I’m using this opportunity to recycle a post which I made in a thread about Snoop Dogg and rap. It was at the tail end of an already-dying thread, and was sort of a hijack besides. But I think it should be discussed. Basically, in that thread, I was responding to something that I seem to see a lot, on this board and among people in real life:
“How can you call Modest Mouse/Built to Spill/The Decemberists/etc indie rock? They’re on [major record label]!”
There’s this idea that I run into a lot that the term “indie rock” refers only to whether or not the band is actually on an independent record label. I think maybe there was a time, years ago, when that’s what “indie rock” actually meant, but now the genre has expanded and branched off into so many directions, and had bands sign on to big record labels, that you can’t really say that anymore. I mean, I don’t know anyone who honestly thinks that The Decemberists are not an indie band because they’re on Capital Records. The label “indie” has now come to refer to certain elements in the music of various bands that binds them together, however loosely. These elements include esoteric, poetic or otherwise unique lyrics, unconventional use of instruments, singing voices that differ from those of mainstream vocalists, and an overall aspiration to either create a new style or harken back to an older one.
What do The Decemberists and Destroyer (side project of Daniel Bejar of The New Pornographers) have in common? The nasal singing voice, for one, and the quirky lyrics - the word “carabinieri” (Italian police) is used in Watercolors Into The Ocean. In Your Blood, he sings, “I went for you/in military time/and then I waited well into the 2300s,” in a voice that emulates Bob Dylan. Not something that Britney Spears or even Audioslave or Incubus would do. Those bands are not classified as indie because there’s nothing that’s deliberatly self-conscious or quirky about their lyrics. Audioslave and Incubus are cool - very cool - but Daniel Bejar of Destroyer is hip. There’s a difference - again, it’s damn hard to explain. The interaction between Destroyer and its listener is like a 25 year old grad school student trying to pick up a chick at a party. The interaction between Incubus and its listener is like a 21 year old rocker guy trying to pick up a chick at a party.
What do Built to Spill and The Decemberists have in common? Musically, very little. Lyrically, there’s a connection. When Doug Martsch sings “that brontosaurus must have been a thousand miles high” in Big Dipper, he’s joining Daniel Bejar and Colin Meloy of The Decemberists in the quirky-lyrics club. What does Built to Spill have in common with My Bloody Valentine (a band which formed in the 80s, is never referred to as being “indie,” but is popular with a lot of indie rockers?) Lyrically, nothing, but musically, they share an emphasis on wall-of-sound guitar distortion and reverb. MBV uses enough of it to put off the average radio-listener, who is not accustomed to such a sound, although a Smashing Pumpkins fan would probably like it. My Morning Jacket does the same thing with reverb - their songs are soaked in reverb to the point where the singer’s voice floats away like a ghost. This is not something that will get heavy radio play because most people don’t want to appreciate their music, they want to hear it. But an indie rocker will be more willing to listen to MMJ because he will be - typically - more open to music that deviates from the norm, and he will find MMJ’s songs hauntingly beautiful, and not meandering and boring as an average listener would. Even though MMJ is not strictly defined as an indie band the same way The Decemberists would be, it enjoys popularity among the indie set because it’s so different. So there’s this issue of certain bands being popular in the indie scene even though they might not really be considered part of the genre.
What sets The Blow apart from Fergie of the Black Eyed Peas? The bumpin’ electronic beats are often similar - but the lead singer of The Blow sings, “when you’re holding me, we make a pair of parentheses” and “if something in the deli aisle makes you cry, of course I’ll put my arm around you and I’ll walk you outside.” She’s trying to be quirky with the lyrics instead of treating them as just something to accompany the music.
OK, so all these bands are listened to by a certain type of person. Young, in the 18-25 demographic, often a college student. Frequently former theater and band-geek kids, though not always. Usually artistically inclined - most indie kids I know are also into drawing, painting, or playing music themselves. They dress a certain way - blazers, glasses (it’s not uncool to wear glasses in the indie scene,) interesting shoes, usually vintage clothes often from goodwill or from used-clothing stores that specifically cater to the indie rock crowd (the ones here are cheap, not cynically overpriced.) I’m engaging in a little stereotyping here, sure, but the last big indie rock show I went to, pretty much everyone was dressed in a quirky way. Not necessarily all the same - there was a lot of variation - but they were definitely trying to capture the look. So those are indie kids. I can’t really explain it any further - you’d have to go to a show and look around. And no, you don’t have to dress or act like one of these people to listen to or enjoy music that’s classified as “indie rock.”
This is my conception of indie as a scene, anyway. And this is from my firsthand experience in the indie community itself. I’m sort of conflicted on this conception, because on the one hand, I think that “indie” is kind of a meaningless label due to all the different and widely varying bands that get classified as such. I mean, I’m sort of against the idea of rigid genre classification in general, and think a real music person is going to care more about what the band sounds like and less about trying to define it. On the other hand, I think the Wikipedia entry for indie rock lines up pretty well with my idea of what it is as a very broad genre.
So what’s your view on this? Is this how you see “indie rock?” Or do you have a different idea of what it means?