What is Indie Rock Music?
Contents
Indie rock is a genre of rock music that originated in the United Kingdom in the 1970s. Indie rock is extremely diverse, with subgenres that include lo-fi, post-rock, math rock, emo, noise pop, and more.
Origins
The origins of indie rock music are often traced back to the United Kingdom in the 1970s. Indie rock is a genre of alternative rock music that typically consists of small, independent record labels. Indie rock music is known for its DIY ethic and its focus on independent artists.
America
Indie rock is a genre of rock music that originated in the United States and United Kingdom in the 1970s. Originally used to describe independent record labels, the term became associated with the music they produced and was initially used interchangeably with alternative rock or “guitar pop rock”. 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. During the 1990s, grunge and punk revival bands in the US and Britpop bands in the UK broke into the mainstream, and the term “alternative” lost its original counter-cultural meaning. The term “indie rock” became associated with types of music that were released on independent record labels, or that were self-released by bands without signing to major labels.
In the 2000s, changes in the music industry and a 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.
Britain
Origins is a column that delves into the musical and personal roots of some of our favorite artists. This week, we speak with British indie rock band The 1975.
The 1975 is a British indie rock band that formed in 2002. The band consists of Matthew Healy (lead vocals, guitar, piano), Adam Hann (guitar), Ross MacDonald (bass) and George Daniel (drums). The band’s debut album, The 1975 (2013), topped the UK Albums Chart and included the singles “Chocolate” and “Sex”. Their second album, I Like It When You Sleep, for You Are So Beautiful yet So Unaware of It (2016), was also a commercial success, reaching number one in the UK and number five in the US.
Characteristics
Indie rock is a genre of rock music that originated in the United States and the United Kingdom in the 1970s. Indie rock is extremely diverse, with subgenres that include lo-fi, post-punk, math rock, emo, noise pop, and more. Indie rock is typically characterized by a DIY ethic, as well as a disregard for traditional rock structures such as chorus-verse songwriting and 3-minute songs.
Guitars
Guitars in indie rock often do not have the distortion and overdrive typically found in other rock genres. They are typically clean-sounding, or “jangly”. Guitars are sometimes used to create a “shimmering” effect by using reverb, chorus, octave pedals, delay pedals, or a combination of all three.
Genres
Indie rock is a genre of rock music that originated in the United States and United Kingdom in the 1970s. Originally used to describe independent record labels, the term became associated with the music they produced and was initially used interchangeably with alternative rock or “gut rock”. 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. During the 1990s, grunge and punk revival bands in the US and Britpop bands in the UK broke into the mainstream, leading to questions about their commercial viability.
Indie rock developed from Psychic TV’s The Stone Tapes, Velvet Underground’s The Velvet Underground & Nico, Faust’s Faust IV, The Fugs’ The Fugs First Album, Beach Boys’ Smile Sessions and 13th Floor Elevators’ Easter Everywhere. Coming from a variety of musical backgrounds including punk, noise pop, krautrock and no wave; indie rock bands created a DIY ethic that placed an emphasis on accessibility for independent record labels and an aversion to signing with major ones.
Notable Bands
Indie rock is a genre of rock music that originated in the United Kingdom in the 1970s. Originally used to describe independent record labels, the term became associated with the music they produced and was initially used interchangeably with alternative rock. As the style of music produced by these labels began to diverge from traditional rock music, the term “indie rock” was coined to describe the new sound.
Pavement
Pavement was an American indie rock band that formed in Stockton, California in 1989. The group consisted of Stephen Malkmus (vocals and guitar), Scott Kannberg (guitar and vocals), Mark Ibold (bass), Steve West (drums) and Bob Nastanovich (percussion and vocals).
Pavement’s first album, Slanted and Enchanted, was released to critical acclaim in 1992. The album was followed by Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain (1994), which entered the Billboard 200 chart and produced the single “Cut Your Hair”. In 1996, the group released Brighten the Corners, which received positive reviews but failed to achieve the commercial success of its predecessors. After a brief hiatus, Pavement reunited for a final tour in 1999.
Pavement was one of the most influential bands of the 1990s indie rock scene. The group’s distinctive sound paved the way for a number of subsequent bands, including Modest Mouse, Yo La Tengo and Sonic Youth.
Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth was an American rock band from New York City, formed in 1981. The group was founded by Thurston Moore (guitar, vocals), Kim Gordon (bass guitar, vocals, drums, occasional guitar), and Lee Ranaldo (guitar, vocals), with Alan Licht (guitar) and Richard Edson (drums) joining soon after. Sonic Youth’s early lineup fluctuated between this core foursome and a number of other musicians. They were a notable part of the American independent rock scene of the 1980s and gained mainstream critical and commercial success with the release of their sixth album Daydream Nation in 1988. In their early career Sonic Youth were associated with the no wave art and music scene in New York City. Part of the first wave of punk rock bands to achieve commercial success as an alternative to mainstream pop music in the 1980s, Sonic Youth have been credited as being “one of the most important American rock bands of their time”. They influenced numerous subsequent alternative rock artists.
The Velvet Underground
The Velvet Underground was an American rock band formed in 1964 in New York City by singer/guitarist Lou Reed, multi-instrumentalist John Cale, guitarist Sterling Morrison, and drummer Angus MacLise (replaced by Moe Tucker in 1965). The band was initially active between 1965 and 1973, and was briefly managed by the pop artist Andy Warhol, serving as the house band at the Factory and contributing to the development of Warhol’s revolutionary art project and experimental film studio, the Factory. Their debut album, The Velvet Underground & Nico, was released in 1967 to critical indifference and poor sales but has since become one of the most acclaimed and influential rock albums.
