Exploring the Culture of Indie

When a new genre comes out it is usually to meet the needs of an arising group of adolescents. Rock and roll was considered inappropriate in its day of doo-wop and jazz. In the 1920’s jazz music would lead a good kid down the road of liquor. Punk is for the colored haired, over pierced teen with a problem with authority and believes they are a vampire.  It is as though the people who wish to break the molds are criticized for it, and the music just becomes the anthem of the rising rebels.  I know that these observations are not absolute for all members of these cultures, I listen to punk and I am quite a girly girl at times. I mentioned all these different types of genres, but I am not going to report on those cultures, instead this post is going to be about Indie. Now in my opinion Indie fans are coffee lovers who wear beanies and write limericks. I understand that is wrong but that is just the culture that comes to mind when I think about it.

Basic History:

According to Wikipedia Indie music came out around the 80’s in the US and UK to represent music produced by independent labels. Then later was used to describe punk and grunge albums produced in the 90’s and 2000’s. I would categorize indie with the grunge of the 1990’s, you know the straight long hair and flannel around the waist. Based off just the two sentences I read, Indie was a blanket term for anything alternative and that makes a lot of sense. The 80’s seemed to have been a big time for new styles of music to emerge including punk and techno.  

Looking into the women scene:

Gina Arnold has said that in the 90’s indie music was primarily male artists and was even geared toward men in her article on Liz Phair. An article from The Atlantic by Deborah Conan said that where more hardcore sounds were prominent so were the male artists whereas women only appeared on sympathetic radio stations. Conan also said that “…the idea (at least theoretically) was that anyone could get a band together, learn to play, and maybe even press a record and take the show on the road...” besides the fact that Women were not as in the crowd as one would like, this music was for the people who wanted to believe they could make it in music. One could sing about their troubled lives and other young adults would relate leading to them buying the said band’s music. As I did just a basic google search of “top indie girl bands of the 90’s”, what I got were just articles of “female-fronted”. I took that as being just the singer was female, and I am not sure that is the best representation that the 90’s should have about the female gender in indie music. Even as I scrolled through the pages and even clicked on the links, the list still had mostly male bands. The top band in indie now is even all male! According to flavorwire.com some of the ten essential artists of the 90's were Liz Phair, Veruca Salt, Kim Gordon, and Elastica. Why is it women have not been more present in the indie music scene? There are pages and pages of articles that pertain to the gender inequality of the music industry. Some say that women are over sexualized too much to actually be taken seriously, while others just say that listeners are just naturally sexist. According to quotes on humanhuman.com from other artists there has been a rise in women in the producing and DJ-ing scene. So in the 90's when women found a style of music that was for everybody, did they just not get popular because they were women? I was not able to discover much on this topic that truly gave me an answer, but I will keep looking into this topic; because now I am intrigued as to why women have not been more popular in the music industry.

What is big now?:

According to Ranker.com the number one indie band is the Artic Monkeys, which happened to be a favorite band of one of my best friends. I also looked on thetoptens.com and they also happened to have "Artic Monkeys" as their number one. So I decided to text my good friend who dresses punk complete with the bright colored hair and black jeans. My friends name is Jessica Honea, she is an 18-year-old just like me and has never really “grown” out of the scene and punk era of middle school. The quick quote Jessica gave me was that she likes how unique Alex’s(Lead singer) voice is along with how each album never has the same sound. She also mentioned that her favorite song would either be knee socks or Arabella, and “The videos for the am album were great.”

Has the meaning of Indie changed?
Indie music is basically defined as a style of music recorded by an independent label, but as a classmate of mine pointed out; even the 'independent' labels are now under a larger, more popular record label. That had me wondering what does define the genre of indie? There are so many artists named as indie that reach the top charts at time, would one think of indie as being a top chart? Some articles argue that indie music has now become about the sound, and not so much about being recorded independently due the expansive use of the internet. My roommate, Annie, when I asked her about her favorite indie band("FlatBottoms"), said that their sound has changed since they signed with a more pop label. "Coldplay", who is considered an indie group has Universal as a label contract; "Arctic Monkeys" have Warner Bros. While I did notice that some other indie bands have smaller labels, as in I did not recognize the name, bands that are getting popular are getting signed with bigger and more famous labels. Is this to increase sales in records or is this for the label to have an 'overnight star'?

Final Thoughts:

I  thought that I had never listened to indie music before, as in actually searched for it. Thinking it was this weird clash between acoustic and techno, but in reality I have been listening to is for quite a while. As I looked up the lists for top indie bands, I noticed very familiar names such as “The Killers”, “The Black Keys”, and even “Imagine Dragons”. “Imagine Dragons” was the first band that I bought an album from on iTunes! This entire post is basically me finding out that I am an indie fan or at least a fan of the popular indie bands. I mean if I dug deep down into alternative music I am sure I will find my version of stereotypical indie music.I do wish that women had a more powerful presence in the indie music, or any music scene.Hopefully over the next few years or so girls will start become as prominent in music as the men. To conclude indie, in my words, is having an alternative style, either in  sound, fashion, or culture; because you are independent.