@@TheDeathOrange not really the middle ground between accessible and inaccessible is genres like art rock. Indie just meant you were on an independent label and that you had a certain diy approach to making your music, you werent that competent at instruments, sometimes more lo-fi recording, your songs felt more like sketches, laconic, childlike... etc.
@@kelechi_77What type? I listen to Mac demarco, Yot club, Housecall, No vacation, and a bit of Eric Maia with some of them having less than 1 million streams. I’d say in a way the Smiths are indie a bit
@@angrypierate The Smiths were part of the first wave of indie pop music in the 1980s that came out of record labels such as Rough Trade, Fast Forward and Rhino Records to name a few, they formed a distribution chain called the "Cartel".
@bilbobaggins9488. It’s modern meaning means Guitar PoP music, so shitty awful bands like early Coldplay, Oasis, The White Stripes, Arctic Monkeys, Arcade Fire, Mumford & Sons, Imagine Dragons, R.E.M, The Killers, The Pixies, Kings Of Leon, The Black Keys. All that boring shit.
@NOCTACRY. That’s what it originally meant, but now it means Guitar PoP music. So shit like early Coldplay, Oasis, Arctic Monkeys, Kings Of Leon, Arcade Fire, R.E.M, The Pixies, The Black Keys, Imagine Dragons, The Killers, The White Stripes, Mumford & Sons. All that awful shit.
context collapse. it's the same as what happened with "alt"/"alternative" in the 1990s. the thing that strikes me is that "indie" used to connotate a very "guitars on a four track or GTFO" and today it's moved on to become very melodic with layered synth/effect lines, almost entirely because of DAW-based recording and specialized guitar pedals. What I'd really like to know, though, is when did the actual inflection happen?
@@dxtxzbunchanumbers I think guitar effects and such were used way back in the 80's but I guess that would be more like dream pop or C86 stuff which at the time, might have been considered alternative. Those older bands influenced the new and 4-track wasn't a requirement anymore. Although I always associated 4 track with the term lo-fi before it suffered it's own context collapse. It's why it's always important to distinguish genres into two camps: Style or umbrella. Style invented by the musicians. Umbrella by the journalists.
@@earthculture9462 yeah, those were basic single-serve analog effects (distortion, reverb, flange). What I'm alluding to are digital effects pedals (like Strymon's) that came out sometime in the 2000's-2010's. Studio-level effects in very small boxes. I think when those started coming out, you had a lot of bands able to get those sounds that Brian Eno and Martin Hannett had.
@@dxtxzbunchanumbers Ahhh gotcha. I guess just using effects at all was enough to be an influence. Think most bands around that time (late 00's - 10's) were looking to expand the overall sound as well veering into New Wave, electronic, psychedelia and folk so I think that might explain why they didn't care about being pure though some bands obviously stayed the course.
When music started being uploaded directly online in the late 2000s and the barrier for production was zero. It was easier to categorize music when it was physically sorted by CDs,tapes, records.
Same with olivia rodrigo she’s considered indie pop / rock even tho she’s signed to a major label so I feel like it’s more alternative pop and rock cuz the term “indie” with olivia rodrigo doesn’t make too much sense lol
ehhh not really. we're in a streaming era. music is now finally accessible so there are no definitive fine line to distinguish the mainstream and the underground. some say it depends on the monthly listeners numbers. some say that if u make music that are different from the mainstream (trap/old school boom bap, etc), u can be considered as underground. like i said, it has become a subjective matter.
Having Tame Impala on the thumbnail reminded me of something, I love his laid back guitar and synth vibe, but I can’t even tell anyone I like his music because they’ll immediately assume I get all my songs from TikTok, and app I hate and don’t even use
Dont even get how Tame Impala are even indie, they came from the Australian neo-psychedelia scene. They have no real correlation with the typical “indie rock” sound. Its neo-psych
@@kelechi_77yeah their more neo-psychedelia, never even thought of them as “indie” I’d say smashing pumpkins is more indie than them and they were more inspired by shoegaze lol
You can have alternative pop music, its pop that exists outside the mainstream, “pop” like indie nd alternative has a transmuted meaning it no longer means “popular music” but a typical 2 minute melodic verse-chorus structure kind of song
I'm not a musician, but I think the term alternative pop fits well with that type of music that isn't mainstream, but has a pop base, like alt z, I honestly think alt pop would be a good substitute term
I have always thought of alt pop as more of an alternative approach to pop by being more influenced to non-pop sources or styles that isn't mainstream like alt rock & electronic music
honestly, at best it only ever described the bands relation to the music industry and then basically that wasnt true almost immediately. Didnt stop me from being proudly into indie music in highschool 15 years ago, but youth i guess
I've always suspected this. the general definition is music that comes from independent labels and takes influence from indie rock and indie folk, but that barely tells me anything about what the musical characteristics or conventions are.
@@flamboyantbeans And you’re right but only if you consider dictionaries and the word’s origin. But, yes, nowadays people tend to think that “indie” is a good point to describe their taste (my personal opinion is that they’re lacking knowledge and just want to look unusual - I was there myself). Just a couple of days ago I got interested in this topic because I’ve seen a pin with “music genres” using terms like “punk”, “indie”, “new wave” and “garage”. And when I pointed out the problem of such division some girl told me that “indie music” in fact, does have its own specific sound…
When i hear "i like indie" i just interpreted as "i listen to music i found on the Internet thats extremely popular with my demographic but doesn't air on the radio"
It used to mean D.I.Y. then that off-kilter style began to be associated with the sound which in turn made it a reason to sell that sound, sign indie bands to major labels with higher production and still call it indie. (Modest mouse being a good example) Alternative went through a similar path, just at different times, both becoming umbrella terms just meaning not mainstream instead of pointing to specific styles. My rule is that the sound has to be different enough to not be played on 90's top 40 radio but not so different that it veers into avant garde territory and away from it's pop/rock song structures.
