Such a good video. I feel a succinct way of addressing the notion of selling out would be to say that even the early Indie bands didn’t shun the mainstream or the big labels, more that the mainstream and big labels shunned them. It wasn’t necessarily a stand against something that they betrayed by letting their music be used in commercials. Once the mainstream wanted them, they were happy enough with that. Plus, by the time of commercial saturation point of Indie music, none of those bands were independent in any real sense anyway (which I know you did point out).
I think the artist, Ren Gill, would blow your mind. He is completely self-financed, and with the help of the most solid fan base ever, for any unsigned artist that I’ve ever seen, he is about to make music history! Ren is on the verge of taking the number one spot on Amazon UK pre-order sales away from the freaking Rolling Stones, 60+ year veterans of the music business and one of the biggest bands in the world! The incredible part is that he accomplished this with no management other than himself, no record label, no recent touring (it’s been a year, from what I’ve seen), and no radio airplay! Absolutely incredible, through and through! It’s a new paradigm in the music biz to do it the way that Ren has done it! I don’t think it’s ever been done this way before, ever in the history of recorded music! I wouldn’t believe it myself, except that I’ve been watching it unfold since the start of the year!
Don’t forget Scrubs was another beloved 2000s show that highlighted indie songs. I have to wonder as your video ended in the 2010s: was indie, along with rock, killed off as a major cultural force by the rise of electronic music? EDM especially dubstep became huge, its festivals sweeping across the world. Even hip-hop, which had previously displaced rock, also got disrupted and birthed trap music. Then the EDM bubble sort of just popped. (Also unrelated to EDM but it feels like by the 2010s indie had become represented by synth-heavy sounds even with acts like Grizzly Bear or Beach House. Is Tame Impala the last big indie band with guitars?) Just some thoughts!
If you go to London right now, you'll see what I think is becoming a re-invention of indie rock. Bands like Black Midi, Black Country New Road, Squid, Shame, Goat Girl and others are super hot right now with 19-20-year-olds and are real indie bands, and most of them seem like they strongly reject the commercialization of indie rock, choosing deliberately to avoid any resemblance to pop songwriting with very long song lengths and weird time signatures, at least in the case of BM and BCNR (I honest don't see how Black Midi are still being labelled indie in terms of musical style when they are basically a prog rock band now, and IMO the best prog band currently working). This has all been called the "Windmill scene". You also have other more commercial indie bands that are sort of Windmill-adjacent like Wet Leg and The Last Dinner Party (with the latter band being much better and more legit than the former IMO) that while writing much more conventional songs, still pull from a lot of interesting influences in terms of soundscape that haven't been seen as much in indie before, like Sparks and Abba. Olivia Rodrigo's latest single is pretty much a blatant rip of Wet Leg's style.
Indie has come to mean “35+ somethings sitting with a coffee discussing progressive politics to sound interesting while not actually understanding it, not wanting to realize they’re music and culture is now the equivalent of Lawrence Welk and Cosby sweaters and that they’re old and not cutting edge anymore so they get to pretend while listening to corporate folk rock just like their mamas did with John Denver.”
When I was growing up (late 70's+), indie meant bands that sent tracks to radio stations to get played. Where I'm from it was mostly university students forming bands while studying. If they got a break of some sort before finishing Uni they would have a band. If not, they had a career. It's changed a lot since then.
Good catch with C86, honestly. I remember reading the veteran English music journalist Simon Reynolds' post-punk retrospective Rip It Up and Start Again when I was about thirteen or fourteen, so 2005 or '06, and in the epilogue to that book he talks about the importance of C86 as a kind of endpoint marker for the post-punk era and half-laments the semantic shift from "independent" to "indie" even back then, which he saw as something of a movement away from the more immediately subversive and musically innovative aspects of post-punk even as subtler stuff like the more radical gender politics became almost par for the course through the K Records bands. And in retrospect that's pretty funny, because in my early teens I was a pretty big fan of a lot of the independent acts which were seeing a real spike in mainstream interest and upward trajectory in commercial success-Animal Collective, The Shins, The Decemberists, Arcade Fire, Interpol-and so I was kind of watching in real time as these bands went from being the talk of the town in middle-class hipster circles to much more ubiquitous musical phenomena, which in some cases was kind of jarring. Like, I was also getting into a lot of more experimental stuff, dipping my toes into industrial and noise, and I was first made aware of Animal Collective through their pre-Sung Tongs work where they were collaborating with people like Black Dice, and that shit is *weird,* so while there were several excellent transitional records in between (Feels and Strawberry Jam have a special place in my heart), the gangbuster success of Merriweather Post Pavilion kind of tilted me out as a sixteen-year-old. And like, I didn't resent these bands for their success, but it did often feel like they started watering down what made them interesting or going in directions which didn't entirely pan out when they hit the majors or started really doing numbers; what's more, a lot of the stuff like The Lumineers which started heavily appropriating those sounds in a very formulaic, frankly somewhat mercenary way just made my skin crawl on a sonic level, so leaning into the more esoteric side of my interests-I was forever torn between being a baby hipster in denial and a baby goth/rivethead in denial; now I'm a thirtysomething queer noise fan, which is truly the worst of both worlds-probably saved me some real grief. But then, so did my discomfort with attaching myself to aesthetics as identity, I think, just in general. I was always just kind of… me. Still am.
Good discussion! I was lucky to be able to work in college radio in the '80s. It seemed like new music was coming out every week, and it wasn't available anywhere else but in college radio, at least until MTV started playing some of the bands on 120 Minutes. In the early '80s, it was called progressive (not to be confused with progressive rock). Then somehow the name changed to alternative. Then it became modern rock. I thought it was odd suddenly hearing bands that only received college radio airplay on mainstream radio. Around 1992 or so, people started referring to some bands, like Dead Hot Workshop or Beat Happening as indie because their sound was not so polished or radio-friendly. Grunge became a cliche when someone, DigiTech I think, marketed a Grunge guitar pedal. "You can sound like Kurt!" Also, as you stated, the clothing fads didn't help. It's ok for independent bands to accept sponsorships, label deals, etc. Why shouldn't they be allowed to make a living doing something they love? Unfortunately, the music business is just that, a business. In the end, if your band can't make the label tons of money, they'll drop you just like that and move on to the next one. Sometimes it's better just to stay independent and maintain a DIY attitude. It's a lot of work, but in the end, you won't have signed away everything in the hopes of "making it." You should check out what Steve Albini has to say: thebaffler.com/salvos/the-problem-with-music
The sound was so toothless and up its own ass that it turned me off. Plus the endless bloggers reviewing them as the next big thing to copy and past a sound that is 30 years older was so pretentious. We can thank sites like pitchfork for the rise of that shut
I remember watching TRL on Vh1 on Saturday mornings and the re runs throughout the week during summer break along with MTV late night music video blocks. Old school Coldplay, The All American Rejects, Thriving Ivory, Death Cab For a Cutie, The Fray after their first album, Linkin Park post/pre Transformers 2007. Along with many bands who got lost with the times.
I think as soon as people started to say "I hate indie music" that's when it just became a style. Around 2002/2003 was the earliest I can remeber that happening
I think what killed indie music was not the commercialism... it was how it slowly turned into soft rock and folk music. There, I said it. They wussified themselves.
As an old metal guy watching from the sidelines (I suspect Finn attended High School around the same time that I did), I was initially confused by the "Indie Rock" label during the 2000s, as so many of those bands were so mainstream. That's not to say they weren't great, for times when I ventured out of metal-ville, but when I thought of "indie," I thought if those bands like Cracker or Butthole Surfers from the 80s and 90s, or in my wheelhouse, metal, with bands putting out demo after demo and maybe getting signed to some small European label and then being only available through American distros like Wild Rags, Leviathan, or Necropolis. But no, Indie Rock was a sound, aesthetic, and sensibility, which I still see in my co-workers who are 10-15 years younger than I am.
