I have noticed this past year that
there has been a rise in the popularity and quantity of “Indie” bands. But what
is “Indie” music and should we care about its sudden rise to the music charts?
To start off lets get into what “Indie” music is. “Indie” music is a vague term
that really doesn’t describe anything in particular. It is sort of a cop out
genre to name a band that usually mixes elements of Pop, Punk, Emo, Alternative
or Rock. It seems like when a band sounds like Coldplay but is somewhat
influenced by any of the genres that I already mentioned it is automatically
considered “Indie”. The term “Indie” when I was growing up was used to describe
bands that were not on a major label but released records independently. The
closest thing we have to “Indie” bands back then was the stuff being played on
college radio stations and was called College Rock. So when did this change and
why?
Well I am not exactly sure when and why this changed but I think it must have
started around the time that Bubblegum Pop was at the top of the charts in the
late 1990’s. I think the music industry was looking for the next big thing to
replace Bubblegum Pop when it died out so they started finding out what kids
were listening to in the underground. The music industry was then lead to
College Rock or Pop Punk bands and a sort of Rock Revolution happened at the end
of the 20th century and carried over into the first few years of the 21st
century. Although Rock music has always been around and always will be around it
enjoyed its few years in the spotlight while the next trend of music was coming
up.
The next trend ended up being “Indie” music which was essentially some of the
bands who did not quite fit into the Rock Revolution but stayed under the radar
on, you guessed it, college radio. Some of the first “Indie” bands to come out
were bands that were actually good like The Strokes or The White
Stripes. These bands were never that popular during the Rock Revolution but
somehow were good enough to get signed to a major label. Once these bands made
it big the copycats seemed to come out of the woodworks just like they did when
Bubblegum Pop was running ramped. I have to mention that I do not classify any
of the bands that I have mentioned so far as “indie”.
Once the so called “Indie” genre was booming we were just inundated with
horrible bands that should have stayed on college radio and had a fan base of
their friends and families. But no, the music industry pushed and pushed to make
this the big new thing in music in attempt to “revive” the music industry. They
even had their friends in television and movies help them out. The most notable
people who helped out this fake genre of musical crap was the FOX television
network and their show The OC. This show features a lot of “indie” music either
as a soundtrack or as live guest performances. I must say now that I do watch
The OC but not for the music but because its funny and the women are hot on it.
Radio also has helped the “indie” genre as well by playing this crap non-stop as
well. You know The Killers were kind of catchy when their first single
came out but I soon realised how much this band sucks. I really don’t need to
hear them on the radio once an hour. The Killers are not the only guilty
band to receive an unworthy push by record label executives who know nothing.
Bands like Modest Mouse, Death Cab For Cutie, The Trews,
The Hives, The Vines, Hot Hot Heat and anyone else who suck
are guilty as well.
I think that the real problem with “indie” music is that most of the bands do
suck and when they suck they suck so bad that nobody even takes the time to try
to classify them into the appropriate genre. It’s almost like each genre is
fighting to not include the band in their genre so they are forced to create
their own genre. The Killers are obviously a pop-rock band but the
pop-rock world is not willing to accept them.
I’m sure that this trend in the music industry will pass just like all the crap
we have dealt with over the years (Disco, Bubblegum Pop…). It’s just sad that
the record industry doesn’t realize that making genres like “Indie” doesn’t help
“revive” the music industry but hurts it. It just adds more disposable bands
into the mix and once they fade out there is noting to fall back on except Rock.
So please stop listening to “Indie” music and buying the bands records as it is
not a real genre of music. Find some real great rock bands and support them and
maybe we can weed out the crap that the music industry pushes on us constantly.
Just remember to listen to music with your ears and appreciate the great bands
out there signed and unsigned, not the crap that is over marketed to you daily.