Indie was what happened to us teenagers of the late 2000s to early 2010s when we grew out of emo and started shopping at Urban Outfitters. There is a distinct sound of a subgenre of rock that took off in the early 2000s to 2010s that was indie tho like you can’t listen to a band like Interpol and merely call them “alternative rock”. For that time, they were indie much like The Drums or Passion Pit was indie and indie they shall all remain. 😢
When I tell people I listen to indie music, I basically mean just one music artist I listen is indie and it’s my favorite. But my favorite indie artist is Good Kid
I definitely enjoyed this video and thought it was informational but the one area I think you missed out on is where the style of indie came from and where the term was originally applied. The term indie was first applied to English, Scottish, New Zealand and to a lesser extent American guitar-based rock bands, that tended towards to a softer and jangly sound that originated as part of the wider post-punk (a term most people haven't even heard of unless you're really into alternative music) movement in the late 70s and early 80s. Bands like the Smiths, Joy Division and the Cure had massive critical and commercial success despite being signed to the independent labels Rough Trade, Factory and Fiction, and the term indie was coined to describe them and their peers. The Cure and Joy Division are typically not referred to as indie in modern terms though because their music is significantly different from the style of indie that was more similar to the Smiths and R.E.M., who despite not being indie themselves are influential to the sound of indie Additionally, although they received significantly less commercial success, the Scottish indie record label Postcard and the New Zealand indie record label Flying Nun are perhaps the two most important precursors to the sound of modern indie. The Smiths and R.E.M. both took significant influence from the recordings of Scottish post-punk band Orange Juice, and as such Postcard Records is perhaps the first record label to not just be independent, but specifically for the style that became to be known as indie. If you're interested in the history of indie, you should check out the Postcard Records trio, Josef K, Aztec Camera (their early stuff at least, their later stuff is good but not in the same style; I recommend the albums, "Knife," and especially, "High Land, Hard Rain") and Orange Juice , and some of the Flying Nun bands like the Chills or the Bats. They were all super ahead of their time and despite not achieving much commercial success are massively ahead of their time and you can hear their influence in modern day indie bands. So I think that's what indie is. It's music that emulates the style of late 70s-early 80s soft guitar-based post-punk groups like the Smiths, Orange Juice, Aztec Camera and the Chills. A fairly similar thing can be said about alternative. Alternative meant groups that, even if they were signed to major labels, such as R.E.M. and Siouxsie and the Banshees, still produced inventive music that broke from the mainstream rock and roll cliches. However, like with indie, the term gradually became diluted and can refer to almost anything now as long as it originates from that post-punk strain started by R.E.M., the Banshees and their peers It's important to note that independent record labels weren't even a thing until the mid 70s until the advent of the punk rock explosion. That was the first time bands were able to release and record music without the influence of the mainstream, and as the name implies was a direct precursor to the post-punk movement, who felt that punk rock was stylistically and artistically limiting but the ideas it promoted were valuable, which is why post-punk is so diverse as a movement. And of course, the entire history of underground, alternative and independent music goes back to the revolutionary and groundbreaking work of the Velvet Underground in New York in the late 60s Anyways, that's my two cents on what indie is and its development. I don't mean any of this as a criticism or anything, as I said at the top the video was informative and interesting, I just think the history of where indie came from is important to understanding the term indie.
Oh, I also meant to include that the Cure did eventually release albums on the major label Polydor, but in the 2000s, significantly after their commerical and critical peak during the late 80s and early 90s. They were signed to Fiction for all of their most influential and well-received albums
whenever i use the term indie, i do have a certain sound in mind. ig its stuff like clairo, fay webster, hippo campus, wallows, still woozy, declan mckenna just to name a few. these guys r very popular obv. its more of the vibe for me ig😭 but when ppl ask me what i like listening to i just say indie/alt rock and hope it makes sense. (ngl i would include tame impala in that category- but i dont think i even know the diff b/w alt and indie rock)
I've thought about this a lot and I've finally come to the conclusion that we need to let go of the origin word "independent" and let "indie" be its own thing. This has happened to a lot of words in the history of the english language, and already to genre terms like "underground" and "alt" so it shouldn't be too much of a problem.
If somebody says indie as a noun, like "I like indie music" I'm not gonna know what they're talking about. But if they say it as an adjective like indie rock or indie folk, I know exactly what they mean.
In the first example you give it's still an adjective, it's just the noun being modified is "Music" instead of "Rock" or "Folk". When I say it I generally mean, "I like basically all genres with "Indie" in the name", Lol. Indie Rock, Indie Folk, Indie Pop, Indietronica, All named applied to stuff I tend to enjoy
@@rateeightx Good point. Becomes an umbrella genre in that regard rather than a specific style. So it's not precise but it does point in a certain direction which can be useful.
There's a great Strong Bad Email way back that joked about the difference between "Independent films" (zero-budget pretensions art-house student projects) and "Indie films" (big-budget movies that ripped off the Juno aesthetic). I feel like it applies here too
I had this same thought the other day when thinking about how I got into “indie” music in high school over a decade ago. I thought, “Does indie even mean anything anymore??” So it’s pretty cool to see this video pop up 🤗
Great video. Fascinating when a business descriptor becomes a stylistic adjective. True indie music is pretty rare just like indie movies. The movie case can be interesting. Phantom Menace was a true indie movie and Pulp Fiction wasn’t!
I think most of the artists you mentioned would have definitely been considered indie back in their day/when they were first starting off (Nirvana for example), but as time went on, they got more popular/bigger, and so (in my opinion) that term should no longer apply to them. Perhaps most of the confusion lies around people thinking of indie as an actual genre/mistaking it for alternative music. I personally consider indie artists to be artist who are not as popular/mainstream, DIY (mostly), having low budgets (if any) to create their music, and not being signed to a major record label.
The extra tricky part is licensing deals between majors and indies, are they still considered independent even after said deal has ended (For example, metal label Earache entered a licensing deal with Columbia in the 90’s with 6 bands, that deal ended relatively quickly as it wasn’t very successful).
20 years ago the music business was dominated by "major labels". There were "independent labels" that were smaller, grassroot organizations who signed more niche bands. This all kinda went out the window with self-publishing and distribution channels like Soundcloud and Bandcamp
Saw some idiot misinterpret your title/thumbnail and start whining on twitter. Glad I decided to actually watch the video. Great content, man 🙏🏾 subbed
i've always preferred calling those genres as alternative pop and alternative rock. other subgenres are great to use too, like soft rock, garage rock, chamber pop, dream pop, etc
hold up, live nightcore alex g goes kinda hard i think the prevalence/accessibility of DAWs and recording software [aka DA COMPUTER] def played a role in nullifying what 'indie' meant as far as labels, since those labels weren't as needed to release or record music anymore. i think that kinda got replaced with the DIY/bedroom pop scene of the early 2010s, which didn't last but the sound/style trickled out and contributed to a greater wave of self- or collective-releases. "indie" now definitely feels like a meaningless signifier that streaming services and labels will push onto music in order to make it have appeal for certain audiences; hopefully, this will encourage people to listen to truly independent music, but idk it's hard to be optimistic about that when someone wants more music like Glass Animals lol. of course, there are people genuinely curious about indie art, and hopefully they can navigate the shitshow of mislabeled bands and find the real stuff. good vid, appreciate the thoughtfulness!
The "deterioration of the meaning of indie" topic seems to resurface every few years as each new generation of artists reach wider audiences. 10 years ago, people were complaining about this, but it was directed at the successful 2000s alternative rock bands. Meanwhile Mac DeMarco and Tame Impala were still relatively small artist that were self-recording and getting categorized as indie. Ten years later here we are contemplating their indie status because their work is very popular now. This will probably just keep happening indefinitely because it's too ingrained in how we speak about music despite the drawbacks
Man, I HATE being asked the question "What kind of music do you like?" Because a quick random of my song library reveals this: Elliott Smith Violent Femmes Muse Tech N9ne Leonard Cohen Alice in Chains Gza the Genius Faith No More Brendon Small De La Soul The Offspring Queens of the Stoneage Amigo the Devil The Cure Lostdog Street Band Bauhaus A Wilhelm Scream Neutral Milk Hotel Interpol The Mars Volta Trampled By Turtles Tool Joy Division Acid Bath I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT KIND OF MUSIC I LIKE!
@@Ey3s.lyke.deMis3 Sure, and I used to say that, but there are some decidedly not rock or metal bands that are among my absolute favorites these days. The Builders and the Butchers, Amigo the Devil and Lost Dog Street Band being right up there with Alice in Chains, QotSA, Acid Bath and Faith No More in my book. Rock/Metal with some Americana/folk and classic hiphop is a mouthful, and saying "everything" is a lie, because I do not go out of my way to listen to pop, top 40s, commercial country or what passes for hip hop these days.
