Indie music died in the 1990's?

dSTAR

I am thinking of bands such as The Stone Roses, The Charlatans, The Happy Mondays, The Smiths (even though they were more 1980's) The The, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains and closer to home My Bloody Valentine, Sultans of Ping, Therapy and Whipping Boy to name but a handful.

The new crop of bands/artists that came after just didn't cut it for me. Anyone feel the same or am I just a has been?

Placid_Casual

dSTAR wrote: »

I am thinking of bands such as The Stone Roses, The Charlatans, The Happy Mondays, The Smiths (even though they were more 1980's) The The, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains and closer to home My Bloody Valentine, Sultans of Ping, Therapy and Whipping Boy to name but a handful.

The new crop of bands/artists that came after just didn't cut it for me. Anyone feel the same or am I just a has been?

I think this is more to do with a sort of nostalgia, rather than it having anything to do with the actual music? As in, you associate the music you mentioned with good times in your life. I mean, you just said that the last 13 years of music didn't cut it for you.
There's plenty of music from that period that's as good (or better) than what you've listed. But it just probably doesn't have the connotations it did when you were younger.
For me right now, my favourite music is what i've been listening to the last couple of years. I've kind of grown out of a what I was listening to in the 90s, I guess because I was quite young at the time.
I like the buzz of discovering a new artist or album. Its like the start of a new relationship, exciting and full of possibilities. Except with music, you can sleep around and not feel bad.

dSTAR

Placid_Casual wrote: »

I like the buzz of discovering a new artist or album. Its like the start of a new relationship, exciting and full of possibilities. Except with music, you can sleep around and not feel bad.

Good analogy. In the final analysis that's probably where I went wrong. I was far too promiscuous in the 1990's and contracted an STD that will be with me for life .. metaphorically speaking of course :-(

stovelid

dSTAR wrote: »

I was far too promiscuous in the 1990's and contracted an STD that will be with me for life .. metaphorically speaking of course :-(

You're right. The Sultans of Ping FC, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Therapy and Whipping Boy were poxy, it has to be said. :pac:

ShawnRaven

stovelid wrote: »

You're right. The Sultans of Ping FC, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Therapy and Whipping Boy were poxy, it has to be said. :pac:

Yes, because Blur, Pulp, Oasis, Babybird, and everything Radiohead did after The Bends is what saved 90s music right? Why don't you throw in the Spice Girls while you're at it?! :rolleyes:

Sorry, it had to be said.

Dudess

I don't understand your hostility ShawnRaven. That was a good-natured bit of slagging by stovelid. And just because that's his opinion (which he's entitled to have) on those particular bands, doesn't mean he's championing the likes of Babybird - he'd be banned for that anyway.

I'm not an Oasis fan by any means but they were a breath of fresh air in 94/95 and recorded/released some fantastic songs.
A lot of Blur's output during that very period sucked tremendously but other than that, they've always been excellent.
Pulp were fantastic.
Radiohead have done utterly awesome stuff since The Bends.

Hardly fair to lump those in with The Sh1te Girls.

For me, indie reached its zenith in the late 80s/early 90s and hasn't managed to recapture that (broadly speaking - there have been odd gems) but there's still been some great stuff since.

Fabulous recent tune from David Holmes with that Spiritualised/Primal Scream/Jesus & Mary Chain kinda sound: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bq0jUXGu3_I
These guys are doing something similar: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCSDci8Nhus

Oh, and in both cases... nyom...
What's with indie boys being so poncey now with their hair-straighteners and skinny jeans? The guys in both those clips look like indie boys looked 15 years ago - so much hotter!

stovelid

ShawnRaven wrote: »

Yes, because Blur, Pulp, Oasis, Babybird, and everything Radiohead did after The Bends is what saved 90s music right? Why don't you throw in the Spice Girls while you're at it?! :rolleyes:

Sorry, it had to be said.

Relax. I thought those bands were a bad smell; you don't. We're not 17 are we?

I loved some of the earlier brit-pop stuff, like everybody else, because of the general good memories I have of that time. I remember the 90's as being as much about loads of individual songs for me, rather than loving one particular band, probably as I was also into other stuff like soul, Reggae and dance then as well as Indie.

Babybird?

@Dudess. I adore that DH tune too. Love that dreamy, garage organ.

Dudess

I'm still mulling over whether I should ban you for including Sultans of Ping FC in your list though...

