[transmogrifier]

The Arcade Fire are brilliant. Not sure you'd call them indie rock either. And The New Pornographers? Rock? Come on.

I think this is merely a case of someone shoehorning a bunch of bands they don't like into a single category to make it sound like some cosmic proclamation of importance.

[gmku]

Originally Posted by screamingskull

When people in my town talk about 'indie' music they dont meen bands that are on an indipendant label, they meen bands that sound a certain way. one of my friends was talking about this the other day, he was saying "im just sick of emo kids, from now on im indie" i asked what music he liked and he answered " The Kaiser Cheifs, the babyshambles, razorlight" and a whole bunch of other shit english bands Non of which are on indipendant labels.

Indie has lost all meaning!

Exactly. That's what bugs me the most. It's become a "sound" and a fashion.

[gmku]

Originally Posted by transmogrifier

The Arcade Fire are brilliant. Not sure you'd call them indie rock either. And The New Pornographers? Rock? Come on.

I think this is merely a case of someone shoehorning a bunch of bands they don't like into a single category to make it sound like some cosmic proclamation of importance.

I am nothing if not cosmic. Me and Jim Morrison, baby...

[gmku]

Originally Posted by Cantankerous

not to worry, i'm gathering up my hoodlum friends in new york and starting a new scene.
we'll be nihilists and live in the east village.
hey, it'll be just like...

The Cantankerous East Village Nihilist Hoodlum Collective. Sounds perfect.

[gmku]

Originally Posted by porkmarras

I CAN'T STAND INDIE ROCK

Yeah i can't stand it,i can't stand it,I CAN'T STAND IT!But then......why do i listen to it?Why do i think of it?Why do i bother?It's ok,indie rock.I can't stand you so therefore i'll ignore you.Good luck.

Lighten up, Francis...

Unfortunately, I hate it becuz when I turn on the radio, it's there. When I walk into a record store, it's there. When I turn on the TV, it's there.

I made the mistake of buying a few records by the "indie" bands I implicated above last year based on reviews I thought I could trust. I hate them. I should probably trade or sell them.

At the same time, like Lilly, I have nothing against folks who like this stuff. To each their own, live and let live, and all that. But I wouldn't be sad to see all of this indie crap die a sudden death.

[Inhuman]

Originally Posted by _slavo_

I wouldn't agree with Broken Social Scene and New Pornographers, gmku.
I think these two bands can throw some neat-ass tunes and are generally more than amusing to me.

Arcade Fire, The Shins, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!, Decemberists, Bright Eyes, etc, on the other hand, are just a pile of bull shit.

I saw clap your hands a few days ago, they played right before sonic youth came on. They're total assholes, they sat in the tent beside the stage while rave covers of metallica songs were played on the loudspeakers. They had a 1 hour set and 1/2 an hour in they finally came out and said "sorry about that" and started playing.

...Total waste of time when I could have been at stage A getting a better spot for sonic youth.

[_slavo_]

I trust ya on this one

[HaydenAsche]

Arcade Fire are the most brilliant live act I've ever witnessed. the Shins are fucking terrible. New Pornographers suck ass. BSS is decent.

In conclusion, shut the fuck up.

[hey alex]

If you don't like... make your own or find your own. DOn't call it indie. That no longermeans anything cool. And you want to be cool, right?


(in a less attacking meaning, 'indie' is more of a marketing ploy now. It's become a genre created by bands such as Pavement, B&S, and um... death cab?, and now they get bands who try and sound like them and call it indie. It's always believed that indie was cool and cutting edge, now the big leagues have caught up and watered down to a radio(mtv) friendly varitation of the music that people generally consider indie.

[lunberg]

Originally Posted by gmku

New Pornographers
Arcade Fire
The Shins
Broken Social Scene

among others

Well for one thing indy rock does no longer mean anything really : the only meaning is rock music distributed on independent label. There shouldn't be any fake aesthetical consideration to it.
Still, people refer groups as diverse as Arcade Fire or Pixies as indy rock. Even sonic youth is sometimes refered to as indy rock !!
And it is becoming more and more a "sign" of musical coolness to be indy.

But I can't really agree with you when you compare The Shins and the new pornographers as being part of the same musicmaking scheme.
The NP are just like your regular rock band with strong melodic hooks, but I can't say that they musically compare with the Shins who are way more imaginative(can't go into the details but the lyrics should give you a clue).

The fact that they make accessible pop music is the reason why they are getting bashed(unjustly if you ask me).

So. Beyond the fact that mislabeling a band as being indy is dishonest to say the least, I really couldn't give a fuck. There's lots of crappy 'really indy' bands and a few inspiring 'fake indy' acts.
Indy isn't a label of quality.

[strictlycommercial]

Originally Posted by lunberg

Well for one thing indy rock does no longer mean anything really : the only meaning is rock music distributed on independent label. There shouldn't be any fake aesthetical consideration to it.

That may have indeed been the case 15 years ago, but the term indie has long since developed aesthetic connotations, as words often do.

Better not to get too hung up on categorisation, it's useful but not crucial.

[porkmarras]

Originally Posted by gmku

Lighten up, Francis...

Unfortunately, I hate it becuz when I turn on the radio, it's there. When I walk into a record store, it's there. When I turn on the TV, it's there.

I made the mistake of buying a few records by the "indie" bands I implicated above last year based on reviews I thought I could trust. I hate them. I should probably trade or sell them.

At the same time, like Lilly, I have nothing against folks who like this stuff. To each their own, live and let live, and all that. But I wouldn't be sad to see all of this indie crap die a sudden death.

Sorry man but i don't really get what you're saying.Do you mean that you turn on the radio and all they play is bad indie rock?What happened to ears that sponteneously disintegrate nocive sounds?Do we advertise cars where there's only a desert?Is tv doing my head in?Why do i keep on watching it then?

