Summary of research

Genre Research - Homework 1 (part 2):



Indie music most commonly stands for “Independent” which would mean anything that hasn’t been done with the help of a major label. However over the years Indie has become something completely different and is now an actual genre of music that provides a broad range of styles that all derived from the Punk and Post-Punk scenes.
The origins of Indie occurred in the mid-late 70’s when punk music first came about. This was then followed on by punk rock and then New Wave in the mid-80’s. New Wave was a more experimental and polished sound than punk and featured more complex lyrics. Artists that are recognized for New Wave are Elvis Costello and Tom Robinson. This then lead to a fast and raw punk sound which is most recognized by Blondie.
This then lead to artists experimenting with the punk sound to try and create something new. Kids started bands in schools who weren’t anything special on guitar and didn’t have big voices, but they made good music. This lead to a lot of independent labels appearing on the Indie scene such as SST, New Alliance, Touch and Go and Homestead.) This music was then referred to as “college rock” or “alternative” as it was most commonly known in America, and the UK called it Indie.
The big moment came in the mid-80’s when Indie Pop first appeared forming bands such as “The Smith’s” and “Half Man Half Biscuit.”
In the 90’s heaver music was developing in America therefore presenting a platform to British Indie acts, therefore a large amount of new bands were appearing. During this time the UK had Indie pop, America had Twee which was a raw, stripped down, simple and poppy genre of music and was produced by companies such as K Records which was founded by Calvin Johnson who produced music for people such as Kurt Cobain and the Halo Benders.
Overall Indie is a genre of alternative rock that originated in the UK and in the USA in the 1980’s. It is extremely diverse with sub-genres included Indie Pop among others. As grunge and punk broke into the mainstream in the US, and Britpop bands in the UK, Indie broke into the mainstream in the 1990’s and came to be used to identify those acts that maintained an outsider perspective. However in the 2000’s, due to changes in the music industry and the growing importance of the Internet, a number of Indie acts became very commercial due to the high success that came with it, leading to questions about its meaningfulness as a term “Individual.”