30txsbzmcu2k9w

i would tend to agree with the OP. On the irish scene particularly. The 90s generation of bands grew up listening to Sonic Youth, Nirvana and shoegazy stuff. Even a band with poppier inclinations - take Turn, for example, weren't afraid to produce something as brilliantly fooked up as Facedown. The Frames, despite all the flack they have gotten, were never afraid of lo-fi recordings and super-8 videos. So many good bands- Wormhole, Sunbear, Rollerskate Skinny, Whipping Boy, Mexican Pets the list goes on..

Unfortunately seems most bands today grew up listening to the Libertines. It's a hell of a lot more sanitized and formulaic. I can't imagine they're would be enough bands out there to fill a Dead Elvis compilation these days tbh.
They're are exceptions of course - good music still around in tiny pockets, Adebisi Shank and Halves are doing a good job.

cognoscente

Are you guys defining indie music as music you like?

dSTAR

Dudess wrote: »

I'm still mulling over whether I should ban you for including Sultans of Ping FC in your list though...

OK I'll take that back

What about another Cork band The Frank & Walters from around the same time? Yay or nay?

I can't help but thinking that the best concerts/gigs I have been were in the 1990's. Memories of Sonic Youth at Sunstroke in Dalymount Park, Spiritualized at the Rock Garden and Nick Cave at the SFX still give me tingles when I think about them. Good good times ...

30txsbzmcu2k9w

cognoscente wrote: »

Are you guys defining indie music as music you like?

and Alternative.

dSTAR

Gideon Rich Nurse wrote: »

The Frames, despite all the flack they have gotten, were never afraid of lo-fi recordings and super-8 videos.

I saw them play one of their first gigs in McGonagles back in the day when they were well known as buskers on Grafton Street. I think I paid the princely sum of 50 pence to see them. Their music will always hold many good memories of Dublin for me in the 1990's and is still relevant imo.

Dudess

cognoscente wrote: »

Are you guys defining indie music as music you like?

There can be a level of ambiguity to it, but I'd agree Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains aren't indie... maybe it could be argued they were "alternative" at one stage. Nirvana... did get lumped in with indie before they became massive. Other groups mentioned by the OP may have had chart success but were originally indie.

dSTAR wrote: »

OK I'll take that back

That was actually directed at stovelid for referring to the Sultans as "poxy"... :pac:

What about another Cork band The Frank & Walters from around the same time? Yay or nay?

Liked them a lot back in '91. Then they got samey.

I can't help but thinking that the best concerts/gigs I have been were in the 1990's. Memories of Sonic Youth at Sunstroke in Dalymount Park, Spiritualized at the Rock Garden and Nick Cave at the SFX still give me tingles when I think about them. Good good times ...

Yeah, pre Britpop was fantastic - nothing has bettered it (in my opinion). And I was only in my early to mid teens in the early to mid 90s so it's not like the argument of associating it with really great times in my life would apply to me. I was in school and too young to go to gigs.
When I started college (1996) Britpop was obviously in full swing and I hated it - the fact that this was my generation's "scene"... Around that time, soul/funk/disco became really popular in Cork and things stayed like that for at least the next five years, in the form of club nights, pirate radio, soul "weekenders" etc. I went with all that rather than the Britpop stuff.

PaulBrewer

Placid_Casual wrote: »

I think this is more to do with a sort of nostalgia, rather than it having anything to do with the actual music? As in, you associate the music you mentioned with good times in your life. I mean, you just said that the last 13 years of music didn't cut it for you.
There's plenty of music from that period that's as good (or better) than what you've listed. But it just probably doesn't have the connotations it did when you were younger.
For me right now, my favourite music is what i've been listening to the last couple of years. I've kind of grown out of a what I was listening to in the 90s, I guess because I was quite young at the time.
I like the buzz of discovering a new artist or album. Its like the start of a new relationship, exciting and full of possibilities. Except with music, you can sleep around and not feel bad.

PC has hit the nail on the head, I believe.

I have the '17' theory, whatever music you were into at the age of 17 (+/- a couple of years) is YOUR music. To say that Music was better 'then' is actually a very receptive unimaginative argument that pops up for every generation.

For me it was bands like The Jam but I have mates who are in their early 30s who think, nay believe, that The Stone Roses are the best band ever.
I look at them both now for what they are - very good bands of their time.

