OffsetGuitars.com

In comics, 80s indies were preceded by underground comix n the 69s - 70s.. Then the 90s brought “the indie boom” and Image and Dark Horse became poster children. But many of those comics looked nothing like 80s indie comics. Those 80s indies were almost exclusively black & white, and many were magazine sized. The 90s indies were a mix of, let’s say a renaissance-like rebirth of the medium. Fantagraphics, Slave Labor, and Drawn & Quarterly started publishing incredible visions, the evolution of the 80s indies. But DH and Image were doing Marvel-like stuff. And all were call indie.

Now? Indie means jack shit and I don’t even know what to call my taste other than “non-superhero and non-manga.”

What happened to indie music is far worse and less specific. I can say I like garage, and people think The Strokes when I mean The Mummies.

Indie music means either an old person reminiscing about pre-home-ProTools recording, or a youngster who has their own (historically incorrect) meaning!

Beyonce played Coachella, does that mean anything?

Yeah, just like 'punk rock' went pop & 'alternative rock' went mainstream decades ago, 'indie' hasn't meant "independent" for a long time

I don't really know what it is "supposed to be" now...

I can see the music corporation execs loving the word as there's still a bit of mystique (or confusion perhaps) around it.

"INDIE"....ooooh, DIY but cool, kinda exclusive, you're one of the first to hear it..."CLICK HERE NOW!!!"

PorkyPrimeCut wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 01, 2021 3:42 am

I can see the music corporation execs loving the word as there's still a bit of mystique (or confusion perhaps) around it.

"INDIE"....ooooh, DIY but cool, kinda exclusive, you're one of the first to hear it..."CLICK HERE NOW!!!"

That.

Is "Art Rock" a possible substitute? To me it conjures images of Glenn Branca or some such. This must be how literally all other western musical forms besides popular song felt after being painted all as "classical music." Charles Ives and Bach, Vivaldi and Gershwin, all just "classical music." Or maybe how jazz musicians felt when Herbie Hancock put our "Rockit" and people were like, "yes, jazz. it's back!"

I don't think "Indie" was ever meant to describe what kind of record label your band releases music on. Who would ever call a jazz fusion band on an independent label an "indie band". Same as "alternative" it's just a word to describe a kind of style. It's as meaningless as the term "rock".

Nevets wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 01, 2021 7:47 pm

It's as meaningless as the term "rock".

It's a mineral, Nevets. Mineral.

The most confusing is when a word is reused which means one thing in a scene and it means a completely different thing in the next. Example: "hardcore" which you probably interpret as hardcore punk such as Black Flag. But it's also used to indicate UK 90's breakbeat rave music. Or 90's dutch Gabber house (which is again completely different from the UK sound). And probably a few other genres.

And then there is "electro": there was a huge crowd of enraged electro-funk nerds with Drexciya albums hung on their walls which hated "electro" being used to describe 00's electro house which actually meant "staccato detuned stab-based pop house", which didn't have much overlap with each other.

Or what about the "Jazz" in Acid Jazz?

Nevets wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 01, 2021 7:47 pm

I don't think "Indie" was ever meant to describe what kind of record label your band releases music on. Who would ever call a jazz fusion band on an independent label an "indie band". Same as "alternative" it's just a word to describe a kind of style. It's as meaningless as the term "rock".

You've not heard Fiddler's Dram - Day trip to Bangor then?

Because that's exactly what it did mean when the first independent chart was published in record week in January 1980. The original meaning just became gradually diluted over time..to the point it lost all meaning.

First top ten independent singes:

1. Spizzenergi - Where’s Captain Kirk?
2. Fiddler's Dram - Daytrip to Bangor
3. Delta 5 - Mind your own Buisiness
4. Mo-dettes - White Mice / Masochistic Opposite
5. Dead Kennedys - California Uber Alles
6. Joy Division - Transmission
7. Various Artists - Earcom 3
8. The Pop Group - We are all Prostitutes
9. The Boys - Kamikaze
10. Caberet Voltaire - Silent Command

Yeah, when I was a nipper "indie" just meant you were on an independent record label. I remember the (UK) Indie charts in the late eighties being a strange mixture of bands on Creation, Rough Trade, Mute, 4AD, Factory etc interspersed with Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan (PWL being an independent label)

Anything released only on cassette tapes.

BearBoy wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 02, 2021 7:32 am

Yeah, when I was a nipper "indie" just meant you were on an independent record label. I remember the (UK) Indie charts in the late eighties being a strange mixture of bands on Creation, Rough Trade, Mute, 4AD, Factory etc interspersed with Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan (PWL being an independent label)

Yeh..remember that. Early days there was a lot of second wave punk on there...Dead Kennedys, Crass, Cockney Rejects...Oi bands, etc.

I just remembered I did a talk at school when I was 12 on 'the independent charts' We all had to get up and do a solo talk on our interests to the class.

What Indie Even Mean?

The answer is this: GIMME INDIE ROCK!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uTqS7AZ-Z4U

Meaningless at this point.