What does "indie rock" mean to you?

[Indygrrl]

@Christopher

The strange thing about this statement is that I never would have put Coldplay in the indie rock genre. I could be wrong.

If you want indie rock, look at bands like Cornershop.

::ducks::

Lol, you’re the indie guy I’m talking about!!! haha. My description was just off the top of my head in reaction to being asked what indie rock means to me. I doubt I have any in my music collection, but you never know. I don’t bother to look to see what labels bands are on, it just doesn’t go that deep for me.

[lissener]

@VCO3

Now, you just can’t tell anything, man. That chick that looks like the heiress to Lydia Lunch’s legacy might just as well be an administrative assistant that’s into Coldplay.

See, I think this is cool. I like Claudine Longet almost as much as I like Diamanda Galas; my iPod is just as likely to shuffle from ABBA to the Geraldine Fibbers, or from Walter Wanderly to Foetus. And I hope that the way I dress conveys absolutely none of that. I’m far more intrigued by people who don’t remain within the narrow first impression they give; surprise me.

[ACC_Expat]

@VCO3

That’s why I get frustrated when a band that I consider still stuck in that era manages to garner some critical acclaim and cred in '07, such as when critics went nuts over that lazy and forgettable Wolf Parade album a year or two back. To put it simply, the bar has been (thankfully) raised higher than that on every level of the craft of making records and being a band, and the Quasis and Selfs of the world have to try a hell of a lot harder to get by 10 years later.

And they should have to try harder.

DISCLAIMER: I’m a huge Spencer Krug/Wolf Parade fan…

I’m not sure if you’re talking about the production, lyrics, or overall ethos, but I think it’s a little unfair to call Apologies forgettable (I can see where some people might say lazy–I would respectfully disagree, but I can also see the other side). I know plenty of people who still go batty for “I’ll Believe in Anything” and “Grounds for Divorce” a year and a half later, so something in the album struck a chord. I’m not here to go on about either of those songs; I do like “Grounds,” but not nearly as much as some of the other songs on the album, and “I’ll Believe” isn’t even in my top 50% of favorite WP tracks.

I’m not qualified to comment on sound production, so I’ll basically leave it aside. I will freely admit that enunciation is not a particular strong point for either Krug or Boeckner and that some people have a hell of time understanding what they are saying at first (but I could say that about a million different people). Particularly with Boeckner’s vocals and aesthetic, I can see where some people say “slacker,” but I think it’s something slightly different (I’ll get to that in a second).

While Apologies doesn’t contain quite the thematic consistency of Krug’s work for Sunset Rubdown or his contributions to Swan Lake, it does begin/continue the repeating tropes of ghosts and fire in songs like “Dear Sons and Daughters of Hungry Ghosts” and “I’ll Believe in Anything” that we see elsewhere (“They Took a Vote and Said No,” “All Fires,”). Save “Dear Sons and Daughters,” Krug leaves the obsession with water that we see elsewhere mostly out of the first Wolf Parade album, and focuses more on ghosts there than he does in Sunset Rubdown stuff. I don’t think this consistency is lazy repetition as Krug will often use similar lyrics in different songs to drive at different points.

Apologies and WP themselves, more than the side projects, seem to speak to the darkest, most cynical and most judgmental feelings and fears of a fairly narrow group of people who are considered the end of Generation X by some experts, but really were too young to identify with a lot of the labels and articles written about that group. I’m thinking of people born '77/'78 to '81/'82, and yes, I’m included in that group (b. 1981). In terms of general suspicion and cynicism, we have more in common with the stereotypical GenXer, but in terms of technology and how we multitask with it, we have much more in common with the GenY group (the technology aspect is why we are a narrower group than what is called GenXY). Perhaps WP represents is the tail-end of Gen X’s take on “slacker rage.”

There’s something about the lyrics in Apologies that really gets to this reverse “get off my lawn” syndrome and the anger behind it. “Dear Sons and Daughters” is the locus, I think. “Grounds for Divorce” has an obvious application, as does “Modern World” (MW is almost too obvious), “I’ll Believe in Anything,” and even, I’d argue, “Dinner Bells.” In Boeckner’s songs there’s a focus on building–but in a fantastic sort of way (“We Built Another World” being the key example here). I think this is the difference between this tail-end group and the conception of a stereotypical GenXer.

FINAL DISCLAIMER: When speaking about something called a “generation,” generalization is inevitable. I understand that people are individuals and my use of generational labels should not be construed as total agreement with the commonly accepted “definition” of the groups described by those labels.

ETA: I’m not saying that WP are the only ones speaking to these themes, but I think they do an effective job speaking to the themes and thus their lyrics are worthy of defense from the charge of being lazy or forgettable.

[msmith537]

@ZebraShaSha

You’re making things up without actually listening to bands? You’re out of the club. I know hardcore, I know emo, I listen to the music that Linkin Park pretends to be. Modest Mouse might never have released anything hard like these bands, but their early stuff is anything but soft.

I listened to Modest Mouse over the weekend. They sound very Franz Ferdinand to me.

I don’t know what Linkin Park pretends to be other than Linkin Park.

For the most part, I don’t care about the label or a musics genre or artist (other than as a mechanism for organizing and locating my music) or how “cool” it is. If I like the way they sound, it goes on the iPod.