There's also the 20/10 rule - the coolest thing now is based on what happened 20ish years ago and the un-coolest 10. Think about it across the music genres for different decades, provided the decade had a definitive musical style or styles.

Unfortunately the 17 rule can often apply to Hairstyles.....

The answer the OPs question - Indie Music is only just starting. I think all that's going to be left IS Indie.

Placid_Casual

PaulBrewer wrote: »

I have the '17' theory, whatever music you were into at the age of 17 (+/- a couple of years) is YOUR music. To say that Music was better 'then' is actually a very receptive unimaginative argument that pops up for every generation.

Yeah, that's pretty much what I was getting at but I think you've probably summed it up a bit better.
I don't think its a universal rule by any means though. When I was 17 my favourite bands were probably Oasis, REM and Manic Street Preachers.

Oasis meant nothing to me before I was even in my 20s.
REM still are and will always be, one of my favourite bands. I think my love of them had nothing to do with age - they were never a "17" kind of band anyway. (Kind of wish they'd call it a day though, they're this close to just being embarrassing. But that's by the by.)
The Manics will always have a place in my heart, even though i've moved on. I certainly don't think they're one of the best bands ever but they meant a lot at a certain point in my life.

I think some people just stop listening to music as much as they get older (not necessarily suggesting this is the case with the OP btw) and just listen to the same stuff they always did. Personally, in my late 20s, i'm listening to more music than I ever have before.

whiterob81

PaulBrewer wrote: »

PC has hit the nail on the head, I believe.

I have the '17' theory, whatever music you were into at the age of 17 (+/- a couple of years) is YOUR music. To say that Music was better 'then' is actually a very receptive unimaginative argument that pops up for every generation.

For me it was bands like The Jam but I have mates who are in their early 30s who think, nay believe, that The Stone Roses are the best band ever.
I look at them both now for what they are - very good bands of their time.

There's also the 20/10 rule - the coolest thing now is based on what happened 20ish years ago and the un-coolest 10. Think about it across the music genres for different decades, provided the decade had a definitive musical style or styles.

Unfortunately the 17 rule can often apply to Hairstyles.....

The answer the OPs question - Indie Music is only just starting. I think all that's going to be left IS Indie.

very well put, i'd have to agree with a lot of this. I do notice that teenagers are currently dressing like it's the 1980's. skinny jeans, unironic mullets, moustaches and synthesisers have all come back into fashion.

for example, metallica were a complete joke during the 90's, but they seem to be gaining a certain amount of respect again

when i was about 19/20, blondie and the ramones were back in fashion in a big way.

personally, i have to say that i can't stand a lot of the bands that i used to listen to when i was about 17. i would have listened to the verve, sebadoh and the prodigy a good bit, but i've moved on from then. and a lot of the bands from the early 90's have aged really badly in my view. nirvana and alice in chains being 2 exceptions.

i think declaring that all current music is null and void is a bit misguided. there is still plenty of bands making exciting music out there under the radar, like melt banana, fleet foxes, burial, skream, municipal waste, isis, converge etc. the list goes on.

i do think that the music marketed by mtv 2 and the nme as indie music does have a certain homogenised feel to it, as do indie films. and i can see how it might be possible to view the current crop of bands as samey and redundant, but it wasn't all that diferent during the grunge years.

And also, i wouldn't have a huge love for a lot of the bands named in the first thread. music has gotten a lot better since then imo. maybe it was the summer i spent workin in whelans, but i can't listen to a lot of the early 90's/late 80's stuff now

nyarlothothep

hmmm, when I was 17 I remember trying hard to get into The Strokes, to find something good about them since so many were saying they were great, but I just didn't like them at all, have to say I've always been more impressed by music from previous decades, songs that I have never heard before but when I listen to them I think yeah, thats really good.

Hopefully nme style indie will not be the only music which is around in years to come, I'm totally in favour of musical anarchy, where any number of styles can co-exist rather than one being dominant in the media. According to the 20 years rule, the glorious 90s should be making a comeback next year with the attendant fashions, which were much cooler!

PaulBrewer

nyarlothothep wrote: »

I'm totally in favour of musical anarchy, where any number of styles can co-exist rather than one being dominant in the media.

That's what real Indie actually is !

Kold

Dudess wrote: »

I'm still mulling over whether I should ban you for including Sultans of Ping FC in your list though...