Yep, indie is an aesthetic now and had been for some time. For a while it seemed synonymous with ‘hipster.’ As such, to me it represents cutesy, quirky, limp-wristed music without any real edge or teeth to it.
its not "now" that we have indie bands on major labels. some of the most revered indie bands ever were on majors. built to spill, flaming lips (both on warner bros), and modest mouse (dreamworks, which only if you stretch your imagination are indie) immediately come to mind. countless bands from the 80s and 90s put stuff out on majors. "indie" has been a genre term for decades by this point.
One of my friends was in the first indie band, The Count Bishops, back in the seventies. They were signed to Stiff Records, who could be called the first Indie label. What you’re talking about is the co-opting of alternative culture as a whole, I’d call that stuff like Lumineers and Mumford And Sons “Post Indie”. It started as independent, but now they’re just mainstream. That said, I know people who ran independent record labels (Angular Recording Corporation). They weren’t the people who would put their stuff in an advert, they were too experimental and very much in the tradition of punk. Very DIY and very angular, as much indebted to krautrock as it was punk. The band who owned it played gigs in squats. Hatcham Social said that the post punk revival was punk ideas come to fruition, who were in the same scene as The Violets too. I used to love Alternative Nation, it introduced me to stuff like Gallon Drunk, Throwing Muses, Pixies, Charlatans, David Devant And His Spirit Wife and Killing Joke.
When you think about it, it's almost impossible to please the alts and indies. Nobody wants to be a poser or labeled as one, but it feels like we're going to be one no matter what we do. I mean, I don't want the glam bands or the late 90s BOY bands to take over again, but even if I devote myself to every bit of an underground band or several, what if alts and indies think I try too hard? Or maybe many are cooler than that and I'm just overthinking. Sheesh, going POP is a game, going INDIE is a game... I just want music!
The biggest problem with indie in my opinion is that the so-called indie bands that are celebrated the most today are not pushing the envelope with their music like people such Kevin Sheilds from the mbv, Robin Guthrie from the Cocteau Twins or Steve Albini with Big Black used to. If you don’t do your own research for interesting modern indie music, the bands you are more likely to find didn’t put that much effort into their sound to make something that is provocative. These modern bands are only indie on the surface. Also, the sad thing is that they are people who think that some watered down music is called indie because they can’t see past the superficial aspect the artist is pushing onto them and analyze the music and see its true worth
It’s crazy how people can love a band (or a person or a thing) so much that they completely hate them for being successful and getting paid to produce the thing people loved about them.
I'm a big fan of Ant Nation on Sirius XM and they play a lot of the "indie" or "alternative" music discussed here so now I think of it as a breeding ground for commercial music. girl in red will soon be used in OnStar commercials. BENEE will be used by Taco Bell. Metric will end up in car commercials.
I became attracted to the less commercial side of indie back in 2010/2013 thanks to GTA IV and it's indie hipster radio station. I've known from there many interesting acts that deviated from commercial music (I'd cite here all the DFA Records catalogue); which then devolved into the post-psychedelia of 2017 onwards. Yeah I like the occasional Death Cab song but mostly I go to the darkest, obscurest of the obscurest stuff. I grew with metal and nu-metal BTW (but maybe I am just a weirdo). BTW your channel rocks man! It's quickly becoming one of my favorites!
I love your video about this, I liked the video, I watched it from beginning to end, you're awesome Finn; However, I hate this kind of music! That's being kind. Its like the opposite of my cup of tea, but you make a hell of a video about it, and I found it very interesting and informative.
so if the term indie has been hijacked what label should I use for my own music all good things everything gets corrupted by the mainstream, that's the way it goes. so the question is what label should we use? personally i don't really like genre labels, but yea have to play the game I suppose
Oceansize's music was once used on The O.C...but then again Toy Matinee was used on an episode of 90210, lol. College = Alternative = Indie. I suppose "DIY" could also be used, but the 1st actual commonly used term was "College" or "College Rock" and given it was or became music that was not exclusively listened to by, or played around Colleges, the genre name changed. But inherently, it wasn't all that different and clearly shared more qualities than had differences. Per, why the term "alternative" and then "indie" really never made any sense given "College" already existed,
I think selling out wasn't as big of a slight that it was in Punk or Metal circles. You also had commercial success decades after Indie really started or flourished. So cashing in wasn't the sin it was previously. And yeah, cred does not pay bills.
Wow so many don't know the difference between indie, as in a big cross genre thing and actual indie rock sub genre sound. There were other sub genres related like indie pop and lofi.
I blame indie for the current state of metal. After it had a that wave in the early 00's metal bands started dressing like normal people and stopped being charismatic
super interesting insight. as an indie artist myself (mostly stylistically and practically- i’m not on a label), i often wonder where the line is for taking advantage of opportunities vs plain old “selling out.” i’ve got pets to feed! hahaha
I loved the indie music of the late-90s to late-00s but I was in Grade 11-12 in 2011 and 2012 and my God I couldn't stand the stomp/clap era of terrible mustachio coffee shop suspender wearing bullshit that was appearing everywhere. It felt like a whole new genre compared to the kinda of electronic meets stripped down rock of the 00s. It thankfully all died by 2014 but my God that was a dark time when everyone was listening to the most boring bands and wearing sweater vests and v-necks for a hot minute.
Most recently, Scowl showing up in a Taco Bell commercial. 2 other ones that stick out are Fear on SLN (story of it's own), and The Cramps playing on 90210.
I always wondered if some of the divide was an amount of jealousy from bands that never made it to a major label. While it honestly might not be everyone's goal, I'd argue the trajectory of most bands starts out as "indie" cos you have to grind like hell. Nirvana toured relentlessly, and started on tiny little SubPop, then took the major label when it came knocking. Isnt that what most bands do? You grind like hell and hope for your shot. I feel like there's a small fraction of Seattle bands that never got swepped up by a major label and missed riding that band wagon, not necessarily by choice, and got passed over for other bands and were subsequently salty about it. Then they do the natural thing and embrace it, and say "oh we don't need them. We don't need to sell out. Forget major labels." Even a band that got as big as the White Stripes was pretty independent, with Jack recording all their albums himself on tape in his house until Icky Thump. But obviously still chose major label distribution and support. But that Detroit garage rock scene for sure embraced the DIY ethos. And I think there's a lot of people from that scene too that resent them for getting big when they didn't.
i have ALWAYS taken words very literally, which is why in 92 when i turned 20 i HATED how the term Alternative music was being thrown around for bands that were dominating top 40 radio. i constantly argued with people in the mid 90s that right now Poison are more Alternative than Nirvana are. Alternative is not and should not refer to a specific sound or style of music, it means whatever is the alternative music to the mainstream music at that time and place, likewise Indie is not a sound or style it is simply bands on independent labels which more of those Indie bands are not even on. and Pop music also is not a specific sound or style it is whatever music is popular at the time and place. i hate how these terms have all been stolen and misused. god i detest what the 90s did to pop culture as a whole, alternative music, underground comics and independent films ALL blew up mainstream and completely displaced the actual scenes. and now suddenly everybody could be a mainstream band but also still have the street cred of being labeled Alternative. and underground scenes and subcultures have never really recovered from it all. . Edit. i will add that i personally have always been against the labeling artists as sell out thing, it is ridiculous to expect bands to not want to make money or have success. my issues are entirely with the misuse of the words or terms, it irritates me much more than it should. and when i was in high school in the late 80s everyone i knew used the term College rock, i never heard anyone call it alternative or indie until grunge blew up. likewise i LOVED a lot of music that i called new wave and goth "or deathrock really,", somewhere in the 90s or early 2000s half of those goth bands and new wave bands i loved started suddenly being refereed to as post punk. no one used the term post punk when and where i was hanging out clubbing in the 80s in full deathrock clothes and makeup.
Have you done a video about The Dodos? Or Dodo Bird, etc haha. The drummer was a death metal drummer before joining, from what I heard. I love them. Especially the early stuff.