@@GoneAsGoneCanBe understandable.. (same goes w/ me in diff manner; Frederic Chopin/Bach/Mozart x London After Midnight/The Cure/O- x Beastie Boys/NWA)
I've gotten to the point where whenever somebody asks me what kind of music I listen to, I just take my phone out to show them my Spotify algorithm and listening history. Its easier that way.
This has nothing to do with the topic but I've never seen The Room other than the "I did not hit her!" scene so seeing that flower shop scene convinced me I need to watch this movie, that was comedy gold
As a person who wants to make and release an album entirely by myself, I like that there are people out there who appreciate the rough, bedroom type indie because that’s all I can afford 😂
El indie, en su estilo musical, se refiere a música que tiene un caracter modesto, donde la producción (sea o no independiente de un sello) busca un sonido no tan pulido a la música comercial. Un género donde la instrumental no es compleja o virtuosa como tal, donde el tipo de composición se centra más en el aspecto melódico y lírico. Si lo vemos solo desde la concepción genérica de "indie es musica independiente a un sello" estamos dejando lo que realmente caracteriza al indie, sobretodo el de los años 90. Entonces, considero que estamos llamando indie erroneamente a mucha música de hoy en día.
From the UK here, I feel like indie really does depend on where you come from, indie is used to describe things like blur, kasabian, arctic monkeys, etc, a lot of Brit pop really, it's more a style rather than if they are attached to a major label, or maybe we're completely wrong 😂
Indie was what all the emo kids got into post 2007, roughly 2008 - 2011, which led to the term "hipster". I was tricked into buying Hospice by The Antlers - what a mistake.
mac demarco mentioned !! (and vacations like barely) but yeah, mac is indie! despite him being really popular nowadays he's got a record label of his own quite literally called 'mac's record label' he's my favorite actual indie artist :3
Also judging from the comments - it's a confusing term. In the UK indie music is used to define a style/genre of Alt Rock Pop, It's generally very commercially successful and doesn't ness have much to do with who they signed to. However, in the US it is stuck between maybe meaning independent Artist, or niche, and being a sound (as you say in this vid). There are artists like the Smiths that seem to be niche-indie cool for the US, but always seemed odd to me, as they are just one of the big (older) bands over here.
I remember when Spotify changed their genres and I only noticed it when I got my Spotify Wrapped at the end of the year and we had all these indie + genres
Yeah, it’s pretty odd. I think indie serves as the same kind of term as pop. Well, indie describes independent artist pop I guess describes popular music. It seems to be more of a social idea than it is a description of what the music sounds like.
i think it’s pretty easy to classify indie music. it’s broad and it’s vast. but obviously it means independent artist or studios who make music. but besides that it’s grown into its own form. a lot of indie derives from “jazz” jazzy chords and a scales. mixed with things such as rock, alternative, but now it’s all transformed. indie also means the music is problem really chill. probably heavy in chorus, spring reverb typically and uses a lot of lush and warm synth pads. so let’s see bands like The Smiths, LANY, Mac Demarco, Men I Trust, Del Water Gap, Boy Pablo, Puma Blue, King Krule, Yot Club, COIN, Hippo Campus, Stil Woozy, Wallows, Clairo, The Marias the list goes on right all kind of fit into this category of indie with their own spin. indie rock, indie alternative, indie punk, indie jazz, indie funk. Its bands that just make their own music at home in someone’s room or garage, in someone’s studio that isn’t owned by another company or record label. i think indie does mean something and i haven’t watched the video yet i plan on it im just at work but i think indie just means one obviously independent artist or who make their own music or in an independent without influence from big corporations. or also you can classify it as unrestricted rock rock jazz. yacht rock even could be just indie
Honestly like I get that indie and Alt are words that have lost there meanings but like I honestly don’t know what to call my music taste at this point cause everything I listen to just falls under those labels and when I search up what sort of music it is google just tells me that they are indie/Alt
@@yeeterdeleter4101 I think it's because they were such a heavy influence on the indie "sound" Like proto Indie. Kind of like how Back Sabbath and Led Zeppelin were known as some heavy form of blues rock when they started but those early albums are now considered proto metal.
around 1:55. I don't know why you would say that the same thing can *sorta* be said about indie music. i think the two are exactly the same in the sense that there is one person that goes to extreme lengths to carry out a creative vision exactly the way they see it in their mind, funded by themselves. yes it would help to have a crew and thousands of dollars of equipment, it would also help a musician to have the same thing, like a studio, a mixing guy, a vocals guy, different musicians, a symphony, and whatever else to be on the same level as the big guys. all you need to film a movie is an iphone, so if anything i would say the barrier of entry is lower for a movie than music, because you need to know how to actually play your instrument or whatever, but anyone can film a video. basically that scene felt very out of place in the video, and didn't really help me to understand indie music any more than i did before. I'm not mad or anything just felt like sharing, good video though.
Spotify makes a lot of mistakes when it comes to typing artist genres, there's an artist I really like and he has a very good alternative base, as well as metal and a bit of EDM, when my most listened to at the end of the year arrived, I saw that Spotify categorized him as pop
I don't have synesthesia but the only way I've ever known how to explain indie as someone who loves music but isn't into the more technical side of things (yet) is that it inexplicably sounds like how oranges taste
Ajr is a good example because while they are decently popular they arent signed to a record label and have a certain sound that you dont see anywhere else in pop.
I remember Paste magazine wrote this cover page article saying ‘Indie is Dead’ way back in 2005 or something… essentially, they said the term was ‘dead’ because Indie had won! The internet and now streaming became the great equalizers, allowing small artists the same reach and potential influence as the major label groups.
I remember 2009-2012 i used to be into indie and kinda hipster, a full on hipster girl i had a crush on linked me lana del reys video games when it was uploaded like a week earlier. In the end i didnt get the girl and i think the indie died for me the first time i heard video games. Not to say that its a bad song, i think its one of the prettiest songs i have ever heard (and because of the girl everytime i hear it it reminds me of that hopeless youthromance so its special to me) but it just has some sort of new taste to it. Hard to describe. By the way, back then 2010-2012 i used to follow a channel called BIRP! (Best indie rock playlists). The channel uploaded around hundred indie songs EVERY MONTH. Turns out the channel is still active and has some of those REALLY eaely 2010's sounding songs. I recommend the channel.
Indie to me just sounds like being a teen with a small group of goofy friends at a fun fair on the beach or like walking in a field of flowers and wild grass, wind blowing and sun shining, you walk through the trees and bushes around you and find a glistening lake. 🥰
as Sound Field explained it, Indie has less to do w/ the music an artist makes & has more to do w/ the artist's outlook. things just became more complicated when people attached the term to the sound but the artist is indie, not the sound. to simplify: indie: Brent Faiyaz, Sound: RnB.
