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Indie rock

Indie rock is a subgenre of rock music that originated in the United Kingdom, United States and New Zealand in the early to mid-1980s. Although the term was originally used to describe rock music released through independent record labels, by the 1990s it became more widely associated with the music such bands produced.

Indie rock

Early to mid–1980s, United Kingdom, United States and New Zealand

The sound of indie rock has its origins in the New Zealand Dunedin sound of the Chills, Sneaky Feelings, Tall Dwarfs,[1] the Clean[2] and the Verlaines, and early 1980s college rock radio stations who would frequently play jangle pop bands like the Smiths and R.E.M.. The genre solidified itself during the mid–1980s with NME's C86 cassette in the United Kingdom and the underground success of Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr. and Unrest in the United States. During the decade, indie rock bands like Sonic Youth, the Pixies and Radiohead all released albums on major labels and subgenres like slowcore, Midwest emo, slacker rock and space rock began. By this time, "indie" had evolved to refer to bands whose music was released on independent record labels, in addition to the record labels themselves. As the decade progressed many individual local scenes developed their own distinct takes on the genre: baggy in Manchester; grebo in Stourbridge and Leicester; and shoegaze in London and the Thames Valley.


During the 1990s, the mainstream success of grunge and Britpop, two movements influenced by indie rock, brought increased attention to the genre and saw record labels use their independent status as a marketing tactic. This led to a split within indie rock: one side conforming to mainstream radio; the other becoming increasingly experimental. By this point, "indie rock" referred to the musical style rather than ties to the independent music scene. In the 2000s, indie rock reentered the mainstream through the garage rock and post-punk revival and the influence of the Strokes and the Libertines. This success was exacerbated in the middle of the decade by Bloc Party, the Arctic Monkeys and the Killers and indie rock proliferated into the landfill indie movement.

Characteristics[edit]

The term indie rock, which comes from "independent", describes the small and relatively low-budget labels on which it is released and the do-it-yourself attitude of the bands and artists involved. Although distribution deals are often struck with major corporate companies, these labels and the bands they host have attempted to retain their autonomy, leaving them free to explore sounds, emotions and subjects of limited appeal to large, mainstream audiences.[3] The influences and styles of the artists have been extremely diverse, including punk, psychedelia, post-punk and country.[4]


The lo-fi, experimental and art rock sound of the Velvet Underground[5] as well as late '70s punk and post-punk bands such as the Fall,[6] Buzzcocks, Wire,Television and Joy Division[7][8] would be influential to the genre.[9]


Allmusic identifies indie rock as including a number of "varying musical approaches [not] compatible with mainstream tastes".[10] Linked by an ethos more than a musical approach, the indie rock movement encompassed a wide range of styles, from hard-edged, grunge-influenced bands, through do-it-yourself experimental bands like Pavement, to punk-folk singers such as Ani DiFranco.[11] In his book DIY Style: Fashion, Music and Global Digital Cultures, Brent Luvaas described the genre as rooted in nostalgia, citing the influence of garage rock and psychedelic rock of the 1960s in progenitors the Stone Roses and the Smiths, in addition to a lyrical preoccupation with literature.[12]


In this same vein, Matthew Bannister defined indie rock as "small groups of white men playing guitars, influenced by punks and 1960s white pop/rock, within a broader discourse and practice of (degrees of) independence from mainstream musical values."[13] According to anthropologist Wendy Fonarow, a key element of indie is the dichotomy between a "puritan ethos" and a "romantic one", with the former using austere ethics, and the latter being eccentric. This is best seen in the contrast between the indie music of United States and the United Kingdom in the 1990s, with British acts being flamboyant performers, while American acts used their lack of virtuosity as a mark of authenticity.[14]


Indie rock is noted for having a relatively high proportion of female artists compared with preceding rock genres, a tendency exemplified by the development of the feminist-informed riot grrrl music of acts like Bikini Kill, Bratmobile, 7 Year Bitch, Team Dresch and Huggy Bear.[15] However, Cortney Harding pointed out that this sense of equality is not reflected in the number of women running indie labels.[16]

Independent music

Indie music scene

List of indie rock musicians

Underground music

Rogers, Ian (2008). . Continuum. 22 (5): 639–649. doi:10.1080/10304310802311618. S2CID 144566463.

"'You've got to go to gigs to get gigs': Indie musicians, eclecticism and the Brisbane scene"