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Unsung Forum » When did indie music go tits up? |
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Sin Agog 2253 posts |
May 03, 2013, 08:19
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I don't think genres ever truly die as such, but for me the high-water mark was in its early, clear-eyed '80s days, although I do love a certain sound that was present in the beginning of the '90s with releases like Beat Happening's You Turn Me On (Godsend is my favourite indie song of all time!), Throwing Muses' The Real Ramona and Luna's Penthouse. Simulateneously to this, Britpop, in which revisionism and refried sounds were marketed as a new killa dilla exciting scene, may have mostly did it for England's indie output. I occasionally walk past an open stage on the seafront sometimes, see a young Indie band and think I'm witnessing some strange reanimated dinosaurs of some sort. For America, there are still a few things that trickle down which are worth a bash I guess, but the stench of irony is a hard one to shake off. I'd say Twee Pop could still potentially have some life in it, though. It's a pretty simple formula- good, ramshackle tunes delivered by unassuming geeks. Just s'long as it's not being intentionally put on, that is. Nothing worse than ersatz earnestness.
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Pursued By Trees 1135 posts |
May 03, 2013, 08:45
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It's almost always somewhat of a fools errand trying to pinpoint the precise begining and ending of (largely) music-press-defined 'movements' ... so while I search for a left-handed spanner, spirit-level with a square bubble and tin of stripey paint here are, for me anyhow, a few key historic moments in the decline ... 1990 - Sarah records release their first CD. 1991 - Cocteau Twins leave 4ad for Fontana. 1992 - Alan McGee sells half of Creation records to Sony. Not so much 'doing it for the kids' or a 'label of love' anymore. 1993 - Oasis sign to Creation. From this point the mainstream (rather than specifically music) press start referring to 'Britpop', it all becomes fashionable and there's a rush of A&R men with handfulls of cash, offers of expensive big-label support, promotion and studio time etc. The tag of 'Indie' is appropriated by the larger music industry labels as a rack header and no-longer refers to the method of production and tiny, often financially precarious, small independent business's either get bought up and subsumed or have their artistic rostas largely poached or imitated. To a certain extent this was all precursored by the whole Madchester/baggy scene which rose to prominence shortly before the whole Oasis/Blur thing in the early 90's. Come to think of it that was probably the primer for the major-label A&R crowd. Essentially, the scene became a victim of it's own success ... became large enough to attract the attention of the music industry who started circling and then moved in where they felt there was potential for more effective commercial exploitation and big bucks to be made. See also 'Punk'. That's not to say that there aren't still struggling small labels and independant bands out there, just that the scene as-was exploded and re-organised with the rise of digital formats and downloading and the decline of the music papers and the small independent record shops who used to to provide a little cohesion to it all. The changing demographics of who could afford to be a student (as fees increased, loans became near-compulsory and grants declined) around this time may also have some bearing.
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bauheed 895 posts |
May 03, 2013, 09:07
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Like others have said I think that when "indie" (never really liked the term) died really depends on you age and individual taste. For me (I'm now in my mid 30's) it died with the rise in popularity of Oasis and the descent into self paradoy of Blur. 1995 and The rise of Britpop. So many really shit bands seem to push out quite a few good ones that were around in the early 90's. It seems to me that the music industry, aided and abetted by the music press of the time, had figured out that creating musical brand like Britpop allowed them to make more money by selling more albums and magazines. They tried it a couple of years earlier in 93/94 - remember the New Wave of New Wave brand that they tried to sell via NME and Melody Maker? I suppose that the same process was probaly used long before that, but that was before my time (maybe C86?), so easy for me to dip into the good stuff and disregard the dross.
