I'm kinda sick of major label bands being branded as Indie rock...
 

Intentional or not, it bugs me that it is a complete contradiction of terms. I'm afraid that it could be the next term that the media catches onto if they haven't already (like in the 90's when grunge was used to describe everything). Who else feels like this?

'Indie' has referred to a style rather than a record company's industry status for a long time now. But I agree, it is a bit annoying.

Eh, never bothered with anything indie, I just got into what I like. But I do see your point it is quite lame, that there are these bands that are just pop, and are called indie.

its in your title, it's called BRANDING

I agree, but the major labels caught on to this years ago, buying indie labels so they could put stuff out that had 'credability' or whatever they want to call it.

The one that winds me up is 'alternative', which by its nature should be something different to the main stream, but again its just used to give crap bands credibility.

Think Synth hit it on the head, you just buy what's good. Shame we can'y use indie or alternative as a pointer any more.

we need no wave to be brought back. i want to bring it back.

Let's do it.

NO! ...no wave existed from around 1977 - 1981, it is unique period of a certain type of music that existed in a certain place therefore it should not be resurrected as the same thing, basically because it can't be. its that simple. calling it back is a contradiction to the very title statement of this thread.

Get this guy a time machine for the no wave "revival" that happened already.

I can see your point.

Oh, and include "lo-fi" on this list as well.
I had a feeling in the early 1990s that "lo-fi" was going to become a buzzword for music of a certain type, and not just for "bedroom production techniques" that describe the way music sounds on recordings. It came true pretty quickly, and a lot of the bands called "lo fi" are anything but.

I just hate the word "indie". It really says nothing about the music.

I am guilty.
I use it to describe things other than music.

Indie is a joke. I would never describe something as indie unless I was making fun of it.

i've also decided, after years of genre confusion, scissor shock is now "digital no wave".

Biggest news in music since Arab on Radar broke up.

haha.

seriously, wait till you hear the new ep (ahh.. what the fuck, i was only going to send it to a few people but if anyone wnats it: http://www.sendspace.com/file/09ot07). it's no to the fucknig wave.

well, I (along with a friend) am planning on creating a label. actually more of a collective kinda thing. no money involved. but we are looking forward to create our space. and mostly we are doing this becuz we are sick, too, of seeing things like these happening the all time.

independent is no more, if you're out there on MTV.

Really, the fault lies with the British "indie" charts in Melody Maker and the like, which long ago became a barometer of what was aimed at the "indie" market rather than what was produced by people independently.

Today, I find it kind of useful, in that if something I haven't heard before is described as "indie rock", I figure it'll probably be boring, cliched music made by college age kids who cop all of the moves from the interesting bands of the late '80s with none of the innovation. No telling whether they will be on a major or "indie" label of course, but they can, and will, sound the same either way.

As for No Wave revivals, as painful as it was to watch that Kill Your Idols documentary on the subject, it was worth it to hear what Lydia Lunch and James Thirlwell think of that idea!

ohh yeah? monosodic is no scum grind wave.

No Wave can't be revived, because we have talentless noise bands.

Agreed ^^^ it is bands ripping off bands from the late eighties and early ninetees. With such influences as R.E.M. Dinosaur Jr, Nirvana, Sonic Youth, and others.

No I was just saying that that scene spawned very talentless bands, who just wanted to mimick their sounds, and had nothing valuable to add to it. I feel that is what most noise bands are, that is why I kind of back off from them.

I always say with music, one should enjoy it, no matter if it is popular music or so called-indie. One should just enjoy music. I could never understand people who hate mainstream music, just because the bands are on a major label. I mean why not, if I can get more recognition in a major label go for it. Just as long it is a good contract. But then again I am a capitalist.

ew, i'd never be influenced by any of those bands.

I don't really like using the term indie, but sometimes it is just easier that way.

This might be a little Chicken - Egg logic here. Perhaps you "feel that is what most noise bands are" because you "kind of back off from them."

Mind, there are plenty of shit noise bands out there, but I'd argue no more per capita than in any other genre of music. "Noise" is one of those generic critic terms that gets applied to a whole lot of different sounds coming from a whole lot of different approaches. There are some huge cliches to the "genre" just as there are to "indie rock", "electronica", or whatever the fuck, but there are also people who actively work against those cliches who still get lumped in for lack of a better term. It would be a shame if you missed out on the innovators based upon the crimes of the sheep.

