So today I was thinking about something that people might agree with and might disagree with, but give it thought. Why is Indie becoming a genre? When did this trend start? When I started listening to Indie some 8 years ago it was not a genre but a holding place for original thought and sound before it got a name. Indie was a place for bands to go when they did not have a title, when they were something different from pop, rock or metal. It was something electric, something you could not put a name to until people were ready to follow that band and that sound, and give it a name.
Now I can understand giving something a name with Indie in it: Indie rock—sure; Indie Emo—great; but just labeling bands as Indie makes no sense to me. Indie is just an adjective, not a title. The music community defines it as a number of genres, scenes, styles, and cultures of music that differ away from the pop music mainstream. To me, this definition means anything that breaks away from the norm of music. Therefore, everything, in short, was at one time Indie. It strayed away from what everyone was doing at the time with bands like: the Ramones, The Sex Pistols, Black Flag, and (when new wave was king) the birth of Emo from Joy Division. These were all at one-point genres without a name until they were given one. Now, Indie has turned into a genre and why is this? Some of the best bands of today’s subjective standards were at first labeled as Indie: Brand New, Thursday, Appleseed Cast, Death Cab, TBS, (just to name a few) but these bands have moved out and have found a genre like Emo, hardcore, rock, and punk. If we keep labeling bands as Indie, what is the next place a band without a label can go to wait for their scene? I guess you just can’t place a band in a genre that was never a genre to begin with. A word like Indie is, literally, independent from any set genre of today; therefore, Indie can never be anything more than just a temporary holding cell for new sounds until society catches up with a more permanent label.S. Graves
May 6th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
I totally agree! It’s not just a music genre, it’s a fashion label too. I hate kids at school who say “I’m so indie, I listen to Panic! At the Disco and wear skinny jeans.” “well no, you’re a bit more emo” “no I’m not because I don’t dye my hair black and I wear colourful t-shirts” It’s like the emo take over only now the indie take over! Mind you, one could compare this to the punk take over. In the sixties, rock started to get edgier and edgier until the edgies separated and formed punk. Punk’s still around and I’m not complaining. The one thing we can still smile over is that if you go into a music store, they don’t have an indie section so the man isn’t recognizing it as a genre. At least, that’s how it is in Canada. I define indie as any unsigned artist, thus “INDIEpendent” I agree with your indie-rock, that’s what it is essentially. It’s rock without a record corp. Wow, I just realized that spell check recognizes the word “indie” but not “emo”. Funny stuff.
We could always call un-genred bands “undie” for “undie-scovered genre” but that (undie) sounds like something you wear under your pants if you catch my drift.