When I think of indie I either think of soft girl music ie clairo girl in red etc or I think of wiggly vocals with angry lyrics ie boywithuke olivertree etc
I used to think it was soft Rock mixed influences from 60's 70s hippy vibes/beatles, using old ways to record that has been forgotten with advanced technology
the main thing is that indie has divided into three different meanings actual indie - any music that is not produced by a company, literally tells you nothing about a persons taste indie as a genera - music more in the vein of cavetown or mxmtoon, its good music but much easier to just explain the artist you listen to so it doesnt confuse indie as a "genera" - stuff like nirvana, the more popular artist that are 100% with a label but was at one time was actually indie, and now is just holding onto it
I'd argue "Indie Music" _originally_ referred to, As the name would imply, Independent music, I.E. music created by people not on a major record label. However, for quite a while (I'd say since around the mid-late 2000s, But I wasn't exactly paying much attention to what terms people used to describe music then, So I can't say for certain) it's been more of just a genre name, Lumping together a number of different styles influenced by actual independent music from the '80s and '90s, Which doesn't seem unreasonable on the surface, Because yeah there's a distinct sound there (Or several, We'll get to that) that didn't previously have a name, However as that style has expanded and diversified, Incorporating influences from more different styles, We've kept using the same few terms for it, Indie Rock, Indie Folk, Indie Pop, Et cetera, Even when they're now being applied to artists with completely different styles, making it less useful as a genre term. Let's look at for example Indie Folk, This term can be applied to both Lord Huron and Elliott Smith, And sure they may be some influence there, Some similarities between the two, Honestly I feel the term Indie Folk is _really_ overused, I've heard pretty much every Folk artist from the 21st century who isn't making traditional folk (Or some styles associated with rather specific regions or cultures, like Celtic Folk or Appalacchian Folk, although tbh what I'm thinking of as "Generic Folk" is probably better described as American Folk or Anglo-Folk) described as "Indie Folk", Whether their making Folk-Pop, or Folk Rock, or more "traditional-styled" folk, Or something else entirely. Although the other styles definitely have their ambiguities too, Both Arctic Monkeys and The Wombats have widely been called Indie Rock, But honestly I'm not sure there's much similarity between the Punky Garage-Rock of Arctic Monkeys' debut (Or the artsy "Lounge Rock" of their recent releases, For that matter), And the Wombats' debut which is bordering on New Wave. And these are just 2 bands from the same region around the same time, I'm sure there are many examples where the discrepancy is even greater. But people keep using the term(s) "Indie", Because we don't really have anything more specific to apply to these styles.
MAAANN this video actually just gave me a huge.. reality check(?) on what i call my favorite genres.. cause i listen to alt/indie music, but not anyone like billie elish or like any big artist that's proclaimed as 'indie'.. i just call my favorite bands that cause it's easier to categorize them like that.. and it makes me kinda mad how there's all kinds of indie.. like WHAT THE HECK IS POV: INDIE MAN???? 😭😭 but idk,, i feel like now indie is just a type of sound rather than the actual meaning of the word, like idk whatever mac demarco or glass animals or vacations have got going on for them, that's the kinda vibe that i feel as it could be indie (ofc it could also be considered as alternative or shoe gaze or bedroom pop but you know) so yrah.. idk man.. i just listen to music that normal people wouldn't listen to!!! 🤓
it's so funny to think when i first heard the term i thought it was short for "individual", as in self-produced, somewhat unique and with lowkey aesthetics. the definition has quite literally morphed to fit both lol
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im good
awww buddy that "I love you" at the end was very much appreciated, I had to subscribe for that. Plus I really like your content :)
When someone says "i listen to indie" i think they're trying to say "experimental" or "not very well known" music
no, indie is the middle ground between mainstream and experimental.
@@TheDeathOrange not really the middle ground between accessible and inaccessible is genres like art rock. Indie just meant you were on an independent label and that you had a certain diy approach to making your music, you werent that competent at instruments, sometimes more lo-fi recording, your songs felt more like sketches, laconic, childlike... etc.
gave you the 1000th like :)
@@shayZ9 tnks 👌
Totaly agree
EXACTLY IT MEANS NOTHING. "I listen to a lot of indie" Yeah that tells me absolutely nothing
When people say this they mean soft indie pop or bedroom pop artists think mac demarco or men i trust
@@kelechi_77What type? I listen to Mac demarco, Yot club, Housecall, No vacation, and a bit of Eric Maia with some of them having less than 1 million streams. I’d say in a way the Smiths are indie a bit
@@angrypierate The Smiths were part of the first wave of indie pop music in the 1980s that came out of record labels such as Rough Trade, Fast Forward and Rhino Records to name a few, they formed a distribution chain called the "Cartel".
I usually differentiate it by year like, "oh I'm listening to 90s indie rock
@bilbobaggins9488. It’s modern meaning means Guitar PoP music, so shitty awful bands like early Coldplay, Oasis, The White Stripes, Arctic Monkeys, Arcade Fire, Mumford & Sons, Imagine Dragons, R.E.M, The Killers, The Pixies, Kings Of Leon, The Black Keys.
All that boring shit.
i thought indie just meant the artist(s) aren't signed to a record label
That's what it used to mean lol
once upon a time!
@NOCTACRY. That’s what it originally meant, but now it means Guitar PoP music.
So shit like early Coldplay, Oasis, Arctic Monkeys, Kings Of Leon, Arcade Fire, R.E.M, The Pixies, The Black Keys, Imagine Dragons, The Killers, The White Stripes, Mumford & Sons.
All that awful shit.
@@NuMetalfan1996 erm, it is actually just "pixies" not "the pixies" ☝🤓
@@NuMetalfan1996Pixies shit and you're a fan of Nu Metal? 😅😅
Indie is more of a “vibe” nowadays lmao
fr
What does that mean
@@KevinLuper99it means indie 🗣
@@KevinLuper99 ask Google
context collapse. it's the same as what happened with "alt"/"alternative" in the 1990s. the thing that strikes me is that "indie" used to connotate a very "guitars on a four track or GTFO" and today it's moved on to become very melodic with layered synth/effect lines, almost entirely because of DAW-based recording and specialized guitar pedals. What I'd really like to know, though, is when did the actual inflection happen?
@@dxtxzbunchanumbers I think guitar effects and such were used way back in the 80's but I guess that would be more like dream pop or C86 stuff which at the time, might have been considered alternative.
Those older bands influenced the new and 4-track wasn't a requirement anymore.
Although I always associated 4 track with the term lo-fi before it suffered it's own context collapse.
It's why it's always important to distinguish genres into two camps: Style or umbrella.
Style invented by the musicians. Umbrella by the journalists.
I think it started with the recording of Is This Ir
@@earthculture9462 yeah, those were basic single-serve analog effects (distortion, reverb, flange). What I'm alluding to are digital effects pedals (like Strymon's) that came out sometime in the 2000's-2010's. Studio-level effects in very small boxes. I think when those started coming out, you had a lot of bands able to get those sounds that Brian Eno and Martin Hannett had.
@@dxtxzbunchanumbers Ahhh gotcha. I guess just using effects at all was enough to be an influence.
Think most bands around that time (late 00's - 10's) were looking to expand the overall sound as well veering into New Wave, electronic, psychedelia and folk so I think that might explain why they didn't care about being pure though some bands obviously stayed the course.
When music started being uploaded directly online in the late 2000s and the barrier for production was zero.
It was easier to categorize music when it was physically sorted by CDs,tapes, records.
I've always assumed that indie/underground just means not popular. This is fascinating if Glass Animals and Billie Eilish are considered indie lol
Yeah, this confuses me, too. I guess most people think of the term indie as a genre, which it isn’t
@@poppinmms8980 it is a genre, it describes a certain sound now and not independent like it used to
If their stuff is self produced I guess.
