How would YOU describe "Indie"??

[PaulBergren]

I would describe it like homemade sounding pop/rock with a bunch of friends on vocals.

Great thread Russell and nicely put Kolstad, especially the bit about friends on vocals.

Along those lines, for me, Indie has a natural/organic feel to it. Vague, I know. That may mean a song that sounds more live, or maybe an extra touch of reverb, or maybe have a touch of chaos, doing something that isn't in the formula.

[sansharbour]

I've thought it to be

Outside the Box
More Raw than Polished
More experimental
Energetic to a point
Not mainstream
and captivating

[funsongs]

I've thought it to be

Outside the Box
More Raw than Polished
More experimental
Energetic to a point
Not mainstream
and captivating

Sounds like "The Who".

[gabrielmorgan]

So it no longer describes a band or style of music that is Exclusively on an independent label, but a certain feel.

Exactly, Russell! It's all about the feel of the music and the act, not so much the label ownership or business anymore.

I wouldn't even break it down by region. It really means that an act has a sound that is unique and not following a mainstream trend/formula. A great example is the band Phoenix: Indie-Pop with an electronic-rock feel to it. One could say, "It's a Parisian Rock thing that they are doing in that part of France," but then you could look at a band like St. Lucia out of New York doing that same Indie-Pop electro-rock thing, but they sound completely different.

It's a complicated genre to understand, and I think that's why it pisses off a lot of the major labels, distributors and marketing companies. There's really no target crowd for the genre, because they genre is broken up into SSSOOOO many sub-genres and the fan bases are so unique to certain acts. The only way to mass market to fans of Indie/Art acts like that are to survey each individual fan of the total genre and get their 10 favorite acts and plug it into an algorithm. Even then you probably wouldn't get a complete marketing demographic... but it would amuse me to see a marketing sub sector of a major label try to do that.

I hope that made an ounce of sense, because it almost didn't to me....

[Paulie]

Some more notes from my daughter: "Indie is not rock, it is acoustic, lyrics, maybe some electric, but always lyric based. Singer/Songwriter is the same as Indie in most cases."

I think Urban Dictionary has a nice definition:

The music: indie music isnt a difinite style of music, but most indie bands are influenced by each other causing a similar sound. the sound is melodic, the instruments are simple but well textured. usually includes a simple but origanal guitar riff, another guitar riff layered to complement it, bass doing the same, simple drum beat (but fitting the song well) either a keyboard or violin or something to bring out the underlying melody, and soft vocals, usually well harmonized. the lyrics are powerfully emotional (but not whiney). they spark emotion but they dont talk about how there lives suck (very tastefull)

As a scene: people who love indie love it for its music alone. they try to keep it small because they dont want it to be a huge scene, they want to keep it about improving the sound, thats why they know a million bands you've never heard it, they just want to find new things to improve the music, but with anything good, dumb high school kids will ruin it.

[SteveC]

Hi all,

if you ever want to start a conversation among the music minded, just say "genre" and away we go.

I think Gabe and Paulie's daughter have a bit of a handle on it....

The sub, sub sub, sub sub sub genres seem to blur more lines than they define regardless of the Main classification. Explaining Indie music today, is like explaining our tax code.

I guess I expect a raw unpolished sound, where the focus is not on production but on the melody, lyrics and musicianship.

Now that we've solved this problem, what is Alternative Country Rock? LOL

Panel discussion at the Rally on Genre will be held nightly at the bar

st

steve

[Russell Landwehr]

It's all about the feel of the music and the act,
It really means that an act has a sound that is unique and not following a mainstream trend/formula.

YES! which is why it cannot be pigeon-holed, eh!

... and I think that's why it pisses off a lot of the major labels, distributors and marketing companies. There's really no target crowd for the genre, because they genre is broken up into SSSOOOO many sub-genres and the fan bases are so unique to certain acts. The only way to mass market to fans of Indie/Art acts like that are to survey each individual fan of the total genre and get their 10 favorite acts and plug it into an algorithm. Even then you probably wouldn't get a complete marketing demographic... but it would amuse me to see a marketing sub sector of a major label try to do that.

I can just see the Suits: "Come in here, dear boy, have a cigar. / You're gonna go far, you're gonna fly high, / You're never gonna die, you're gonna make it if you try; they're gonna love you. / Well, I've always had a deep respect, and I mean that most sincerely"
BUT THEY DON'T HAVE A CLUE!

I like the list Don Lougheed put up there. It kinda puts my impressions of Indie into a nice neat list:

I've thought it to be

Outside the Box
More Raw than Polished
More experimental
Energetic to a point
Not mainstream
and captivating

And like Paulie's Daughter says, it's VERY close to Singer/Songwriter... except I would describe it as being much more outside the box, since S/S is kinda "safe."

For some reason I think of Green Day. I like using them as an example of a "type" of Indie. (even though they were probably more like Garage Rock) Their music really appealed in a visceral way to their fans, and the songs were easy to perform by cover bands. Indie music isn't overly complicated, but it has that certain "I don't know what" (Je ne sais quoi) that you can immediately tell it was NOT produced and distributed by some multi-billion dollar cookie-cutter label.

It's accessible... it's fresh... it's HIGHLY sought after.... AND, a new Dispatch listing just came out today asking for Indie Rock. Huh!

Russell

[mojobone]

I always thought it meant independent from a major label. A band or artist going it alone.

Terms change over time; what's now 'indie' used to be known as alternative, before 'alternative' went 'mainstream', back in the 90's. It's like Paulie said; 'indie' is a moving target. In terms of what indie sounds like, I like to think of it as sounding homemade, so I guess I agree with Magne, too..

[Len911]

from everything I've just read, it sounds exactly like The Velvet Underground, with Nico and Andy Kaufmann sprinkled in.

https://youtu.be/ClrGbwNGkAE?t=51s

[mojobone]

Yeah, and I was about to mention that the Pink Floyd, as they were then known, was once an underground band. This was before there was a Velvet Underground or even a Weather Underground.