Adjusted for inflation, wages in the US have been stagnant since the 1970s while profit and productivity grew decade over decade. In that period, prices of necessities like housing, education, and healthcare consistently beat the general rate of inflation. The long term picture of our era economically has been one characterized by a declining middle class and growing immiseration. While I take the point that everybody needs to make a living, would you actually extend this argument to include a defense of the given economic system? Because you would kind of need to do that to be able to turn around and say that nobody's culture should be free from being turned into an endorsement of it. Obviously everybody has to make a living and do what they have to do in the given environment, but just because things are this way doesn't mean that any of us participating in it by necessity think it should be this way. I mean, really, is it a mystery why somebody who works for one of these shitty companies and isn't even paid enough to live on doesn't want to listen to the music that appears in their commercials? It's pretty easy to understand why somebody in that circumstance might refuse to identify with their customers or share any common cultural space with them. Complaining about sellouts (or complaining about the people who complain about sellouts) today is a different proposition than it was 30 or 40 years ago. You could roll your eyes at it then because, by any number of metrics, we can see that prosperity in the US was much more widely shared. You could say to people doing punk DIY ethics and whinging about suburbs and conformity that they should probably just grow up. But can you really say that today? I'm not so sure.
I remember getting in an argument at my office job in 2009 about the term indie and basically realized indie became a new genre of music instead of diy. They were like, my boyfriend is really into indie music and she pretty much started naming off like jangly alt country stuff amd just popular hipster music(lumineers sounding stuff). I was like, that's not indie, you just mean normal music. I was like indie is underground, people putting out their own music, diy. She did not want to hear any of it. Now I realize it has just become a genre.
It’s not though. The Lumineers and other bands like them aren’t indie. Have we all forgotten that a lot of the labels that started out as DIY labels still exits? 4AD, XL, Rough Trade and SubPop are all still going and independent. It still exists at a grass roots level too, I live in Cincinnati and we have three local labels that all put out local indie and punk bands.
@@Luke5100yeah! I'm just saying I had to realize it's become a blanket term for similar sounding music, like alternative started getting used for everything in the 90s, people started using indie instead.
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Thanks for mentioning the New Zealand indie scene in the 80's. As a tiny country if you wanted to do anything different you had to do it independently. Flying Nun records really were amazing for what they did for New Zealand music.
You aren’t old enough to make a good video about this. Alt Rock or whateveryou want to call underground music begn dying when Nirvana hit big and it was dead by 1996. Sure there were a few bands here and there that had some punk rock soul in them, but there was no more scene. Let it alone
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It seems certain that as long as the system called capitalism continues, this phenomenon will continue to cycle like a treadmill. However, my personal complaint (in terms of music) is that even this ‘treadmill’ seems to have stopped now.
I'm a professional graphic designer with close to 30 years of experience so I know these people and I can tell you exactly what happens. See people that work in advertising and marketing (especially the "creatives") are every bit as materialistic and yuppie as the stereotypical stock brokers, lawyers and other "white collar professionals" but they think of themselves as "Indie", "alternative", "counter-culture", "artsy" etc and as such they listen to the music of those sub-cultures and insist on dragging it all into their work. And their work is to make advertising that will get mainstream normies to part with a buck or two for their clients. So they end up "mainstreaming" non-mainstream art (whether it likes it or not).
Yep that is EXACTLY what I’m talking about lol
@@ThePunkRockMBABut bringing the "edgy" music in will appeal to teens who need to feel and believe it all matters. The edgy/unknown aesthetic will also be cheaper to license and make your product seem hipper. Also, parents grew up with punk and metal, so the kids got into rap and hip hop as a way to "you just wouldn't understand, maaan" it all. Now parents growing up with rap are dealing with kids into TikTok...and those who catch their attention and control the tastes sell the products.
'creatives' in advertising agencies are some of the least creative people around. they're job is mostly looking through fringe arts / films stuff and if anything is getting any buzz or going viral, then they rip it off and stick a brand name on it.
@@bluedeskfan2754 What's worse is a large percentage see themselves as "struggling artists" that are forced to "wh*re themselves as designers (because capitalism is ick)". So they're desperate to be "real" artists which is why they try to shove all their hipster music into their work.
Yes we know. Especially with pronouns in their bios. Super cringe.
You forgot Juno. Lots of kids were too cool to be into things like The O.C but they all saw Juno and finally got sucked into the indie as a genre hype
Yep! Also a really good movie
I totally misread this and thought you were talking about the band Juno and now I'm sad lol
super forgettable movie. I remember I thought it was boring as fuck.
@@ThePunkRockMBAsht movie
Greatest pro life film ever
I found indie to occupy the 80s and early 90s. It was called “college radio” then. It meant DIY, Organic “rock” music. It wasn’t punk or grunge. Just varied, underground and it was special then.
In the UK it was called indie, or indiepop, and the fans were called indie kids. Bands like The Smiths, Housemartins, Wedding Present, Pastels. Indie as a term seems to have entered the US lexicon sometime later.
@@henrywallace7996Exactly. That's my personal definition of Indie music - all the British bands from the 80ies you mentioned (and a lot more). It was the perfect time for me being a teen back then. It was awesome regarding music, attending gigs in small venues, lifestyle in general. It made us as people independent to some extend as well. I loved it (still do) and I have nothing but fond memories of that time.
Yes. The pre-Nirvana era of college radio was a special time.
I wonder how college radio music sounded like compared to underground music today
When I think about that time in the US for me key college radio bands: REM, Pixies, Husker DU, Replacements, Depeche Mode, Sonic Youth. There were so many though.
It comes down to this: no counter-culture movement can last forever as eventually the counter-culture becomes the culture.
so true. i was thinking about exactly this recently
I remember being told the line 'Everything avant-garde must inevitably become kitsch'.
Exactly what you said, just put it in your pocket if you want to be pointedly pretentious about it 😂
Spot on!
Or it dissapears
Exactly. It's no more complex than that
🇨🇦You gotta blame us Canada too for indie escaping into the mainstream: from Arcade Fire in Montréal to Broken Social Scene in Toronto and Leslie Feist selling iPods, we’re guilty as charged. Oh, and sorry too for American Apparel and Vice.
Stop apologizing, god damn it
@@heighwaymusic Sorry, it’s a Canadian thing. Oups! Sorry, I did it again.
Now now, the Canadian government has apologized for Bryan Adams on several occasions.
my wish is that people wouldn't let the drudgery of our economic systems affect the culture of punk/diy/ indie. it's understandable on a personal level that people have to put food on the table, but im not yet convinced that outweighs the macro erosion of the culture. im about 60/40 on the side of keeping everything indie pure with a significant level of sympathy for artists trying to make it. also artists that dont sell out deserve god tier respect for doing the work and figuring out how to not let their personal needs outweigh what's bigger than them.
I'm definitely on this camp. My thoughts at the end of watching this video was, things getting more popular isn't as harmless to me as a lot of people make it sound, because when that happens, the culture surrounding the thing typically changes pretty drastically as well. And to me, that's important to note, even if it does become inevitable at some point.
There is no agreed definition of "pure" nor any strong logical coherence behind it. For example the commercials thing... why is getting paid and exposed by being played in a commercial inherently bad?
@@lightfeather9953it comes down to the contrast between art and commodities, which as you’ve pointed out is innately a tight rope to walk.
Adverts are like, the most naked form of commodifying something. You’re providing a background for an institution to sell a product that often has nothing to do with the art itself. The entire premise of the medium is to simply make money.
Obviously when you sell music, concerts, merchandise, etc. - you’re commodifying your art, but I think people accept that because it is related to the art itself, and is a direct expression of that art. A commercial is simply a transaction and nothing more.
I’m not vociferously arguing this point, I don’t care that much, just trying to provide a perspective.
IMO, the Indie scene hit it big with Napoleon Dynamite and Rushmore, thus ushering in the "block letters scribbled on a binder" aesthetic for all those movies and albums that followed.
Napoleon Dynamite is Saint Pepsi, i think he is the David Guetta of Vaporwave.