Billie eilish used to be just a producer and singer duo.
Same with olivia rodrigo she’s considered indie pop / rock even tho she’s signed to a major label so I feel like it’s more alternative pop and rock cuz the term “indie” with olivia rodrigo doesn’t make too much sense lol
"Underground" Hip-Hop has lost its meaning as well it seems.
ehhh not really. we're in a streaming era. music is now finally accessible so there are no definitive fine line to distinguish the mainstream and the underground. some say it depends on the monthly listeners numbers. some say that if u make music that are different from the mainstream (trap/old school boom bap, etc), u can be considered as underground. like i said, it has become a subjective matter.
How
I was gatekeeping Michael Jackson
@@lordquasvinylfacts
@@Traay0good luck with that
Having Tame Impala on the thumbnail reminded me of something, I love his laid back guitar and synth vibe, but I can’t even tell anyone I like his music because they’ll immediately assume I get all my songs from TikTok, and app I hate and don’t even use
Dont even get how Tame Impala are even indie, they came from the Australian neo-psychedelia scene. They have no real correlation with the typical “indie rock” sound. Its neo-psych
@@kelechi_77because they’re a single independent artist, probably.
@@kelechi_77yeah their more neo-psychedelia, never even thought of them as “indie” I’d say smashing pumpkins is more indie than them and they were more inspired by shoegaze lol
TikTok brings back good songs, and then taints them with the fact most people think they’re from tiktok
same with alternative like how is alternative pop even exist it literally controdicts itself
You can have alternative pop music, its pop that exists outside the mainstream, “pop” like indie nd alternative has a transmuted meaning it no longer means “popular music” but a typical 2 minute melodic verse-chorus structure kind of song
I'm not a musician, but I think the term alternative pop fits well with that type of music that isn't mainstream, but has a pop base, like alt z, I honestly think alt pop would be a good substitute term
It stills makes sense like indie pop
I have always thought of alt pop as more of an alternative approach to pop by being more influenced to non-pop sources or styles that isn't mainstream like alt rock & electronic music
can you explain why you think it's contradictory?
I don't think indie has ever been useful as a genre term.
honestly, at best it only ever described the bands relation to the music industry and then basically that wasnt true almost immediately.
Didnt stop me from being proudly into indie music in highschool 15 years ago, but youth i guess
I've always suspected this. the general definition is music that comes from independent labels and takes influence from indie rock and indie folk, but that barely tells me anything about what the musical characteristics or conventions are.
i thought it just meant small artists
@@flamboyantbeans And you’re right but only if you consider dictionaries and the word’s origin. But, yes, nowadays people tend to think that “indie” is a good point to describe their taste (my personal opinion is that they’re lacking knowledge and just want to look unusual - I was there myself). Just a couple of days ago I got interested in this topic because I’ve seen a pin with “music genres” using terms like “punk”, “indie”, “new wave” and “garage”. And when I pointed out the problem of such division some girl told me that “indie music” in fact, does have its own specific sound…
When i hear "i like indie" i just interpreted as "i listen to music i found on the Internet thats extremely popular with my demographic but doesn't air on the radio"
This is actually a perfect definition lol
Hehe, yeah... Most of the time that's true~🫠🙃
LITERALLY THIS
0:49 vocaloid jumpscare
thanks for the warning, I'll be on my toes- AAA
I saw it and was like OH WAIT HE DID VOCALOID and then discovered it’s not on RUclips today is a sad day
Lol get miku'd
Indie for me, is finding a song from my RUclips recommendations at 3 am with 10 views on it.
real
found a song called call of locust one time i dont remember to be honest
It used to mean D.I.Y. then that off-kilter style began to be associated with the sound which in turn made it a reason to sell that sound, sign indie bands to major labels with higher production and still call it indie. (Modest mouse being a good example)
Alternative went through a similar path, just at different times, both becoming umbrella terms just meaning not mainstream instead of pointing to specific styles.
My rule is that the sound has to be different enough to not be played on 90's top 40 radio but not so different that it veers into avant garde territory and away from it's pop/rock song structures.
Indie was what happened to us teenagers of the late 2000s to early 2010s when we grew out of emo and started shopping at Urban Outfitters.
There is a distinct sound of a subgenre of rock that took off in the early 2000s to 2010s that was indie tho like you can’t listen to a band like Interpol and merely call them “alternative rock”. For that time, they were indie much like The Drums or Passion Pit was indie and indie they shall all remain. 😢
Haha… I can relate to this
When I tell people I listen to indie music, I basically mean just one music artist I listen is indie and it’s my favorite.
But my favorite indie artist is Good Kid
YES GOOD KID IS AMAZING I'M GOING TO A GOOD KID CONCERT IN 14 DAYS
@@OctoScribbles LUCKYYYY
@@o.neutronstar.o ME AND MY MUM ARE SUPER BIG FANS
i'm also gonna go thrifting on that day :D
GOOD KID MENTIONED
Yesssss!!!!
As soon as I saw Tame Impala I clicked on the video
Same
i love tame impala
Random love there music BUT WHY IS IT SO LONG?
@@K4TSSS His* DID YOU KNOW HE'S JUST ONE GUY?!
I actually love that he does longer songs more often. Feels like a journey for each track
same😭😭😭😭
I definitely enjoyed this video and thought it was informational but the one area I think you missed out on is where the style of indie came from and where the term was originally applied.
The term indie was first applied to English, Scottish, New Zealand and to a lesser extent American guitar-based rock bands, that tended towards to a softer and jangly sound that originated as part of the wider post-punk (a term most people haven't even heard of unless you're really into alternative music) movement in the late 70s and early 80s. Bands like the Smiths, Joy Division and the Cure had massive critical and commercial success despite being signed to the independent labels Rough Trade, Factory and Fiction, and the term indie was coined to describe them and their peers. The Cure and Joy Division are typically not referred to as indie in modern terms though because their music is significantly different from the style of indie that was more similar to the Smiths and R.E.M., who despite not being indie themselves are influential to the sound of indie
Additionally, although they received significantly less commercial success, the Scottish indie record label Postcard and the New Zealand indie record label Flying Nun are perhaps the two most important precursors to the sound of modern indie. The Smiths and R.E.M. both took significant influence from the recordings of Scottish post-punk band Orange Juice, and as such Postcard Records is perhaps the first record label to not just be independent, but specifically for the style that became to be known as indie. If you're interested in the history of indie, you should check out the Postcard Records trio, Josef K, Aztec Camera (their early stuff at least, their later stuff is good but not in the same style; I recommend the albums, "Knife," and especially, "High Land, Hard Rain") and Orange Juice , and some of the Flying Nun bands like the Chills or the Bats. They were all super ahead of their time and despite not achieving much commercial success are massively ahead of their time and you can hear their influence in modern day indie bands.
So I think that's what indie is. It's music that emulates the style of late 70s-early 80s soft guitar-based post-punk groups like the Smiths, Orange Juice, Aztec Camera and the Chills.