Will pre-buy you a pint if you ban them for slagging Radiohead too. The Bends was Radiohead's second worst album. Fail to see that and you fail at music.

Earthhorse

dSTAR wrote: »

The new crop of bands/artists that came after just didn't cut it for me. Anyone feel the same or am I just a has been?

We can be has beens together.

PaulBrewer wrote: »

I have the '17' theory, whatever music you were into at the age of 17 (+/- a couple of years) is YOUR music.

There's something to that alright, I even posted something similar in the Cluas forums about this, because not only is this around the time you're first beginning to really listen to albums and maybe branch outside of chart music to find your own bands but a lot of formative stuff is happening in your life in or around this time. Your first kiss, first boyfriend, first time. Lots of firsts, and that cements the music you're listening to at the time deep within your mind.

PaulBrewer wrote: »

To say that Music was better 'then' is actually a very receptive unimaginative argument that pops up for every generation.

However...how...ever, I do think there was something about music and the movement, specifically grunge, in the early 90s that hasn't been seen since. For starters, there was Nirvana and Kurt Cobain, who, love him or loathe him is now a music icon, a fact sadly cemented by his suicide, but which would have happened anyway. And a lot of the bands involved were really good; Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots. Ad to that the fact that some indie stalwarts, such as REM, and even everybody's favourite band to hate, U2, were producing their best work (Automatic and Achtung Baby respectively) and you can see why a case can be made for the 90s being the last time music "had it so good".

Hell, even Neil Young, that God in the pantheon of rock stars, credits the grunge artists with revitalising his creativity. Not to mention countless other artists such as Beck and Rage that exploded onto the scene at the time with stuff that really did sound different to what has gone before.

There was sort of a confluence in the early 90s, a real excitement about music and what it could do, that certainly had been seen before, but which I don't think has been seen since. Which isn't to discount all the artists that are out there producing good music today but it's far more disparate and intermittent (which may well be truer to an Indie ideal but not what the OP was getting at).

Kold

I think the indie genre like all phases just got stale and whilst most people looked elsewhere for their music - The late 90s saw the new/exciting torch passed onto electronic music and people got left behind. Indie music may have died back then but good music? Come off it. The electronic labels ARE the indie labels now. A lot of what we're seeing now is major label acts imitating music that has come and gone, some of it pleasant, some of it good, most of it dire.

As for the '17' thing, I disagree. I think it's just building something up as bigger than it was and not really trying to appreciate more current stuff.

George B

Indie Music is said to have its beginnings in the ninety sixties where most of the music was pop, Rock n' Roll, and R &B. As Indie Music progressed through the seventies and eighties it became known as progressive rock, which transformed into alternative music in the 90's.

O'Neill

I always thought that 'Indie Rock' has it's roots in punk than progressive rock.

Decuc500

Looking at what 'indie' music is now I'm glad I came of age in the late 80's, early 90's. Alternative music back then really was an alternative to what was being played on daytime radio. You'd discover bands like Husker Du, Sonic Youth or Superchunk on some obscure radio station or in some magazine.

Indie meant being signed to an independant record label, now it's a certain look or sound.

Back then alternative rock music was just kids in t-shirts turning up their amps and rocking out, now it's all poxy Franz Ferdinand bands in slacks, skinny ties and pretentious videos and synths!

Maybe I'm just getting old and cranky.

starttheend

First time posting here but thought Id say, personal opinion that the nineties were when a huge amount of Indie/Alt music became a viable mainstream option for record labels with the success of Nirvana etc. followed by Blur/Oasis/Britpop era. What we see these days is what I would refer to as the careerist indie band, think Franz Ferdinand, Kings of Leon, Razorlight(it's a long list) who are in essence heavily stylised, career orientated pop bands playing guitar based music. I would argue that there is still a huge amount of brilliant music being created out there, the equal of any era, it just takes an effort to look past the MTV2/NME bands thrown in our faces continously and find it. Personally Wolf Parade, Sunset Rubdown, Animal Collective and other such bands have hugely excited me in the past few years. There is great music out threre, I just find that as you get older it gets harder to put the time into finding it!

super_furry

Meh, everyone says the exact same of the music they listened to as teenagers. Music is as good or bad as it's always been.

cherryghost

old thread is old

S.M.B.

Decuc500 wrote: »

Looking at what 'indie' music is now I'm glad I came of age in the late 80's, early 90's. Alternative music back then really was an alternative to what was being played on daytime radio. You'd discover bands like Husker Du, Sonic Youth or Superchunk on some obscure radio station or in some magazine.