There was a big shift in the early 2000s when more established main stream artist started allowing their new songs to be used in commercials which helped remove the stigma that this had previously. One example that I remember was Sting's Desert Rose being featured in a Jaguar commercial in 2000. This helped increase the reach of a song that begins in Arabic and doesn't feature Sting's voice until almost a minute in. Today, it is still in his top 5 songs on Spotify with over 100 million plays. If Sting can use the help and exposure that a commercial provides, I can't blame an indie band for doing the same thing to increase the reach of their music.
In the early 80s, punk for us was a way of life. DIY and individual expression were essential. The indie/punk ethos is what set it apart. It wasn’t a style, but a set of values, moral and cultural, that could only be achieved through independent ownership of the entire scene - music, venues, clothing, etc, etc. I was in the indie music industry at the time Nirvana broke and I agree that Nirvana had a gigantic impact so far as enlarging the alternative audience, but Nirvana didn’t stray too far from their indie roots and Kurt was conflicted about selling out. But what came after them was totally different. Green Day and bands that followed had no misgivings at all about making a lot of money and becoming rock stars, which punks would’ve rejected outright. Selling out was acceptable for a lot of bands now and if you hear them tell it, they never were really punks in the first place or at least didn’t share the same values and beliefs. The sell outs isn’t what killed it though. There were bands that sold out in the late 70s and 80s too, but there had always been a new crop. At the same time alternative moved into the mainstream, i saw a huge loss of individual expression and a homogeny setting in to the mid 90s alternative scene, becoming a bore. Younger kids didn’t appreciate some of the noisier, edgier sounds of the past, didn’t appreciate live music as much and venues closed. Add the internet, social media and a couple generations who value group cohesiveness over individual expression and we’ve got a totally watered down ‘indie’ that can be sold with fast food.
Marry me
I got frustrated when 'indie' began to be perceived as a 'genre'. I remember bands like The Minutemen, Husker Du, The Cure, The Clash , The Smiths and Joy Division being really difficult to put into neat musical boxes. Many bands were 'independent' in that they functioned outside of the big disgusting gut of the music industry - outside of the relentless machine. However you feel about him, Frank Zappa might be the ultimate 'indie' artist in that sense. Maybe I was wrong, but I had felt at the time that built into that was musical freedom - you went where you wanted, not where an A&R man and a producer taking points while sitting on a throne of compressors wanted you to go. In the early nineties 'indie' became associated with a certain way of dressing, certain hairstyles, certain chord changes, certain subject matter, the anointed approval of a certain circle of influential critics. It began to get policed: I woke up one morning to find out Ozric Tentacles (releasing their own DIY cassettes at festivals and then forming their own record label) and Fish were not indie but suspiciously elitist prog-rockers (hey, that is NOT what indie sounds like, man) while the children of millionaires get zipped straight from an expensive rock school onto a big label with a crew of stylists bigger than their sound crew, Zane Lowe fawns over them and someone plays it for me waiting to se me get blown away by the sheer honesty of it all . . . .
As someone in the younger generations I love the noisy, uncategorizable, harsher side indie like big black or the jesus lizard, much prefer it to the soft acoustic folky stuff
Ok grandma
From a financial perspective, when everyone else leaves you, even your fans every band is indie. The music industry changed a lot post 2000. These bands either sell songs to car commercials or they play at local gigs for a couple years for their friends before they break up.
Nope.
@@SartorialisticSavage65your insight was eye-opening and gave me a brand now perspective on things. Thanks!
Being anti-punkrock is the most punkrock thing ever 😂
That makes Steely Dan the punkest band of all time.
@@bluegregory6239yes
@@bluegregory6239 i Love Stelly Dan,and im a white man from Brasil,this is the most anti stereotype act that i am
@@bluegregory6239Honestly, Steely Dan's lyrics were really subversive and twisted in a way which a lot of punk bands would've killed to be.
The fact I love watching your videos on genres or scenes I don't care about... feel like that says a lot about your research, perspective and delivery. Great stuff!
It was perfectly researched until he got to the 2000s.
As far I know, Indie music in general began to rise in the early 2000’s when the White Stripes revived garage rock along with the Strokes and Pre-Brothers Black Keys. Almost a decade later, not only it made officially to the mainstream, it reached its peak in popularity mainly because it wasn’t abrasive as its predecessors in rock and alternative music commercially (Nu-Metal, Post-Grunge/Active Rock, Emo/Scene Kid Rock, and Metalcore), which perceived major labels that it’d would make a lot of money for a long term but it kinda went short.
Indie did NOT begin in the 2000's. Indie goes back to the late 70's, and reached its peak in the 80's and 90's with bands like Fugazi, Husker Du, R.E.M., Camper Van Beethoven, Bikini Kill, Joy Division, Flat Duo Jets, Red Red Meat, The Dead Milkmen, Bad Religion, etc. Indie is so much more than just not being on a major label. Its includes the whole DIY ethos of promoting and booking your own shows, self financing your own tours in a shitty van, and sleeping on people;s floors instead of the local Hyatt.
Not if it is the aesthetic that it has become. I believe the difference between the two uses for the term indie was already well explained in the video. The definition you are describing was not the one they were referring to.@@dathorndike4908
@@dathorndike4908 I’m NOT saying how it started, I’m actually saying how it began to rise in the mainstream popularity that changed the definition of the term.
@@228-n6f Also Indie was the last genre for rock music before it basically died commercially after 2010. Seeing Arcade Fire on stage in Feb 2011 for The Suburbs was that last moment and things downtrend from there massively. It was crazy to see Coachella go from having Vampire Weekend to The Weeknd in a short time.
Pretty much as Gen Z got into high school to college the entire scene was shifting hard. I lived by a university in late 2010s and I use to play a game when I was walking around trying to count how many times I hard any music being play that was rock and I could go an entire week without hearing it. With that said it seems TikTok is bringing more variety back interesting enough
True. The Garage Rock Revival only lasted a few years (2002-2005 before the Emo influenced Pop Punk and heavier Post Grunge ended its run in the mainstream although along with it evolving into Landfill Indie) and a majority of that stuff was niche compared to Nu Metal, Pop Punk & Post Grunge (It was popular in the UK though)
Never thought I'd ever see The Chills and The Verlaines on a Punk Rock MBA video!!! The Dunedin scene in New Zealand in the 80s and early 90s was amazing, mostly revolving around one Indie label, Flying Nun. Really diverse bands, the only thing uniting them is their non commercial sound. From sweet jangly pop (Chills, Verlaines, The Bats) to raucous noise (Gordons, Skeptics, HDU) to wiry Indie Rock (The Clean, Straitjacket Fits)to twisted dark Industrial dance pop (Headless Chickens), a truly legendary Indie label.
Pop punk/emo kids of the late 90s/early 00s came to a crossroads in the mid-00s. Either go the "heavier" emo route that was usually more adjacent to aggressive pop punk, or go the "indie" route that was more melodic, mellow, and often used acoustic instruments like Death Cab. I went the indie route at the time.
I thought the only contribution of The OC to pop culture was the Dear Sister SNL digital short, I had no idea it was basically an indie show
The OC really impacted pop culture of the early 2000's. MTV had its version of it, called "Laguna Beach: The Real OC". Nickelodeon had "Zoey 101". Music videos, such as John Mayer's "Clarity" leaned into that indie/southern california aesthetic.
mmm whatca sayyyy
Back in the nineties as a young twenty-something I truly embraced the cynical and jaded Gen X slacker culture. I dug the DIY lo-fi aesthetic of Pavement and Guided By Voices and the very loud dense swirling and disorienting beauty of shoegaze pioneers Ride, Slowdive and My Bloody Valentine. The ‘zines were great, too like The Wire, Raygun and even Spin. Thanks for the memories and as indie rock’s elder statesman Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne said, “The sound is so cute when you’re twenty-two.”
The fact that indie music fits so well with commercials is its most damning characteristic.
It really is as soulless as elevator music.
A genre so worried with looking and sounding cool and aloof that it ends up being completely bland.
I don’t think that’s necessarily an indictment of indie music. I like indie music and therefore I will probably like how it sounds in commercials, why is that bad?