A fairly similar thing can be said about alternative. Alternative meant groups that, even if they were signed to major labels, such as R.E.M. and Siouxsie and the Banshees, still produced inventive music that broke from the mainstream rock and roll cliches. However, like with indie, the term gradually became diluted and can refer to almost anything now as long as it originates from that post-punk strain started by R.E.M., the Banshees and their peers
It's important to note that independent record labels weren't even a thing until the mid 70s until the advent of the punk rock explosion. That was the first time bands were able to release and record music without the influence of the mainstream, and as the name implies was a direct precursor to the post-punk movement, who felt that punk rock was stylistically and artistically limiting but the ideas it promoted were valuable, which is why post-punk is so diverse as a movement. And of course, the entire history of underground, alternative and independent music goes back to the revolutionary and groundbreaking work of the Velvet Underground in New York in the late 60s
Anyways, that's my two cents on what indie is and its development. I don't mean any of this as a criticism or anything, as I said at the top the video was informative and interesting, I just think the history of where indie came from is important to understanding the term indie.
Oh, I also meant to include that the Cure did eventually release albums on the major label Polydor, but in the 2000s, significantly after their commerical and critical peak during the late 80s and early 90s. They were signed to Fiction for all of their most influential and well-received albums
whenever i use the term indie, i do have a certain sound in mind. ig its stuff like clairo, fay webster, hippo campus, wallows, still woozy, declan mckenna just to name a few. these guys r very popular obv. its more of the vibe for me ig😭 but when ppl ask me what i like listening to i just say indie/alt rock and hope it makes sense. (ngl i would include tame impala in that category- but i dont think i even know the diff b/w alt and indie rock)
Oh I love ur taste , suggest me some songs please
@@Clandestinecon stopp tyy. u should listen to OMG by suki waterhouse, what once was by Her's. why by dominic fike. cooks by still woozy
peak taste
Yooo Still Woozy mentioned!!!
The other day, I was at the bank and I heard "Blister in the Sun" by Violent Femmes over the radio.
I've thought about this a lot and I've finally come to the conclusion that we need to let go of the origin word "independent" and let "indie" be its own thing. This has happened to a lot of words in the history of the english language, and already to genre terms like "underground" and "alt" so it shouldn't be too much of a problem.
Confusement is kind of a fire word, I'm gonna start using it from now on
If somebody says indie as a noun, like "I like indie music" I'm not gonna know what they're talking about.
But if they say it as an adjective like indie rock or indie folk, I know exactly what they mean.
In the first example you give it's still an adjective, it's just the noun being modified is "Music" instead of "Rock" or "Folk".
When I say it I generally mean, "I like basically all genres with "Indie" in the name", Lol. Indie Rock, Indie Folk, Indie Pop, Indietronica, All named applied to stuff I tend to enjoy
@@rateeightx Good point. Becomes an umbrella genre in that regard rather than a specific style. So it's not precise but it does point in a certain direction which can be useful.
Indie pop
ock/folk sounds similar
There's a great Strong Bad Email way back that joked about the difference between "Independent films" (zero-budget pretensions art-house student projects) and "Indie films" (big-budget movies that ripped off the Juno aesthetic). I feel like it applies here too
I had this same thought the other day when thinking about how I got into “indie” music in high school over a decade ago. I thought, “Does indie even mean anything anymore??” So it’s pretty cool to see this video pop up 🤗
been a fan since ur opening bands vid and its unreal how much (well deserved) support youve been getting, i cant wait to see where u go from here!! :)
aww thank you i really appreciate it!
Paul McCartney's RAM is definitely my favorite indie album
RAM MENTIONED🔥🔥🔥
Yeah and Brian Eno's "Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy" is my favorite post-punk album, even though it was released 2 or 3 years before punk.
Two school teachers didnt show up so i could get the notification to watch this
lets goooo
Great video. Fascinating when a business descriptor becomes a stylistic adjective.
True indie music is pretty rare just like indie movies.
The movie case can be interesting.
Phantom Menace was a true indie movie and Pulp Fiction wasn’t!
Hold up I’m super fascinated by that last statement. Could you explain this in further detail? This sounds like a fucking amazing conversation
I think most of the artists you mentioned would have definitely been considered indie back in their day/when they were first starting off (Nirvana for example), but as time went on, they got more popular/bigger, and so (in my opinion) that term should no longer apply to them.
Perhaps most of the confusion lies around people thinking of indie as an actual genre/mistaking it for alternative music.
I personally consider indie artists to be artist who are not as popular/mainstream, DIY (mostly), having low budgets (if any) to create their music, and not being signed to a major record label.
The extra tricky part is licensing deals between majors and indies, are they still considered independent even after said deal has ended (For example, metal label Earache entered a licensing deal with Columbia in the 90’s with 6 bands, that deal ended relatively quickly as it wasn’t very successful).
20 years ago the music business was dominated by "major labels". There were "independent labels" that were smaller, grassroot organizations who signed more niche bands. This all kinda went out the window with self-publishing and distribution channels like Soundcloud and Bandcamp
6:20 the csh lore goes much deeper, twin fantasy is like the 5th or 6th album. There's some great stuff before it too!
1,2,3,4,mbiklb(5), tf. how could it ever be the 5th album?
@dddw. honestly just couldn't remember If mbikmb was before or after tf my bad
@@aaronkerper4004 i also couldnt remember that for a LONG time lol
7:13 It's actually the Big Three. EMI has been defunct since 2012 and their assets have been split between Universal and Warner Bros.
Saw some idiot misinterpret your title/thumbnail and start whining on twitter. Glad I decided to actually watch the video. Great content, man 🙏🏾 subbed
indie music and its nirvana
my bad that was me 🙏
i've always preferred calling those genres as alternative pop and alternative rock. other subgenres are great to use too, like soft rock, garage rock, chamber pop, dream pop, etc
hold up, live nightcore alex g goes kinda hard
i think the prevalence/accessibility of DAWs and recording software [aka DA COMPUTER] def played a role in nullifying what 'indie' meant as far as labels, since those labels weren't as needed to release or record music anymore. i think that kinda got replaced with the DIY/bedroom pop scene of the early 2010s, which didn't last but the sound/style trickled out and contributed to a greater wave of self- or collective-releases.
"indie" now definitely feels like a meaningless signifier that streaming services and labels will push onto music in order to make it have appeal for certain audiences; hopefully, this will encourage people to listen to truly independent music, but idk it's hard to be optimistic about that when someone wants more music like Glass Animals lol. of course, there are people genuinely curious about indie art, and hopefully they can navigate the shitshow of mislabeled bands and find the real stuff. good vid, appreciate the thoughtfulness!
0:27 I hate how I instantly recognized alex
What's the name of the song playing at 0:27- 0:32?
@@hambakhaya Its snot offa beach music :d
@@liz34231 Thank you so much for the help!! I would have never found the song by myself!!
REAL
real 😔😔
some album with like 6 views and no comments on the internet archive, there you go (unironically i fucking love scrolling music on there)
The "deterioration of the meaning of indie" topic seems to resurface every few years as each new generation of artists reach wider audiences. 10 years ago, people were complaining about this, but it was directed at the successful 2000s alternative rock bands. Meanwhile Mac DeMarco and Tame Impala were still relatively small artist that were self-recording and getting categorized as indie. Ten years later here we are contemplating their indie status because their work is very popular now.
