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When did indie music go tits up?
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Pursued By Trees
Pursued By Trees
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Re: When did indie music go tits up?
May 03, 2013, 08:45
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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