In the past six months, I've been exposed to a lot more noise artists than I'd intentionally sought out, largely because I went to see Crank Sturgeon at a house party that featured lots of other people, and because of the Oly Experimental Music Festival (which had it's share, though lots of other stuff too.) I had kind of the same bias you display going in, and coming out, although there were some boring nob-twiddlers here and there, I saw lots of people doing interesting audio experiments with a surprising sense of freedom - and the best didn't sound anything like each other. And honestly, none of them were ripping off the Contortions or Teenage Jesus in the slightest.

And that's another thing that winds me up, the NME hasn't got a clue these days, there was a time when they could be a source of good new music, now it's just the fucking Artic Monkeys and the like.

And you get these dick head students thinking 'hmmm, must be good because it's in the NME'. No wonder British rock is so shit.

Whatever indie music is or isn't, most people know what it refers to musically. Say indie and you might think The Jesus and Mary Chain (who were primarily signed to a major). You DEFINITELY won't be thinking Rick Astley (who for a majority of his career was signed to an Indie).

Indie now is just shorthand for any band that might have listened to the Velvets, Beefheart, Pet Sounds era Beach Boys, the Stooges or Syd Barrett era Floyd (none of whom were signed to independent labels)

I'm kinda sick of Indie rock bands being branded as music...

I'm kinda sick of indie rock fans whining all the time. They are a pale imitation of what a music fan is all about.

music industry is currently living bad days. or at least not as good as they used to be.
nowadays people chew and threw off music very quickly and there's a lot of people chewing for free.
i guess that now, more than ever, it's important for them to aggregate bands and music styles in larger groups, in order to make some money out of it.
unfortunetly putting everything in the same bag, might be a good thing for the market but it's not the healthiest sceneario for music, creativity and diversity are the biggest casualties.

Agreed, 90% of all rock now is branded as alternative, yet another contradiction.

Right on.

I remember back in the day, when 'indie' meant 'indie', it wasn't always so great. For a while everything was cool in the land of indie, but then along came Kylie Minogue, and she'd always be top of the indie charts, because Stock Aitkin Waterman where an independant label. The top ten would be nine jingle-jangle guitar tracks followed by the latest Kylie pop-sop clone-a-tune pocket-money-stealing abomination. It was annoying.

The way I see it, "indie" has simply become shorthand for "alternative" in recent years (which was always a vague bit of branding in the first place, but that's another story). And perhaps it does have something to do with the term "alternative" losing some, if not much of it's meaning in the nineties? Who knows, but that may have something to do with it. Of course now the term "indie" has lost much of it's meaning as well. Personally, given the choice between the two I still prefer "alternative" to "indie", but then I guess I'm just old school that way. :)

That is probably the main reason why this confusion about the term ever began. The word "indie" was more commonplace overseas, where in the UK and Japan, it was common in the early 80's. And many of the bands topping those charts were marketed to Americans on U.S. major labels.

But nowadays, to crow about the word "indie" or even "no wave" like it is too precious to become diluted or to let its definition drift from its original meaning, it just seems ridiculous. You can try to write a best-selling book to reframe the definition. Good luck making everyone read it!

You can hold onto these words like you own them. Just like good music!

I don't really see Indie rock as a proper genre, despite what it says on the front of our CD. I see it more of a term used to describe an alternative rock band on an Independant label. Labelling bands like Arctic Monkeys as Indie is riddiculous by my books.

agreed. so much.

hey, erase that thing I said about that label thing. actually I found someone who has started that already - and "label" was never the best term to call it. more of a collective. ever heard of chestnut productions?

I remember being somewhat naive and being astonished to see Steps at the top of the indie charts. Still, great band.

Has anyone mentioned that rnb seems to mean something from what it used to? I think it's absolutely shocking. Or, alternately, lives move on and it becomes harder and harder to actually give a shit about such things. Indie is a genre rather than a description. You will probably all notice that words change their meanings over time. This is a natural process. It is not anything to be afraid of.

Big up the linguists in the house etc.

Are you ok?

Oh God, I remember when I first heard the term "garage house". I was so disappointed that the music didn't sound like a cross between Derrick May and The Sonics.