@MrKowalskyfication Because of the nature of commercials. They are, by definition, not a creative work with an artistic purpose. They are a marketing tactic that's used to sell things. So, every element in them has to be bland and not threatening in order to avoid offending potential customers. That's what indie is like, music that anyone can find pleasant (I do), but that doesn't really contain anything of substance. The music is not complex, imaginative, or with any identifiable trait other than 'rock but not too edgy or aggressive', and the lyrics are emotionally detached. It's hipster music.
@@javierpulidofrausto9496 I disagree, I think tons of great songs have been used in commercials, that doesn't necessarily make the songs bland. For example Morricone's Ecstasy of Gold has been used in Modelo commercials, does that mean that every element in that song is bland? Absolutely not. (Other examples include David Bowie's Heroes, Daft Punk's Technologic) I disagree that popular / widely appealing things must be bland or lack substance. I think art can be both popular and have a wide appeal, while still being interesting.
@MrKowalskyfication That is a very valid point. My diatribe is not really against any other genre of music apart from indie. It's just that since I was a teenager, I've defended pop-punk, emo, and other types of Warped Tour music from hipsters who consider indie a superior genre, and deride what I like. So I am quite biased.
@@javierpulidofrausto9496 also worth noting that the guy that runs this channel has a clear distain for "indie" music, he fails I think to realize the varied scope of bands that fall under this supposed banner. He constantly lists the Lumineers as the pinnacle of indie music. The Lumineers, Bloc Party, Interpol, The Strokes, Arctic Monkeys, Gorrilaz, The Killers, MGMT all fall under the the supposed "Indie" umbrella yet their sound and style couldn't be any more different.
I'd almost argue that Pop Punk as a genre is one of the most anodyne and pastiche genres going around.; its the same powerchords being churned out band after band over the last 30 years.
Arctic Monkey is on Domino which they claim to be an independent record label but they got extremely commercialized during their fifth album, AM (that album was HUGE world wide in 2013) so I'm not really sure if it's "indie" record label anymore lol
there's other notable artist on that label:
Alex G (later)
Animal Collective (later)
Franz Ferdinand
My Bloody Valentine
Pavement (later)
...and then followed it up with a concept album about a retirement home on the moon.
Clinic was on Domino and they were weird as fuck
The indie aesthetic hits a little differently this side of the pond, when I think of British bands like embrace, snow patrol and early Coldplay, though it’s probably more accurate to call that post Brit pop if anything
Really enjoyed this look at the indie music history....was in hugh school/college when indie blew up in early 2000s & had a huge crush on Seth Cohen. Only reason I haven't gotten into much newer music is honestly just doing more 'adulting' & not being as active in going to shows, except tried & true emo bands touring now, like the Get Up Kids. Would love a video on how music you discover in hs/college stick so much, too.
My wife and I refer to the music used in the OC and Chuck and Gossip Girl as Schwartzcore. Since Josh Schwartz took such a huge part in choosing the music that would be for his shows and honestly (barring Gossip Girl) the songs are freaking great and really add to those episodes.
At 10:01, there's absolutely no need to show a death scene photo for something that we could learn about. We all know about Kurt's demise. He had other photos of his K Shield out there.
Love the Shins. Was hoping to see a mention about Bright Eyes. Feel like Conor Oberst is the epitome of indie.
100% agree. conor oberst was like the “heartthrob” of indie
@@brainst3w Ohh I have a total heart on for that man. Honestly, if I had to pick only one artist's discography to listen to for the rest of my life, I think it'd have to be his. And yet I feel like most people don't even know who he is. What's wrong with the world! 😭
i think you’re right about how indie has become more of an aesthetic rather than best kept secret from the mainstream, but in my opinion if they’re signed to a label or not there’s still a lot of indie living. even though the idea of indie has now shadowed most of its roots, indie music for the past couple of years have usually been just random people online trying to make music and putting it out on bandcamp and soundcloud. if you like it, you give them a follow. usually some people in that group end up making it in the mainstream indie scene (what we see first when we think if indie). underground indie is still out there, just in a more digital way.
bands and artists like alex g, frankie cosmos, clairo, and snail mail are indie artists that even though are signed and have a bigger audience, they started from the bottom in the indie scene playing small show and posting their music.
The internet killed indie. First of all it completely destroyed the whole idea of an underground. The whole point of the underground was it was almost a secret society. Once it was exposed to everyone at the click of a mouse it lost it's cool and alternative credentials. Secondly, the promotion and distribution model of indie music was very traditional. Record shops, alternative radio, music press, small venues. The internet destroyed many of these and greatly reduced others leaving a greatly disturbed network. Thirdly the quality of guitar bands dropped off sharply around 2010. Most of the 'Pitchfork' bands were boring (The National) or unlistenable (Animal Collective). The record buying audience mostly saw through the garbage they were being slung. The 'new' thing lost it's appeal and serious music fans went off to investigate back catalogues of obscure groups from previous decades as they were much better than the new offerings. The indie genre became stale and backwards looking. Bands had been ripping off bands like The Velvet Underground since the very beginning of Indie but they usually added their own touches. By 2010 most guitar bands just sounded like poor quality tribute acts. The nadir was around 2015. Since then I think things have been making a slow come back. It's nowhere near what it was but you can at least make a list of decent quality 'indie' bands again - Idles, Squid, Tropical Fuck Storm, King Krule, Fontaines D.C., King Lizard etc.
reminds being 5 or 6 and being with my parents shopping at the mall in the 2000s and hearing the echo's of Modest mouse playing on their PA systems with the smell of Auntie Ann's and Great American Cookies mixed with the smell of chlorine from the mall fountains. And then stopping at EB games to get a Gamecube or a PS2 game. Good times......
I was a teen in the 80's and into Indie type music. I was basically into goth music before it was called 'goth' in my part of the SF East Bay. I saw The Cure in an arena in 87 and it was the worst show I have still ever been to. I have never been into grunge music. I went as a favor to a friend to a Pearl Jam, Nirvana RHCP show on Dec. 31 in San Francisco and my friend and I looked very punk/goth and other people there gave us shit the entire night. I equated grunge fans with scene jumpers because it was soooooo trendy to call oneself 'alternative' during that time. I still listen to punk and goth music to this day because the music genuinely means a lot to me.
I love The Cure live, that said, '87 may have been the end of the bands heavy drug use. Was Simon back by then? He left the band after he and Robert got into a fight involving a glass of beer. I forgot who hit who.
@@Podus81 Yeah, they broke up a few times in the late 80's. I honestly can't remember. I was hugely into U2 during that time and I made a DIY U2 back patch for a denim jacket I used to wear constantly. I wore it to that Cure show and not a single person gave me crap.
I was at that Pearl Jam / RHCP / Nirvana show at the Cow Palace that night too. People gave me shit because I didn't have a flannel on.
The OC actually had an absolute banger soundtrack. I made the show stand out and feel unique because of its music selection.
Indie scene in UK and Scotland is still huuuge. I would guess it's one of the most popular genre over there. When I lived there and you wanted to start a band you would play indie - it's like a base for making music. There was also MTV2 (now MTV Rocks I think) that played mostly indie music, and sometimes even less known bands.
Ngl the random picture pointing out Cobain's tattoo being one of the crime scene photos of his dead body with no warning was jarring as fuck here
I liked very few indie bands growing up in the 90s. But I totally agree it feels like an aesthetic now.
Indie music has definitely turned into a stylized gimmick of itself, but no more than any other genre or subgenre of music.
When i was younger, (15-30) I tended to like what i liked, whether or not it was cool or suddenly became uncool, though my taste lived in Top 40 radio and whatever music i could purchase in the next town over (my town was pop. 5000, the nearby one, pop. 15,000). I still really like Right Said Fred's Up album (that's where the infamous "I'm too sexy" is from).
Now that I'm in my mid 40's, i just listen to whatever i find interesting and assume it's uncool or cringe. I am surprised when I like or buy something that is actually trendy or "fire". In the process, my music and shows I've gone to has expanded all over with some of my last few shows being Arctic Monkeys (w/ Fontaines DC), NF, Joe McIntyre (from New Kids on the Block), Fozzy (w/ Ugly Kid Joe), and Wax Tailor. I have tickets to see Playboi Cardi (my nephew's favorite and 2nd time) and Rayland Baxter.