This will probably just keep happening indefinitely because it's too ingrained in how we speak about music despite the drawbacks
Man, I HATE being asked the question "What kind of music do you like?" Because a quick random of my song library reveals this:
Elliott Smith
Violent Femmes
Muse
Tech N9ne
Leonard Cohen
Alice in Chains
Gza the Genius
Faith No More
Brendon Small
De La Soul
The Offspring
Queens of the Stoneage
Amigo the Devil
The Cure
Lostdog Street Band
Bauhaus
A Wilhelm Scream
Neutral Milk Hotel
Interpol
The Mars Volta
Trampled By Turtles
Tool
Joy Division
Acid Bath
I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT KIND OF MUSIC I LIKE!
DE LA SOUL mentioned :D
alice in chains and qotsa AND elliott smith mentioned
Just say rock/metal, a combination. Because that's what normal people perceive it as
@@Ey3s.lyke.deMis3 Sure, and I used to say that, but there are some decidedly not rock or metal bands that are among my absolute favorites these days. The Builders and the Butchers, Amigo the Devil and Lost Dog Street Band being right up there with Alice in Chains, QotSA, Acid Bath and Faith No More in my book.
Rock/Metal with some Americana/folk and classic hiphop is a mouthful, and saying "everything" is a lie, because I do not go out of my way to listen to pop, top 40s, commercial country or what passes for hip hop these days.
@@GoneAsGoneCanBe understandable..
(same goes w/ me in diff manner; Frederic Chopin/Bach/Mozart x London After Midnight/The Cure/O- x Beastie Boys/NWA)
I've gotten to the point where whenever somebody asks me what kind of music I listen to, I just take my phone out to show them my Spotify algorithm and listening history. Its easier that way.
This has nothing to do with the topic but I've never seen The Room other than the "I did not hit her!" scene so seeing that flower shop scene convinced me I need to watch this movie, that was comedy gold
As a person who wants to make and release an album entirely by myself, I like that there are people out there who appreciate the rough, bedroom type indie because that’s all I can afford 😂
El indie, en su estilo musical, se refiere a música que tiene un caracter modesto, donde la producción (sea o no independiente de un sello) busca un sonido no tan pulido a la música comercial. Un género donde la instrumental no es compleja o virtuosa como tal, donde el tipo de composición se centra más en el aspecto melódico y lírico. Si lo vemos solo desde la concepción genérica de "indie es musica independiente a un sello" estamos dejando lo que realmente caracteriza al indie, sobretodo el de los años 90. Entonces, considero que estamos llamando indie erroneamente a mucha música de hoy en día.
i dont want to have to do research to know if a song is indie or not, when i think indie - i think of that vibe and feeling
So happy to see you updated a new video!!, thank you so much i love the music as usual❤️
From the UK here, I feel like indie really does depend on where you come from, indie is used to describe things like blur, kasabian, arctic monkeys, etc, a lot of Brit pop really, it's more a style rather than if they are attached to a major label, or maybe we're completely wrong 😂
i thought indie was like forest themed, slow gay pop
here's the thing, it can be
For real shit
you put in words everything I was thinking about that term ty🙏🙏🙏
Indie was what all the emo kids got into post 2007, roughly 2008 - 2011, which led to the term "hipster". I was tricked into buying Hospice by The Antlers - what a mistake.
i love hospice 😭
I'm mad you you got my music journey down to a T 😂
Mexican here. What’s wrong being a hipster? I am called a hipster all the time by all my Mexican friends.
@@theonlydiego1nothing.
Mexican hipsters are different I guess. Americans constantly chase trends
THE WAY I SCREAMED WHEN HE MENTIONED CAR SEAT HEADREST
mac demarco mentioned !! (and vacations like barely) but yeah, mac is indie! despite him being really popular nowadays he's got a record label of his own quite literally called 'mac's record label' he's my favorite actual indie artist :3
01:18 BLUR ❤️
Real 😍
real blur fans❤
Oh yeah I love Indian music especially from Bollywood
mythical notification pull
Also judging from the comments - it's a confusing term. In the UK indie music is used to define a style/genre of Alt Rock Pop, It's generally very commercially successful and doesn't ness have much to do with who they signed to. However, in the US it is stuck between maybe meaning independent Artist, or niche, and being a sound (as you say in this vid). There are artists like the Smiths that seem to be niche-indie cool for the US, but always seemed odd to me, as they are just one of the big (older) bands over here.
I remember when Spotify changed their genres and I only noticed it when I got my Spotify Wrapped at the end of the year and we had all these indie + genres
Yeah, it’s pretty odd. I think indie serves as the same kind of term as pop. Well, indie describes independent artist pop I guess describes popular music. It seems to be more of a social idea than it is a description of what the music sounds like.
i think it’s pretty easy to classify indie music. it’s broad and it’s vast. but obviously it means independent artist or studios who make music. but besides that it’s grown into its own form. a lot of indie derives from “jazz” jazzy chords and a scales. mixed with things such as rock, alternative, but now it’s all transformed. indie also means the music is problem really chill. probably heavy in chorus, spring reverb typically and uses a lot of lush and warm synth pads.
so let’s see bands like
The Smiths, LANY, Mac Demarco, Men I Trust, Del Water Gap, Boy Pablo, Puma Blue, King Krule, Yot Club, COIN, Hippo Campus, Stil Woozy, Wallows, Clairo, The Marias the list goes on right all kind of fit into this category of indie with their own spin. indie rock, indie alternative, indie punk, indie jazz, indie funk.
Its bands that just make their own music at home in someone’s room or garage, in someone’s studio that isn’t owned by another company or record label.
i think indie does mean something and i haven’t watched the video yet i plan on it im just at work but i think indie just means one obviously independent artist or who make their own music or in an independent without influence from big corporations.
or also you can classify it as unrestricted rock rock jazz. yacht rock even could be just indie
Honestly like I get that indie and Alt are words that have lost there meanings but like I honestly don’t know what to call my music taste at this point cause everything I listen to just falls under those labels and when I search up what sort of music it is google just tells me that they are indie/Alt
It’s kinda tricky aswell cause the artists I like all have different styles of music even if they do fit the ‘indie/alt’ sound
Yes yes Blustre, we have video about indie, but what about our favorite genre PoV: Indie?
I’m a simple man I see tame impala I click
exactly why I clicked
Speaking of the word “man,” which refers to one dude, did you know that Tame Impala is actually just--
0:31 hah i got to see this man live
Who is it?
@@wyatthaskell9988alex g 🔥🔥
@afraidto could you share which NPR tiny desk video that was?
@@last02sleep idk which one but i recognized him and i know he’s done tiny desk before
@@last02sleepi think it’s this ruclips.net/video/qyPquozbCOQ/видео.htmlsi=u5miZj602kcUjGO_
Everyone describes the pixies as indie rock but MY BROTHER IN CHRIST they had a record label and professional producer for all of their main albulms
@@yeeterdeleter4101 I think it's because they were such a heavy influence on the indie "sound" Like proto Indie.
Kind of like how Back Sabbath and Led Zeppelin were known as some heavy form of blues rock when they started but those early albums are now considered proto metal.
FIRST ALBUM TWIN FANTASY??? dang man how are you not ripped apart by the fans
around 1:55. I don't know why you would say that the same thing can *sorta* be said about indie music. i think the two are exactly the same in the sense that there is one person that goes to extreme lengths to carry out a creative vision exactly the way they see it in their mind, funded by themselves. yes it would help to have a crew and thousands of dollars of equipment, it would also help a musician to have the same thing, like a studio, a mixing guy, a vocals guy, different musicians, a symphony, and whatever else to be on the same level as the big guys.
all you need to film a movie is an iphone, so if anything i would say the barrier of entry is lower for a movie than music, because you need to know how to actually play your instrument or whatever, but anyone can film a video.
basically that scene felt very out of place in the video, and didn't really help me to understand indie music any more than i did before.