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Spaceship mark 1686 posts |
Edited May 03, 2013, 09:43
May 03, 2013, 09:42
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'Indie' (defined as what? Codpieceless-guitar-music?) seems to me to have been born of punk and was/is part of a rebellion against 'manufactured pop music'. Of course, womblelike, the underground eventually moves overground. The question is, is this any different to (excuse me if I get my terms a bit wrong, I don't have the Book of Rock Taxonomy to hand) when blues/country/rockabilly displaced croony-swingy-expensive-band music in the form of Rock n Roll. And were those who were into rock n roll when it was still underground moaning it had died when Elvis got popular? Similarly with the late 50's early 60's Liverpool scene. Lest we forget that many of the bands who were and are such a huge influence on the guitar bands which followed were as much pop acts as anything else. We can wax as lyrical as we like about the Beatles, Stones, Who and their lesser known contemporaries, but they all took the pay cheques. Is an underground 'indie' alternative like a cyclical universe? Growing bloated and fat until it eventually im/explodes to start again? The guitar underground seems pretty healthy at the moment, but whatever emerges (if it emerges) into the mainstream isn't going to be a new Smiths, in the same way the Smiths weren't the new Sex Pistols and the Beatles weren't the new Tommy Steele. So does the question 'when did indie music go tits up?' really mean 'when did 80's guitar music go mainstream?' which is much less loaded and much easier to explain. Like most music genres, if it becomes popular thee bandwagon shall be jumped upon and there are those consumers (cuz by this point they are consumers as opposed to, I dunno, aficionados) who are unable to differentiate between genuinely creative musicians and record company constructs. In the history of pop music (1950-2013) could it not be said that longer periods of time have been dominated by melodic guitar based pop music than not? And if so cannot it not be said that the periods where this music was driven underground are anomalies and ultimately doomed to go tits up? (Edited to correct some spelling)
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Spaceship mark 1686 posts |
May 03, 2013, 10:01
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Just relealised I probably didn't answer the 'when' bit, to which the answer is gradually, from then till now.
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mingtp 2270 posts |
May 03, 2013, 10:07
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Repossessed wrote: In one word: Oasis. Yup, my thoughts exactly.
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stray 2057 posts |
May 03, 2013, 10:16
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Pursued By Trees wrote: 1990 - Sarah records release their first CD. I was oddly enough thinking about that label the other day. Whereas I don't blame them that much for the decline of Indie I most definitely do blame them now for starting the trend of female vocalists singing (squeaking) like twelve year olds. Mind you there was also The Sundays, and um.. Tanya Donelly (ducks the random objects thrown)
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machineryelf 3681 posts |
May 03, 2013, 10:37
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The day MARRS Pump Up The Volume was released
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Moon Cat 9577 posts |
May 03, 2013, 11:53
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It's certainly an almost meaningless term genre-wise now (see also Singer Songwriter in a way). I mean, you'd find Coldplay, an arena straddling MOR act (not that there's anything wrong in such things existing IMO) filed under 'Indie' in a lot of record shops these days. Post-Britpop, there seemed to be a positive deluge of 'indie' bands being chucked at you in the hope that something might stick. A few of them would probably even have one or two good songs but these might be diamonds in heap of dreary dreck. It's interesting that, when I'm out in about in Manchester and you see posters and flyers advertising a student-indie night in a club, it's almost always sold as an "80's/90's indie night"; almost a tacit admission that things were 'better' back in the day and that nostalgia rules the indie roost in the absence of anything truly astounding in the mainstream these days. I'd say a lot of the music made by people on HH is a lot more indie in terms of the spirit of adventurousness than anything represented by yer standard boys with guitars fodder.
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Popel Vooje 5373 posts |
Edited May 03, 2013, 15:19
May 03, 2013, 12:18
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Moon Cat wrote: Pete Doherty - The Patron Saint of Oversold, Hyped, Underachieving, Skag- Deluded, scrotum-tug the middle aged Mojo lickers, absolute nexus of the square root of fuck all, and yet was held as an icon of anything at all?!! And the ridiculous amounts of column inches devoted to gigs HE DIDN'T TURN UP FOR BUT HEY, THAT's CRAZY PETE! And king of Cunt Hats. Squadgy faced, tuneless goon made being not that good actually, sub poet-rock as BLAND selfwank juice, a sellable quality by and for suckers. Never did an audience and their Prince of Relentless Indie-Void (and he treated those suckers like turd) so deserve each other. Was always tempted to nuke a venue he was playing at in the name of pest control but chances are the fuckhole woulda been too busy rolling around in his own snot and mythology to turn up. Ha! It would appear that Mr Doherty has the same effect on you as Jack White has on me. Perhaps if they ever collaborated the universe would become so thickly embalmed in their all encompassing shiteasticularness that electricity would cease to exist and we'd all have to start again from scratch with banjos and home-made washboards.
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