Labels are helpful. They give you an idea of what kind of musical experience to expect. I'm glad these artists were able to connect with larger entities so they can reach more people and (hopefully) get better compensated for their time, talent and effort.
"How did we get from Fugazi to the Lumineers?" Indeed, great question! I'm laughing while I'm crying.
We call Lana del Rey indie now, so i dont even know what the defination of indie is these days
Modern Rock encompasses all this music. Punk started it all. Then New Wave. Modern Rock was coined to include both.
REM changed things, they were called Indie because they were originally on indie, IRS. They were also called College Radio. As we headed to the end of the 80', Alternative start being used. From then on, Altrrnative included Grunge.
It all started from Punk and Modern Rock is a good overall name.
The first band I think of when someone says “indie” is Fugazi. I’m old AF
While signed to a major label, the Beatles run their show from day one. Like deciding against the producer advice that their first single would be one of their songs, what type of portrait would be on their second album, how loud bass and drums would be in the mix, selecting who would write and direct their movies, stating in gigs contracts that audiences should not be segregated while all the time creating the highest art ever made
My cousin was on a battle of the bands and won and was touring on the vans warp tour at age 17 thru 18. They gained a lot of traction in their band that they had a couple record deals going their way. They were a punk rock band and they were so punk rock they ultimately turned the deals down and remained unassigned until they eventually broke up a year or two later lol I find that story hilarious because they got in the way of their own success because the idea of being punk and anti establishment got in the way of their own successes and money potential.
On the OC Seth had a Falling Sickness poster on his wall. I played a show with those guys and they stayed at my house on that tour. They are a very obscure punk band on Hopeless Records and it was always funny to me that they ended up on his wall in that show. Someone that worked on that show had to know those guys.
Shoutout to the Taco Bell marketing team for making commercials with songs ranging from Doja Cat's to Turnstile's and Scowl's...there are millions of kids out there who have been introduced to hardcore now, thanks to Taco Bell. In the words of Doja Cat...get into it (yuh)
Finn. Do a video on noise music. Harsh noise wall and the Japanese noise scene.
Lol so glad you mentioned the OC. I just started showing my wife the show and how I still listen to all the music from then
I don’t care if indie music isn’t really indie or is commercial-core or whatever nowadays, there’s so much good shit in that genre/aesthetic/community and it’s the music itself that actually counts
Listen to the Wedding Present, princes of indie
The Silver sun pickup’s are one of those rare gems that busted out of the “indie” scene..
What I think is interesting is that so many of these ‘Indie’ bands can’t even be found ok mainstream radio anymore. My go to station is one run by Colorado Public Radio and they play everything under the sun, and a fair amount of what could be called ‘Indie’. The station has a big following of people of all age, but it definitely plays stuff you just simply don’t hear anymore. In many ways Indie has gone back, maybe not underground, but definitely down the dark ally off Main Street.
I was an indie kid in the 80s. The popularity of the Seattle sound in the 90s kind of put us older Gen Xer's who had Cure posters on our walls on our own island. I was at Lollapalooza 1995 (Tinley Park). The one that Sonic Youth headlined. Very few of the concert goers even knew who SY were! Or Beck, for that matter. But they sure knew who Courtney Love was! The scene needed to go back to the underground. By the way, Iowa Public Radio 90.9 KUNI is my go-to. Has been since 1985. From Bowie to Tame Impala.
@@michaelmalone7231 younger GenX here and mine is the Colorado Sound, 105.5fm.
This was an interesting video. I always thought the term "Indi" was a genre or music related to post punk or alternative rock.
Did Alternative have a similar history? Going from music heard on collage radio or outside of the mainstream and eventually moving into the mainstream.
Such a good video. I feel a succinct way of addressing the notion of selling out would be to say that even the early Indie bands didn’t shun the mainstream or the big labels, more that the mainstream and big labels shunned them. It wasn’t necessarily a stand against something that they betrayed by letting their music be used in commercials. Once the mainstream wanted them, they were happy enough with that.
Plus, by the time of commercial saturation point of Indie music, none of those bands were independent in any real sense anyway (which I know you did point out).
I think the artist, Ren Gill, would blow your mind. He is completely self-financed, and with the help of the most solid fan base ever, for any unsigned artist that I’ve ever seen, he is about to make music history! Ren is on the verge of taking the number one spot on Amazon UK pre-order sales away from the freaking Rolling Stones, 60+ year veterans of the music business and one of the biggest bands in the world!
The incredible part is that he accomplished this with no management other than himself, no record label, no recent touring (it’s been a year, from what I’ve seen), and no radio airplay! Absolutely incredible, through and through! It’s a new paradigm in the music biz to do it the way that Ren has done it! I don’t think it’s ever been done this way before, ever in the history of recorded music!
I wouldn’t believe it myself, except that I’ve been watching it unfold since the start of the year!
Don’t forget Scrubs was another beloved 2000s show that highlighted indie songs.
I have to wonder as your video ended in the 2010s: was indie, along with rock, killed off as a major cultural force by the rise of electronic music? EDM especially dubstep became huge, its festivals sweeping across the world. Even hip-hop, which had previously displaced rock, also got disrupted and birthed trap music. Then the EDM bubble sort of just popped. (Also unrelated to EDM but it feels like by the 2010s indie had become represented by synth-heavy sounds even with acts like Grizzly Bear or Beach House. Is Tame Impala the last big indie band with guitars?) Just some thoughts!
If you go to London right now, you'll see what I think is becoming a re-invention of indie rock. Bands like Black Midi, Black Country New Road, Squid, Shame, Goat Girl and others are super hot right now with 19-20-year-olds and are real indie bands, and most of them seem like they strongly reject the commercialization of indie rock, choosing deliberately to avoid any resemblance to pop songwriting with very long song lengths and weird time signatures, at least in the case of BM and BCNR (I honest don't see how Black Midi are still being labelled indie in terms of musical style when they are basically a prog rock band now, and IMO the best prog band currently working). This has all been called the "Windmill scene".
You also have other more commercial indie bands that are sort of Windmill-adjacent like Wet Leg and The Last Dinner Party (with the latter band being much better and more legit than the former IMO) that while writing much more conventional songs, still pull from a lot of interesting influences in terms of soundscape that haven't been seen as much in indie before, like Sparks and Abba. Olivia Rodrigo's latest single is pretty much a blatant rip of Wet Leg's style.
Indie has come to mean “35+ somethings sitting with a coffee discussing progressive politics to sound interesting while not actually understanding it, not wanting to realize they’re music and culture is now the equivalent of Lawrence Welk and Cosby sweaters and that they’re old and not cutting edge anymore so they get to pretend while listening to corporate folk rock just like their mamas did with John Denver.”
Does Volkswagen really write "That´s das Auto" in their commercials?????
When I was growing up (late 70's+), indie meant bands that sent tracks to radio stations to get played. Where I'm from it was mostly university students forming bands while studying. If they got a break of some sort before finishing Uni they would have a band. If not, they had a career. It's changed a lot since then.
05:53 There was in indie band from DC I used to like called "Velocity Girl." And today, I learned where their name originated!
Primal Scream baby!
wow ive never felt old seeing older commercials until i saw that at&t cingular ad thanks finn
In a modern digital world everything has a chance to become mainstream. there's nothing wrong with it: any info is too accessible.
I'm 38 years old and Seth Cohen was my musical taste maker and still influences me today. It's true.