Indie meant being signed to an independant record label, now it's a certain look or sound.

Back then alternative rock music was just kids in t-shirts turning up their amps and rocking out, now it's all poxy Franz Ferdinand bands in slacks, skinny ties and pretentious videos and synths!

Maybe I'm just getting old and cranky.

And what difference does any of that make? Should it not be judged on the quality of it's musical output?

Berating a genre/scene based solely on issues such as style/coolness/commercialness is just as bad as doing the opposite imo.

nyarlothothep

I don't get this hostility towards saying that you don't like a type of music which is the product of a given era. Example you could just hate impressionism, or neo classicism because the fundamental tenets of those styles don't appeal to you. Ergo, even though I was a teenager at the time and hence "impressionable" to new styles I did not like bands like the strokes or the whole post punk revival. I prefer 90s indie and before to anything that has been released during the 00s. I'll go one further and say that the 00s style is inferior as it largely involves imitation rather than actual innovation. As I think, everything behaves in waves, including quality of output. Its not a flat line progression of quality, this makes no sense to me as it doesn't cohere with how the universe works.

ElaElaElano

There's nothing wrong with indie music if you look beyond the indie section in golden discs. Some absolutely amazing bands have been prominent this decade- cursive, q and not u, small brown bike, we were promised jetpacks, trail of dead, bombay bicycle club, early death cab, foals, minus the bear, pretty girls make graves, modest mouse...I could go on all day.

I don't agree at all with defining any given decade as the holy grail of music...the 80s was brilliant, the 90s was brilliant, the 00s have been brilliant.

iamhunted

Earthhorse wrote: »

specifically grunge, in the early 90s that hasn't been seen since. For starters, there was Nirvana ....

I could have swore the pixies where doing the same kind of stuff in 1987

EoghanWalsh

em, all those bands mentioned weren't really that indie, wouldn't you say? Like, I'd say there were lots more real indie bands around then. And there are tons of indie bands around now. This is prob just dragging out the what is indie debate, but the Stone Roses aren't indie, they're just rock. Indie rock is something kinda specific, I suppose the best way to define it is to ask "is this band tough?" If the answer is no then you may have yourself an indie band. And tons of bands fit that description, just most of them are, by their nature, under the radar, and it's almost always a British radar, cos Irish indie bands are almost all complete ****.

iamhunted

sometimes peopel just find it handier to tag music with genre labels.

personally I think theres more independent music around now than ever before. it's not on the radio and its not in hotpress but normally is in the best place where real alternative, independent music should be - somewhere where you have to go looking for it.

tech77

Decuc500 wrote: »

Looking at what 'indie' music is now I'm glad I came of age in the late 80's, early 90's. Alternative music back then really was an alternative to what was being played on daytime radio. You'd discover bands like Husker Du, Sonic Youth or Superchunk on some obscure radio station or in some magazine.

Indie meant being signed to an independant record label, now it's a certain look or sound.

Back then alternative rock music was just kids in t-shirts turning up their amps and rocking out, now it's all poxy Franz Ferdinand bands in slacks, skinny ties and pretentious videos and synths!

Maybe I'm just getting old and cranky.

I find it hard to disagree with this.

Things just seemed more organic in the late 80s and 90s compared to today- i like Earthhorse's confluence description btw.

Valmont

I would say that the music considered to be "indy" today seems to be a lot more homogenous than the indy music of the '80s and '90s.

A Disgrace

Re: Babybird.. forget 'you're gorgeous' and listen to any of their albums.. the most alternative of all the britpop bands..

damone

indie or alternative labels mean nothing now and havnt done since the early to mid eighties ,indie music and alternative music came from the independant charts which used to have most of the early punk bands ,a few goth bands and genuine alternative bands {think half man half biscuit},basically it was all on REAL alternative independant record labels {rough trade,chiswick,crass rec,stiff rec }then suddenly stock aitken and waterman s chart **** was in the independant charts cause it was released on offshot labels of majors,you wud literally see #1 the smiths #2black flag#3 kylie .from then on alternative became more a musical style rather than a lifestyle ,how can a band genuinely be an ALTERNATIVE or INDEPENDANT if they are on major labels or playing the industry game ,what are they then the ALTERNATIVE to or INDEPENDANT to???

lionel ritchie

Earthhorse wrote: »

However...how...ever, I do think there was something about music and the movement, specifically grunge, in the early 90s that hasn't been seen since. For starters, there was Nirvana and Kurt Cobain, who, love him or loathe him is now a music icon, a fact sadly cemented by his suicide, but which would have happened anyway.