[tw2113]

I stick to avant-garde and experimental now. Sadly too many bands cite Mr. Bungle as an influence and tend to still suck and sound nothing alike.

[Glice]

Originally Posted by tw2113

I stick to avant-garde and experimental now. Sadly too many bands cite Mr. Bungle as an influence and tend to still suck and sound nothing alike.

Ha.

'An experimental mix of diverse genres, just like Mr Bungle' = too unimaginative to even be shitpoor indie.

[gmku]

Originally Posted by porkmarras

Sorry man but i don't really get what you're saying.Do you mean that you turn on the radio and all they play is bad indie rock?What happened to ears that sponteneously disintegrate nocive sounds?Do we advertise cars where there's only a desert?Is tv doing my head in?Why do i keep on watching it then?

Yeah, that's what I mean. Essentially.

[GeneticKiss]

Originally Posted by Sn@ke

I Like Broken Social Scene but i hate Pavement, is there something wrong with me? oh lovely board?.

Yes, there is something wrong with you...Pavement themselves were awesome; it's the bands that try to sound like them that suck (although I have to say I like a few songs by the Sun)...

[DJ Rick]

Even the word experimental is fair game to become tainted by mainstream media and ad execs when more of them get hip to the idea that hundreds of thousands or even millions of American kids would flip for a certain spazzy style if only they were made aware of it.

Words that describe musical genres always go through a cycle, and this is the chronology...

(1) A few musicians begin making music of diverse influences which are so diverse that the resulting new music defies easy genre categorization.

(2) A few musicians become a few more musicians until there are a buncha musicians--perhaps only in one geographical location--combining diverse elements of influence.

(3) Frustrated with having to launch into two or three paragraphs to describe the sound of this new music, either an influential impresario or a writer for a zine or local journal comes up with a single word or short phrase to describe the music, and that word or phrase begins to resonate with the fans of the new music and make some of the uninitiated kinda curious.

(4) As the word begins to build critical mass, promoters of the scene and critics pin the label on a particular band, a milieu of bands, and perhaps also a record label which becomes known for preferring to release records by bands of the new genre. Eventually one or a few of these bands spearhead the growing awareness of the new style.

(5) A second wave of bands most often fail to understand the depth and width of their favorite bands' influences, preferring to emulate only the traits of their favorite bands which they find most appealing. Thus, what was a very broadly-influenced new genre begins to streamline down to a rather inbred form as even later-comers choose elements of influence from an even more limited palette.

Hence, when a whole new generation of young people became fans of industrial music 15 years ago thanks to Ministry and KMFDM and Skinny Puppy, many of those fans could not conceive of the early music of Cabaret Voltaire or Throbbing Gristle as "industrial."

More recently, after the second Lightning Bolt tour played to twice or triple as many kids as the first, there were a few kids who were inspired to wear masks and have antics and be spazzy and play on the floor. And many of these kids only valued these traits, completely overlooking any need to concentrate on creative song ideas or technique. Much of this resulting music was completely unredeemable. Meanwhile, others sought to emulate the playing technique specifically, and some idiot printed it somewhere (and even more idiots printed elsewhere after that interview with Muse which cited Lightning Bolt) as "a new form of music called skronk." And what kids who found Lightning Bolt through the Muse interview don't know is that skronk was something that edgey boppers and free jazz pioneers first did with saxophones and other horns.

In fact, Sonic Youth themselves are a gateway band from no wave and other weird, arty, and edgy forms of punk and (as broadly defined as possible) post-punk. By the early 90's when SY had built considerable critical mass, several bands were emulating certain traits of Sonic Youth's guitarwork especially. Whether they chose to explore alternate tunings or ripped ideas directly from Thurston and Lee, many or most never knew about Glenn Branca de-fretting and re-fretting guitars with almost 50 frets to emulate an Eastern texture or map out on a guitar an Eastern scale. SY just sounded neat to them, and that's what they wanted to do, too.

The post-SY generation of indie-rock had some great bands, but also a lot of crappy ones. The disciplined or very experimental approach to tunings was dumbed down over short generations, and of course, with Nirvana being even more influential during that time, many guitarists were pleased to play guitar with a sorta messy edge...even the pop bands, and hence the Modest Mouse generation.

A step six in the chronology is the introduction of atavistic elements, or elements which have become unpopular or completely missing from music over a period of time, and this can mean strictly retro bands or new bands creatively integrating atavistic elements with contemporary ones, and for the latter especially, a debate will begin in a particular music community over whether they belong in the genre or not, and certain stuffy people who like to pigeonhole everything cleanly and neatly will require a new genre name to describe this band which is straddling one of more fences.

This is why talking about genres--especially nowadays on message boards--sparks all kindsa drama.

[kingcoffee]

True, indie rock has been really watered down to sound like pop punk. They've ruined such a beautiful genre. There was so much diversity and talent in the indioe scen for so long. Now these little wankers have to go and pollute it with their shitty ideas of sounding all the same and making the music strwamlined to fit a more popular notion of what rock mnusic should be. Fuck them all. Fuck them right in their raw, bleeding assholes.

[DJ Rick]

See, Kingcoffee...that's undue strain there. Let the middle mass of today's indie kids and wannabe-cooldads and moms have their indie rock. Just let it go. The word is useless to describe much of any good music, and especially not anything diversely influenced.

And as I've said before and always say throughout my musicology classes...

Music that is diversely influenced may become diversely influential, and on the other hand, music that is narrowly influenced most likely will become an evolutionary dead-end.

Let them circle-jerk each other into oblivion while you enjoy better music of multiple stripes.

[LittlePuppetBoy]

I don't mind it. I enjoy Bloc Party, Interpol, Arcade Fire and BSS.