Good catch with C86, honestly. I remember reading the veteran English music journalist Simon Reynolds' post-punk retrospective Rip It Up and Start Again when I was about thirteen or fourteen, so 2005 or '06, and in the epilogue to that book he talks about the importance of C86 as a kind of endpoint marker for the post-punk era and half-laments the semantic shift from "independent" to "indie" even back then, which he saw as something of a movement away from the more immediately subversive and musically innovative aspects of post-punk even as subtler stuff like the more radical gender politics became almost par for the course through the K Records bands. And in retrospect that's pretty funny, because in my early teens I was a pretty big fan of a lot of the independent acts which were seeing a real spike in mainstream interest and upward trajectory in commercial success-Animal Collective, The Shins, The Decemberists, Arcade Fire, Interpol-and so I was kind of watching in real time as these bands went from being the talk of the town in middle-class hipster circles to much more ubiquitous musical phenomena, which in some cases was kind of jarring. Like, I was also getting into a lot of more experimental stuff, dipping my toes into industrial and noise, and I was first made aware of Animal Collective through their pre-Sung Tongs work where they were collaborating with people like Black Dice, and that shit is *weird,* so while there were several excellent transitional records in between (Feels and Strawberry Jam have a special place in my heart), the gangbuster success of Merriweather Post Pavilion kind of tilted me out as a sixteen-year-old. And like, I didn't resent these bands for their success, but it did often feel like they started watering down what made them interesting or going in directions which didn't entirely pan out when they hit the majors or started really doing numbers; what's more, a lot of the stuff like The Lumineers which started heavily appropriating those sounds in a very formulaic, frankly somewhat mercenary way just made my skin crawl on a sonic level, so leaning into the more esoteric side of my interests-I was forever torn between being a baby hipster in denial and a baby goth/rivethead in denial; now I'm a thirtysomething queer noise fan, which is truly the worst of both worlds-probably saved me some real grief. But then, so did my discomfort with attaching myself to aesthetics as identity, I think, just in general. I was always just kind of… me. Still am.
Most of the early hipsters were ex-punks and former goths anyway.
Good discussion! I was lucky to be able to work in college radio in the '80s. It seemed like new music was coming out every week, and it wasn't available anywhere else but in college radio, at least until MTV started playing some of the bands on 120 Minutes. In the early '80s, it was called progressive (not to be confused with progressive rock). Then somehow the name changed to alternative. Then it became modern rock. I thought it was odd suddenly hearing bands that only received college radio airplay on mainstream radio. Around 1992 or so, people started referring to some bands, like Dead Hot Workshop or Beat Happening as indie because their sound was not so polished or radio-friendly. Grunge became a cliche when someone, DigiTech I think, marketed a Grunge guitar pedal. "You can sound like Kurt!" Also, as you stated, the clothing fads didn't help. It's ok for independent bands to accept sponsorships, label deals, etc. Why shouldn't they be allowed to make a living doing something they love? Unfortunately, the music business is just that, a business. In the end, if your band can't make the label tons of money, they'll drop you just like that and move on to the next one. Sometimes it's better just to stay independent and maintain a DIY attitude. It's a lot of work, but in the end, you won't have signed away everything in the hopes of "making it." You should check out what Steve Albini has to say: thebaffler.com/salvos/the-problem-with-music
The sound was so toothless and up its own ass that it turned me off. Plus the endless bloggers reviewing them as the next big thing to copy and past a sound that is 30 years older was so pretentious. We can thank sites like pitchfork for the rise of that shut
I remember watching TRL on Vh1 on Saturday mornings and the re runs throughout the week during summer break along with MTV late night music video blocks. Old school Coldplay, The All American Rejects, Thriving Ivory, Death Cab For a Cutie, The Fray after their first album, Linkin Park post/pre Transformers 2007. Along with many bands who got lost with the times.
I think as soon as people started to say "I hate indie music" that's when it just became a style. Around 2002/2003 was the earliest I can remeber that happening
Awesome Finn thanks! Used to love indie in 90s to 2003 then moved to metal. Still got my old records though.
This week on The Punk Rock MBA: "Indie rock - not punk enough..."
I think what killed indie music was not the commercialism... it was how it slowly turned into soft rock and folk music.
There, I said it. They wussified themselves.
As an old metal guy watching from the sidelines (I suspect Finn attended High School around the same time that I did), I was initially confused by the "Indie Rock" label during the 2000s, as so many of those bands were so mainstream. That's not to say they weren't great, for times when I ventured out of metal-ville, but when I thought of "indie," I thought if those bands like Cracker or Butthole Surfers from the 80s and 90s, or in my wheelhouse, metal, with bands putting out demo after demo and maybe getting signed to some small European label and then being only available through American distros like Wild Rags, Leviathan, or Necropolis. But no, Indie Rock was a sound, aesthetic, and sensibility, which I still see in my co-workers who are 10-15 years younger than I am.
Exactly!
Yep, indie is an aesthetic now and had been for some time. For a while it seemed synonymous with ‘hipster.’ As such, to me it represents cutesy, quirky, limp-wristed music without any real edge or teeth to it.
gossip girl was also soundtracked by indie music and even had a random albert hammond jr cameo
its not "now" that we have indie bands on major labels. some of the most revered indie bands ever were on majors. built to spill, flaming lips (both on warner bros), and modest mouse (dreamworks, which only if you stretch your imagination are indie) immediately come to mind. countless bands from the 80s and 90s put stuff out on majors. "indie" has been a genre term for decades by this point.
I agree. People have been comparing about Indy music “posers” at least since poser was still a hip expression.
The shift happened with c86
One of my friends was in the first indie band, The Count Bishops, back in the seventies. They were signed to Stiff Records, who could be called the first Indie label. What you’re talking about is the co-opting of alternative culture as a whole, I’d call that stuff like Lumineers and Mumford And Sons “Post Indie”. It started as independent, but now they’re just mainstream. That said, I know people who ran independent record labels (Angular Recording Corporation). They weren’t the people who would put their stuff in an advert, they were too experimental and very much in the tradition of punk. Very DIY and very angular, as much indebted to krautrock as it was punk. The band who owned it played gigs in squats. Hatcham Social said that the post punk revival was punk ideas come to fruition, who were in the same scene as The Violets too.
I used to love Alternative Nation, it introduced me to stuff like Gallon Drunk, Throwing Muses, Pixies, Charlatans, David Devant And His Spirit Wife and Killing Joke.
Nope, garage rock bands were doing this exact thing back in the 60s.
When you think about it, it's almost impossible to please the alts and indies. Nobody wants to be a poser or labeled as one, but it feels like we're going to be one no matter what we do. I mean, I don't want the glam bands or the late 90s BOY bands to take over again, but even if I devote myself to every bit of an underground band or several, what if alts and indies think I try too hard? Or maybe many are cooler than that and I'm just overthinking.
Sheesh, going POP is a game, going INDIE is a game... I just want music!
Indie music still exists, it's just now on Bandcamp rather than in stores a lot of the time.
The biggest problem with indie in my opinion is that the so-called indie bands that are celebrated the most today are not pushing the envelope with their music like people such Kevin Sheilds from the mbv, Robin Guthrie from the Cocteau Twins or Steve Albini with Big Black used to. If you don’t do your own research for interesting modern indie music, the bands you are more likely to find didn’t put that much effort into their sound to make something that is provocative. These modern bands are only indie on the surface. Also, the sad thing is that they are people who think that some watered down music is called indie because they can’t see past the superficial aspect the artist is pushing onto them and analyze the music and see its true worth
It’s crazy how people can love a band (or a person or a thing) so much that they completely hate them for being successful and getting paid to produce the thing people loved about them.
I'm a big fan of Ant Nation on Sirius XM and they play a lot of the "indie" or "alternative" music discussed here so now I think of it as a breeding ground for commercial music. girl in red will soon be used in OnStar commercials. BENEE will be used by Taco Bell. Metric will end up in car commercials.
I became attracted to the less commercial side of indie back in 2010/2013 thanks to GTA IV and it's indie hipster radio station. I've known from there many interesting acts that deviated from commercial music (I'd cite here all the DFA Records catalogue); which then devolved into the post-psychedelia of 2017 onwards. Yeah I like the occasional Death Cab song but mostly I go to the darkest, obscurest of the obscurest stuff. I grew with metal and nu-metal BTW (but maybe I am just a weirdo). BTW your channel rocks man! It's quickly becoming one of my favorites!
