Digital Birdy

Is Indie Dead?

I would add a rejoinder to the conclusions this brilliant article draws - there are two types of music, good and bad, and all according to your own taste. To be caught up in labels, categories and stereotypes isn’t very indie (or punk) now, is it?

By Rachael Maddux

“There’s a part of me that can never shake the indignation that [indie] once was about ethics and business practices,” Slim Moon says. “… There’s a grumpy old man about me that’s really upset that that’s not what most people mean when they talk about indie anymore.”

…Over the last three decades, indie has built itself a subculture that is just as dependent on trends, superficiality and the whims and caprices of the listening public as the pop mainstream has ever been. It’s generally less egalitarian toward female and minority performers than the mainstream. And even within its most narrowly defined bounds, indie is susceptible to its own ravenous appetite for the next big thing. The goal used to be generating some amount of buzz as a means to an end—a record deal, a decent-sized tour. The lightspeed Internet has made buzz an end unto itself, a seal of approval that one hand slaps on these acts while the other pushes them out the back door. This, of course, only reinforces the most widely held negative stereotype about indie rock—its cooler-than-thou elitism…