I'm not mad or anything just felt like sharing, good video though.
i actually listen to an indie artist, and all her music isn’t called indie by spotify because she makes instrumentals
Spotify makes a lot of mistakes when it comes to typing artist genres, there's an artist I really like and he has a very good alternative base, as well as metal and a bit of EDM, when my most listened to at the end of the year arrived, I saw that Spotify categorized him as pop
I don't have synesthesia but the only way I've ever known how to explain indie as someone who loves music but isn't into the more technical side of things (yet) is that it inexplicably sounds like how oranges taste
Probably the only time I'm grateful for covid because I'm in the first ten comments lmao love your content man
thank you :)
"their first album, Twin Fantasy"
*1, 2, 3, 4, LPOP, MBIKMB,*
The "every genre" thing, republished on RUclips shorts, brought me to you.
Ajr is a good example because while they are decently popular they arent signed to a record label and have a certain sound that you dont see anywhere else in pop.
I remember Paste magazine wrote this cover page article saying ‘Indie is Dead’ way back in 2005 or something… essentially, they said the term was ‘dead’ because Indie had won! The internet and now streaming became the great equalizers, allowing small artists the same reach and potential influence as the major label groups.
My 2 favorite albums on the thumbnail lol
Yayy I've been asking for this video, glad I finally got it 🙏
I remember 2009-2012 i used to be into indie and kinda hipster, a full on hipster girl i had a crush on linked me lana del reys video games when it was uploaded like a week earlier. In the end i didnt get the girl and i think the indie died for me the first time i heard video games. Not to say that its a bad song, i think its one of the prettiest songs i have ever heard (and because of the girl everytime i hear it it reminds me of that hopeless youthromance so its special to me) but it just has some sort of new taste to it. Hard to describe.
By the way, back then 2010-2012 i used to follow a channel called BIRP! (Best indie rock playlists). The channel uploaded around hundred indie songs EVERY MONTH. Turns out the channel is still active and has some of those REALLY eaely 2010's sounding songs. I recommend the channel.
If i ask someone what music they listen to and they just say "indie" im running away.
Indie to me just sounds like being a teen with a small group of goofy friends at a fun fair on the beach or like walking in a field of flowers and wild grass, wind blowing and sun shining, you walk through the trees and bushes around you and find a glistening lake. 🥰
It began with 80s college rock (less popularly called alternative) from jangle pop to noise rock (the first 'post-hardcore' AKA 'pigfuck').
as Sound Field explained it, Indie has less to do w/ the music an artist makes & has more to do w/ the artist's outlook. things just became more complicated when people attached the term to the sound but the artist is indie, not the sound. to simplify: indie: Brent Faiyaz, Sound: RnB.
wow im kind of surprised he didnt mention tally hall (im a tally hall fan)
1:16 just gotta say that i was thinking of blur and then this picture showed up on the background hahaha
well, yeah i was not expecting snot live here
5:25 VACATIONS MENTION RRRAAAH
When I think of indie I either think of soft girl music ie clairo girl in red etc or I think of wiggly vocals with angry lyrics ie boywithuke olivertree etc
i was just pondering this, thanks
I used to think it was soft Rock mixed influences from 60's 70s hippy vibes/beatles, using old ways to record that has been forgotten with advanced technology
the main thing is that indie has divided into three different meanings
actual indie - any music that is not produced by a company, literally tells you nothing about a persons taste
indie as a genera - music more in the vein of cavetown or mxmtoon, its good music but much easier to just explain the artist you listen to so it doesnt confuse
indie as a "genera" - stuff like nirvana, the more popular artist that are 100% with a label but was at one time was actually indie, and now is just holding onto it
6:21 Twin fantasy was not their 1st album, 1 was iirc.
There were actually 5 albums that came before Twin Fantasy’s release in 2011
1:18 so you're telling me that's NOT Weezer? 🤔
That's what I thought
what was the movie with the "rose purchase" scene? I need to watch that, absolutely a gem
I'd argue "Indie Music" _originally_ referred to, As the name would imply, Independent music, I.E. music created by people not on a major record label. However, for quite a while (I'd say since around the mid-late 2000s, But I wasn't exactly paying much attention to what terms people used to describe music then, So I can't say for certain) it's been more of just a genre name, Lumping together a number of different styles influenced by actual independent music from the '80s and '90s, Which doesn't seem unreasonable on the surface, Because yeah there's a distinct sound there (Or several, We'll get to that) that didn't previously have a name, However as that style has expanded and diversified, Incorporating influences from more different styles, We've kept using the same few terms for it, Indie Rock, Indie Folk, Indie Pop, Et cetera, Even when they're now being applied to artists with completely different styles, making it less useful as a genre term. Let's look at for example Indie Folk, This term can be applied to both Lord Huron and Elliott Smith, And sure they may be some influence there, Some similarities between the two, Honestly I feel the term Indie Folk is _really_ overused, I've heard pretty much every Folk artist from the 21st century who isn't making traditional folk (Or some styles associated with rather specific regions or cultures, like Celtic Folk or Appalacchian Folk, although tbh what I'm thinking of as "Generic Folk" is probably better described as American Folk or Anglo-Folk) described as "Indie Folk", Whether their making Folk-Pop, or Folk Rock, or more "traditional-styled" folk, Or something else entirely. Although the other styles definitely have their ambiguities too, Both Arctic Monkeys and The Wombats have widely been called Indie Rock, But honestly I'm not sure there's much similarity between the Punky Garage-Rock of Arctic Monkeys' debut (Or the artsy "Lounge Rock" of their recent releases, For that matter), And the Wombats' debut which is bordering on New Wave. And these are just 2 bands from the same region around the same time, I'm sure there are many examples where the discrepancy is even greater. But people keep using the term(s) "Indie", Because we don't really have anything more specific to apply to these styles.
MAAANN this video actually just gave me a huge.. reality check(?) on what i call my favorite genres.. cause i listen to alt/indie music, but not anyone like billie elish or like any big artist that's proclaimed as 'indie'.. i just call my favorite bands that cause it's easier to categorize them like that.. and it makes me kinda mad how there's all kinds of indie.. like WHAT THE HECK IS POV: INDIE MAN???? 😭😭 but idk,, i feel like now indie is just a type of sound rather than the actual meaning of the word, like idk whatever mac demarco or glass animals or vacations have got going on for them, that's the kinda vibe that i feel as it could be indie (ofc it could also be considered as alternative or shoe gaze or bedroom pop but you know) so yrah.. idk man.. i just listen to music that normal people wouldn't listen to!!! 🤓
i think thats why spotify uses pov indie. cuz its not actually indie but people consider it indie. mother mother is a good example of this i feel
i love u too indie youtuber blustre
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it's so funny to think when i first heard the term i thought it was short for "individual", as in self-produced, somewhat unique and with lowkey aesthetics. the definition has quite literally morphed to fit both lol
Nirvana is my fav band. I always thought kurt vision for his music was a noise rock new wave . I always admire he payed homage to k records.