I love your video about this, I liked the video, I watched it from beginning to end, you're awesome Finn; However, I hate this kind of music! That's being kind. Its like the opposite of my cup of tea, but you make a hell of a video about it, and I found it very interesting and informative.
so if the term indie has been hijacked what label should I use for my own music
all good things everything gets corrupted by the mainstream, that's the way it goes. so the question is what label should we use?
personally i don't really like genre labels, but yea have to play the game I suppose
I feel like indie is coming back.
Indie is not dead but okay lol
Sure, bud.
I agree. It’s really not. It’s just that PRMBA doesn’t truly follow the indie scene.
It's almost like the internet is for people's opinions. So funny that people get upset over this
@@SamBrockmann you know there’s new bands and artist still going still having mainstream success from the genre
I think PRMBA is so focused on exclusively only radio indie but there’s so much indie out there it’s crazy how he thinks it’s dead lol.
Oceansize's music was once used on The O.C...but then again Toy Matinee was used on an episode of 90210, lol.
College = Alternative = Indie.
I suppose "DIY" could also be used, but the 1st actual commonly used term was "College" or "College Rock" and given it was or became music that was not exclusively listened to by, or played around Colleges, the genre name changed. But inherently, it wasn't all that different and clearly shared more qualities than had differences. Per, why the term "alternative" and then "indie" really never made any sense given "College" already existed,
also I really wish people would stop using the word "Cringe" as an adjective.
"Cringe" is a VERB.
"Cringey" is an adjective.
I think selling out wasn't as big of a slight that it was in Punk or Metal circles. You also had commercial success decades after Indie really started or flourished. So cashing in wasn't the sin it was previously. And yeah, cred does not pay bills.
11:38 The Sums! Hahaha, love that MV.
Wow so many don't know the difference between indie, as in a big cross genre thing and actual indie rock sub genre sound. There were other sub genres related like indie pop and lofi.
I blame indie for the current state of metal. After it had a that wave in the early 00's metal bands started dressing like normal people and stopped being charismatic
Blame hardcore punk for that
super interesting insight. as an indie artist myself (mostly stylistically and practically- i’m not on a label), i often wonder where the line is for taking advantage of opportunities vs plain old “selling out.” i’ve got pets to feed! hahaha
I loved the indie music of the late-90s to late-00s but I was in Grade 11-12 in 2011 and 2012 and my God I couldn't stand the stomp/clap era of terrible mustachio coffee shop suspender wearing bullshit that was appearing everywhere. It felt like a whole new genre compared to the kinda of electronic meets stripped down rock of the 00s. It thankfully all died by 2014 but my God that was a dark time when everyone was listening to the most boring bands and wearing sweater vests and v-necks for a hot minute.
Ok but I love you for defending The OC. I definitely had the whole series in dvd when I was a teen.
Most recently, Scowl showing up in a Taco Bell commercial. 2 other ones that stick out are Fear on SLN (story of it's own), and The Cramps playing on 90210.
There’s “indie” and there’s indie sell outs. That’s basically it, although some acts fall somewhere in the middle.
Damn you mentioned most of my favorite bands: pixies, white stripes, bell and sebastian and many more 🤣 great video, thank you
the strokes too, i remember hearing it on a car commercial and now gen z calls millennial indie “car commercial ass music” to poke fun at indie music
I always wondered if some of the divide was an amount of jealousy from bands that never made it to a major label. While it honestly might not be everyone's goal, I'd argue the trajectory of most bands starts out as "indie" cos you have to grind like hell. Nirvana toured relentlessly, and started on tiny little SubPop, then took the major label when it came knocking. Isnt that what most bands do? You grind like hell and hope for your shot. I feel like there's a small fraction of Seattle bands that never got swepped up by a major label and missed riding that band wagon, not necessarily by choice, and got passed over for other bands and were subsequently salty about it. Then they do the natural thing and embrace it, and say "oh we don't need them. We don't need to sell out. Forget major labels."
Even a band that got as big as the White Stripes was pretty independent, with Jack recording all their albums himself on tape in his house until Icky Thump. But obviously still chose major label distribution and support. But that Detroit garage rock scene for sure embraced the DIY ethos. And I think there's a lot of people from that scene too that resent them for getting big when they didn't.
i have ALWAYS taken words very literally, which is why in 92 when i turned 20 i HATED how the term Alternative music was being thrown around for bands that were dominating top 40 radio. i constantly argued with people in the mid 90s that right now Poison are more Alternative than Nirvana are. Alternative is not and should not refer to a specific sound or style of music, it means whatever is the alternative music to the mainstream music at that time and place, likewise Indie is not a sound or style it is simply bands on independent labels which more of those Indie bands are not even on. and Pop music also is not a specific sound or style it is whatever music is popular at the time and place. i hate how these terms have all been stolen and misused.
god i detest what the 90s did to pop culture as a whole, alternative music, underground comics and independent films ALL blew up mainstream and completely displaced the actual scenes. and now suddenly everybody could be a mainstream band but also still have the street cred of being labeled Alternative. and underground scenes and subcultures have never really recovered from it all. .
Edit.
i will add that i personally have always been against the labeling artists as sell out thing, it is ridiculous to expect bands to not want to make money or have success. my issues are entirely with the misuse of the words or terms, it irritates me much more than it should. and when i was in high school in the late 80s everyone i knew used the term College rock, i never heard anyone call it alternative or indie until grunge blew up. likewise i LOVED a lot of music that i called new wave and goth "or deathrock really,", somewhere in the 90s or early 2000s half of those goth bands and new wave bands i loved started suddenly being refereed to as post punk. no one used the term post punk when and where i was hanging out clubbing in the 80s in full deathrock clothes and makeup.
Have you done a video about The Dodos? Or Dodo Bird, etc haha. The drummer was a death metal drummer before joining, from what I heard. I love them. Especially the early stuff.
Adjusted for inflation, wages in the US have been stagnant since the 1970s while profit and productivity grew decade over decade. In that period, prices of necessities like housing, education, and healthcare consistently beat the general rate of inflation. The long term picture of our era economically has been one characterized by a declining middle class and growing immiseration. While I take the point that everybody needs to make a living, would you actually extend this argument to include a defense of the given economic system? Because you would kind of need to do that to be able to turn around and say that nobody's culture should be free from being turned into an endorsement of it.
Obviously everybody has to make a living and do what they have to do in the given environment, but just because things are this way doesn't mean that any of us participating in it by necessity think it should be this way. I mean, really, is it a mystery why somebody who works for one of these shitty companies and isn't even paid enough to live on doesn't want to listen to the music that appears in their commercials? It's pretty easy to understand why somebody in that circumstance might refuse to identify with their customers or share any common cultural space with them.
Complaining about sellouts (or complaining about the people who complain about sellouts) today is a different proposition than it was 30 or 40 years ago. You could roll your eyes at it then because, by any number of metrics, we can see that prosperity in the US was much more widely shared. You could say to people doing punk DIY ethics and whinging about suburbs and conformity that they should probably just grow up. But can you really say that today? I'm not so sure.
Terrible times , The Complete and Utter disdain for Metal . It was like a never ending Abercrombie and Finch Commercial
I remember getting in an argument at my office job in 2009 about the term indie and basically realized indie became a new genre of music instead of diy. They were like, my boyfriend is really into indie music and she pretty much started naming off like jangly alt country stuff amd just popular hipster music(lumineers sounding stuff). I was like, that's not indie, you just mean normal music. I was like indie is underground, people putting out their own music, diy. She did not want to hear any of it. Now I realize it has just become a genre.
I still consider it self produced underground artists, but it's also it's own genres with sub genres.
Sadly I had to accept that too...
It’s not though. The Lumineers and other bands like them aren’t indie. Have we all forgotten that a lot of the labels that started out as DIY labels still exits? 4AD, XL, Rough Trade and SubPop are all still going and independent. It still exists at a grass roots level too, I live in Cincinnati and we have three local labels that all put out local indie and punk bands.
@@Luke5100yeah! I'm just saying I had to realize it's become a blanket term for similar sounding music, like alternative started getting used for everything in the 90s, people started using indie instead.
that sounds like a very frustrating discussion lol