Not sure I can agree with you there Earthhorse. I suspect his iconic status has endured because he topped himself not neccessarily because he was going to continue to be an high profile, influential creative force. There are indicators there that his star was starting to wane before his sad passing and I suspect that by now he'd be remembered with about as much fondness as lesser lights like Soundgarden if he was still chugging away. For example Geffen were deeply, deeply disappointed with sales of In Utero pretty much everywhere in the second half of 93 and into 94. MTV were scarcely @rsed with the Unplugged Show and seriously considered binning it.

whiterob81

Decuc500 wrote: »

Looking at what 'indie' music is now I'm glad I came of age in the late 80's, early 90's. Alternative music back then really was an alternative to what was being played on daytime radio. You'd discover bands like Husker Du, Sonic Youth or Superchunk on some obscure radio station or in some magazine.

Indie meant being signed to an independant record label, now it's a certain look or sound.

Back then alternative rock music was just kids in t-shirts turning up their amps and rocking out, now it's all poxy Franz Ferdinand bands in slacks, skinny ties and pretentious videos and synths!

Maybe I'm just getting old and cranky.

You are old and cranky.

People are still out there discovering music by bands on independent labels. A lot of the time, they're using the internet more so nowadays, discussion boards and the like. Even amazon is a great source for finding out about independent music even though it's a huge multinational corporation. But because of them, I've discovered more independent bands that i genuinely like over the last 4 or 5 years than i ever have from reading the NME. I've discovered bands like isis and kylesa that just don't get regular press coverage

It's true that bands promoted by the NME as indie are more often than not not genuinely indie, but that doesn't mean genuine interesting independent music is not being made. I've actually found that music magazines are the last place to discover decent music because (i) music journalists are tools who can't write who like music by bands that can't play (ii) a lot of the reviews read like edited press releases rather than genuine opinion pieces. If every mediocre indie is getting an 8/10 review everytime they bring out an album with 4 decent songs I start to become suspicious

I get the impression that the main problem you have is that people are not discovering the same bands that you did and that things have moved on

also Franz Ferdinand haven't been popular for a while now

and husker du and sonic youth were signed to majors

and superchunk sucked

jill_valentine

This idea is bizarre and frustrating.

All that's happened is that the nature of Indie music has changed. The centre of it, and it's defining characteristics, moved away from Britain and British influences to an extent. It's centred mainly around North America now, and that's fine. There is amazing stuff coming out of the US and Canada if can afford the time and patience hunt around for it, and fair enough maybe it doesn't appeal to you, but it's there.

What complicates the matter is that nowadays, a load of pop has been re-branded as Indie. Stuff like The Killers is consciously marketed as "indie", complete with lo fi guitars and fakey Britishy sounding vocals, while at the same time, actual independent music has caught up and surpassed traditional label output in terms of production values. So pop is trying to turn into what it thinks Indie is, while actual independent music is getting free of the restrictions that confined it to that sound in the first place.

Back in the 80's and 90's indie bands couldn't really afford to make any other music than they did. They just didn't have the production resources to make anything other than shouty guitar driven tracks or distortiony grunge or whatever, but things have changed now and the music has changed with it. To give examples that are in fresh in my mind, Final Fantasy probably couldn't or wouldn't have made the music he makes if he'd been doing his thing back then. His music doesn't necessarily give it away on first listen, but it's entirely dependent on the man himself having access to the production and looping software he uses.

Arcade Fire recorded the bulk of their first album in their apartment. They just couldn't have done that in the 80s or 90s, not with the music they make. They are signed to a label - Superchunk's label, incidentally - but they put their own money in, they own their own masters, and they picked Merge over half a dozen majors that offered them far more money for far less control. They were and are fiercely independent, and no less so just because they were successful in spite of that. There's a whole network of bands that have grown up around them too, that have benefitted from the momentum they've generated and the resources they've made available, without conforming to any particular sound or genre.

