Indie Rock is a subgenre of Rock music that originated in the United Kingdom, the United States, and New Zealand in the 1970s. The term “indie” was coined in the late 1970s to refer to Punk Rock and Post-Punk bands that would release music independently in an industry dominated by major labels. Although the term was originally used to describe Rock music released through independent record labels, by the 1990s, it became more widely associated with the music that such bands produced and was initially used interchangeably with Alternative Rock or “Guitar Pop Rock”.
Indie Rock is associated with a less mainstream-oriented sound and a DIY ethos to recording and production. It dabbles in Pop-informed songwriting and takes influences from sound palettes ranging from Contemporary Folk to Punk. Indie Rock artists often embrace an autonomous approach to achieve a more “authentic” or raw sound and write their music alone without outside help.
The term Indie Rock, which comes from “independent” and describes the small and relatively low-budget labels on which it is released. Although distribution deals are often struck with major corporate companies, these labels and the bands they host have attempted to retain their autonomy, leaving them free to explore sounds, emotions, and subjects of limited appeal to large, mainstream audiences. The influences and styles of the artists have been extremely diverse, including Punk, Psychedelia, Post-punk, and Country.
In the 1980s, the use of the term “indie” started to shift from its reference to recording companies to describe the style of music produced on Punk and Post-punk labels. The sound of Indie Rock has its origins in the New Zealand Dunedin sound of the Chills, Sneaky Feelings, Tall Dwarfs, the Clean, and the Verlaines, and early 1980s college rock radio stations that would frequently play Jangle Pop bands like the Smiths and R.E.M.. The genre solidified itself during the mid-1980s with NME’s C86 cassette in the United Kingdom and the underground success of Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr., and Unrest in the United States.
During the 1990s, the mainstream success of Grunge and Britpop, two movements influenced by Indie Rock, brought increased attention to the genre and saw record labels use their independent status as a marketing tactic. This led to a split within Indie Rock, one side conforming to mainstream radio, the other becoming increasingly experimental. By this point, “indie rock” referred to the musical style rather than ties to the independent music scene. By the end of the 1990s, Indie Rock had developed several subgenres and related styles, including Lo-fi, Noise Pop, Emo, Slowcore, Post-rock, and Math Rock.
In the 2000s, Indie Rock reentered the mainstream through Garage Rock and Post-Punk. Changes in the music industry and the growing importance of the internet enabled a new wave of Indie Rock bands to achieve mainstream success, leading to questions about its meaningfulness as a term.
In the 2010s, Alternative Rock music retained interest through more successful Indie Rock acts such as Car Seat Headrest and Mitski. In addition, a wave of new “bedroom artists” also appeared, recording and releasing their music away from record label interference, usually at home.
sources: discogs, wikipedia, rateyourmusic
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