what the heck is indie

someone asked me: "why indie?" so here goes:

take a seat, because class is in session. here's indie 101 to school you on everything you need (or might not need) to know.

by right, independent music is a term used to describe genres, scenes, subcultures, styles and other cultural attributes in music, characterized by their independence from major commercial record labels and their autonomous, do-it-yourself approach to recording and publishing.

by left, indie is everything that you hear on the radio. why? for the simple fact that indie is the new pop, duh. half of the music you hear consists of mainstream acts trying to act indie to gain more street cred, 40% are obscure artists who shamelessly try to gain attention by self-proclaiming themselves indie, while a meagre 10% are actual bands on independent labels who actually fulfil the requirements to be 'indie'. of course, 100% of the acts are actually mass-commercial or aspire to reach that level. thus actually the whole lot are hypocrites for they just want to make alot of dough. for the purposes of brevity and to keep our heads from blowing up at the paradox of it all, we keep this out of mind for the time being.

why is indie the 'in' thing then? the old adage of "its hip to be square" holds true here. unless everyone is already square, which would necessitate one having to be round instead let's face it, its cool to be different. indie music culture, while having been around since forever, will always be considered to be sub-mainstream. so in a sense, its always different. in dollars and cents, its a money-spinner. *cha-ching*

indie music sounds different in the sense that its supposed to be rawer, with distinct instrumental sounds or rhythms. Stuff like sharp drum rolls and jarring guitar riffs, high-pitched almost-adolescent vocals, low-fi quality akin to recording in a garage or some other equally low-budget venue.

if you have been paying attention (stop sleeping in class dammit), you would have realised that many songs you hear nowadays incorporate some if not all of the above elements. Thus the distinction between indie and non-indie music has blurred. Pop music is turning indie and vice versa hence the reason for the existence of this blog.

alright class dismissed. shooooo