In the meantime, the internet totally flattened the playing field in indie's favour. Digital music sales have made it affordable for teeny tiny little bands to get their stuff to an audience, and the advent of internet word-of-mouth offers good music an audience to get to. Bands like Land of Talk or Sunset Rubdown or Beirut and so on, giddyingly good stuff that doesn't have any singular sound and would have toiled away in total obscurity - rather than just uh... near total obscurity even if they had been able to commit anything to disc without label help.

It just seems absurd to me to suggest that "indie music died", all this considered. There is still plenty of great independently made and independently minded music out there, really exciting stuff that you never would have heard, nevermind heard of, even a decade ago - it just covers a far broader spectrum than it used to.

whiterob81

Excellent post Jill, you put it far more eloquently than I could have hoped. Especially the part about commercial indie bands being produced to sound like old indie records. You can see the same thing in cinema where romantic comedies are dressed up as independent films by putting all the characters in charity shop clothing rather than prada.
Often what happens is that a band will come up something unique and original on their own terms and become a surprise success. The bigger studios and labels will steal certain elements from it come up with a watered down version to try and tap in to the same demographic. Hence, authentic sounding indie records by the view etc.
If you look beyond what mtv2 and nme has to offer, there is still a lot of amazing stuff being produced out there

Decuc500

whiterob81 wrote: »

I get the impression that the main problem you have is that people are not discovering the same bands that you did and that things have moved on

also Franz Ferdinand haven't been popular for a while now

and husker du and sonic youth were signed to majors

and superchunk sucked

I can't disagree with anything Jill Valentine says.

In truth I'm not qualified to comment about the current state of 'indie' music because I don't tend to seek out new and interesting bands like I used to. I'm sure there's loads of great stuff out there. There always will be.

I just get annoyed with the fact that the word 'Indie' has entered pop culture to describe a particular sound or look.

I'm well aware that Husker Du and Sonic Youth signed to major labels. Sure, Husker Du made possibly their best record after leaving SST.

But Superchunk doesn't suck. No band could write Slack Motherf***er and suck.

whiterob81

Decuc500 wrote: »

I can't disagree with anything Jill Valentine says.

In truth I'm not qualified to comment about the current state of 'indie' music because I don't tend to seek out new and interesting bands like I used to. I'm sure there's loads of great stuff out there. There always will be.

I just get annoyed with the fact that the word 'Indie' has entered pop culture to describe a particular sound or look.

I'm well aware that Husker Du and Sonic Youth signed to major labels. Sure, Husker Du made possibly their best record after leaving SST.

But Superchunk doesn't suck. No band could write Slack Motherf***er and suck.

I apologise if I was out of line. I can see the frustration at having incredibly weak bands sullying what was once a by word for a great ideolagy.

I suppose i just get annoyed at people moping about the current state of music when it's actually pretty healthy (record sales aside). It's depressing to listen to, and frustrating when a lot of fantastic music is still being created under the radar.

Do yourself a favour, check out meanderthal by torche and static tensions by kylesa. It might give you a bit more hope for alternative rock music

Decuc500

whiterob81 wrote: »

I apologise if I was out of line. I can see the frustration at having incredibly weak bands sullying what was once a by word for a great ideolagy.

I suppose i just get annoyed at people moping about the current state of music when it's actually pretty healthy (record sales aside). It's depressing to listen to, and frustrating when a lot of fantastic music is still being created under the radar.

Do yourself a favour, check out meanderthal by torche and static tensions by kylesa. It might give you a bit more hope for alternative rock music

It's cool, you weren't out of line. I was feeling nostalgic for the pre-Brit Pop years when alternative American rock bands were getting coverage and Superchunk made the cover of NME. (really wished I kept that issue!)

When you get older and look back at the bands that introduced you to an alternative to what was in the charts, you tend to think there's nothing that cool out today. But of course there always will be...

whiterob81

Decuc500 wrote: »

It's cool, you weren't out of line. I was feeling nostalgic for the pre-Brit Pop years when alternative American rock bands were getting coverage and Superchunk made the cover of NME. (really wished I kept that issue!)

When you get older and look back at the bands that introduced you to an alternative to what was in the charts, you tend to think there's nothing that cool out today. But of course there always will be...

aye, actually britpop kind of ruined music in the 90s imo. Bar the manics and some blur, it was pretty much all terrible. I think that was one of the things that helped start the trend for bad fake indie.

The music scene seemed to shift focus from all these interesting underground bands to swaggering lager lout oasis wannabes

Things have recovered nicely since!