‘Indie’ is a modern day alternative sub culture defined by its associated music, fashion, behaviour and beliefs. It is a culture that emerged in the 1980’s as a by word for attitude and anti-commercialism with a territory of its own type of music and film. It prided itself in protesting against the mainstream.
Indie music rose to new heights with bands such as The Smiths, Sonic Youth and The Pixies, who were successful due to their new indie fan following. They were not signed to major record labels, instead opting for the independent music label, usually managing their whole careers. The original indie kids bought clothes from second hand shops, wore cardigans, scarves, waistcoats, jeans, aviator glasses and devoted themselves to independent music labels. They had a strong sense of being outside the music business machine and ultimately the mainstream.
Beginnings to Today
During the 1990’s indie music changed as large record companies such as EMI, Sony, and BMG bought smaller independent firms. For almost a decade, indie music suffered the plight of large scale commercialism, making a great deal of money out of the music scene. In recent years however, indie music has had a revival thanks to the use of the internet to promote bands (MySpace), a powerful tool that sees eye to eye with the do-it-yourself methods of the earlier indie culture.
An example of this new indie branch can be seen in the ‘Arctic Monkeys’, a band who first built up a fan base through the internet, before becoming internationally successful. There are numerous indie bands-The Strokes, The National, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Metric are examples in the U.S.A and Canada. While Razorlight, Kaiser Chiefs and Kasabian helm the movement in Britain.
Popularity of Indie Culture
Has the recent boom of indie musicians seen indie culture now slip into the mainstream? Many bands claim to be ‘indie’ even though signed to big labels, while Mario Testina shoots‘indie fashion’ for Vogue. In 2007, star of the reality TV show Big Brother, Emily Parr, proclaimed- “There’s a new music taking over this country, and it’s called ‘indie’. Has indie culture seeped into the mainstream? It’s impossible not to see indie fashion on the streets as well as the catwalks today. The sudden surge of popularity in the Converse shoe is an example of how much money is being made out of the indie market.
Survival
Will real indie ever survive? Many experts report that tools such as MySpace failed to reach their full potential, the aforementioned is now partially owned by large record companies such as Sony BMG, Universal Music, Warner Music, and EMI. However indie fashion is slowly merging into the norm, as seen through events such as Brooklyn Indie Fashion week. Many bands are also opting out of the record company route to success, evident by the success of Metric- a Candadian band who applied a do-it-yourself approach to selling music.
