THOUGHT: An Infinity of Indie

Ah-hah: another thing I can bitch about.
Perhaps ‘Indie’ is not the best way to describe the sort of bands that have populated radio for the last few years. Perhaps the best way would be ‘pure rubbish’. Not the most articulate description, but wholly accurate.

I won’t name names; not out of kindness, but because there are just too damn many groups out there who make a trend of sounding the same as each other, thereby trying to name them all would almost be as tedious as listening to one of their records. Jangly guitars, laddish vocals and bobbing white afros topping it all off, these topman tits have been a nuisance to me and many others since around 2005 (though I’m sure the labels were cottoning onto these bands before then). No words can truly convey my dislike toward this unimaginative music, which nonetheless fill venues over the country.

Now, I’ve said the phrase ‘Indie’ is not the real buzz word to tag it with. Indie has been part of music (here and over the Atlantic at least) since the eighties, when The Smiths came into being, along with the gothic-undertoned The Cure. After that, when Britpop exploded over here ‘Indie’ was attributed to Oasis, Blur, Suede and the rest of that crowd, before that turned into a fundamentally different style / genre entirely. Radiohead climb near the peak of their creativity with ‘The Bends’ and ‘OK Computer’ and they are ‘Indie’. So are Muse, Idlewild and Placebo who follow or accompany them. Now, you can see that the word ‘Indie’ gradually decreased in provenance to any particular style – usually any format of a guitar band seems to do. Anyway, ‘Indie’ really means ‘Independent’ – independent labels, independent music. Stuff which would not get much mainstream play – so essentially, Nirvana were indie (before ‘Nervemind’). Chaotic grunge against the more uniform and ‘nice’ ‘Indie’ we know today. The meaning of the label ‘Indie’ really does not exist, does it now? In all honesty, any alternative music could be labelled as Indie. And indie could be labelled as Alternative. It's a confusing cycle.

But back to the point at hand: any band who make songs about having 'the same jeans on for four days now' need to be hunted down, given an individual haircut and prescribed some songwriting lessons. Access to The Beatles back catalogue wouldn't be bad either.

This guy articulates my opinion much more than I can. Have a gander:

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/does-the-world-need-another-indie-band-870520.html