Why It's A Moot Point Whether You Hate or Love Indie

A lot of people have been talking online, mostly in favor, but also against the rise of indie music. Common complaints are that indie music is genderless and lacks the emotion of other forms of music. Others claim it's bland and all sounds the same. Another common argument is that it's pretentious, and only scene hipsters listen to it.

All of these arguments are invalid, and I will explain why.

Firstly, I will go right on ahead and do what everyone is having such a hard time doing; define "indie music."

I did not make up this definition, it's one that's been around for ages.

Indie Musical Artist (n.) - A musical artist who has released one or more records without signing to a record label in the "Big Four" corporate music industry, who account for 85% of all record sales in the US; Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Entertainment, EMI Group, or Warner Music Group.

Now this seems obvious, but many of the scene hipsters I mentioned earlier will be quick to note that there are death metal bands and hardcore screamo bands and foreign bands and unsigned rappers who don't fall under the genre of "indie." Neither their fans nor indie music fans would say they're in the indie genre, right?

Well you're all wrong. Indie is NOT a genre. It's nowhere NEAR a genre. There are absolutely no similarities in sound between the bands !!! and Belle and Sebastian. The Decemberists would never be mistaken for LCD Soundsystem and Death From Above 1979 is not Death Cab For Cutie. They are NOT THE SAME GENRE. These bands, as well as the screamo, metal, rap, and foreign bands, all fall under the definition, so they're indie.

"Well then that definition isn't good enough!!"

Okay, give me a better one. What's that? You can't? Okay, then shut up and listen.

Whether the scenesters and the hardcore screamo fans and unsigned hip hop fans and death metal fans will admit it or not, these groups are still indie. Indie is popular for the same reason Firefox and Wikipedia and Youtube are popular. Forgive the computer lingo, but it's open source. It's created on its own and spread through word of mouth. Don't like what you hear on your speakers? Okay, you do better. If you do manage to do better, than someone will hear it, like it, and tell other people about it. Now you're better. See how it works?

Because indie music wasn't put out by a corporation who thinks that we'd like it, and was instead popularized because it found its audience through word of mouth, indie music adapts to the needs of the listeners more readily and instantly than non-indie music.

Let's go 50 years down the line and assume that internet piracy has killed the big corporate music conglomerates. You know who's still around? Indie music. It's a noted trend that while the 4 major labels are slipping not-so-slowly towards certain death due to piracy, indie labels are nearly retaining their profits, and many are actually growing.

So that's all good and nice for us Spoon fans, but what about fans of Underoath and The Used and Alexisonfire? You guys can't stand this girly pop bullshit, right? You're tired of hearing how "awesome" this pretentious, preppy grad student coffee shop music is. Okay, so cut an album. Put it on the internet. You're not alone in your tastes. You're never alone in your tastes. If there's a type of music you like, and you think it's underrepresented in the larger music world, then do something about it! If you've got what it takes, then someone out there will listen. If you don't have what it takes, then hopefully someone else out there with a similar thought does. Odds are, if you're right, and that type of music is underrepresented, then they're out there recording right now. You just have to find them. That's really what it means to be indie.

Now it's important to note that none of this is to say that indie is superior to non-indie. Far from it. That is not my point. If you like Kanye West, you like Kanye West. I'll be honest with you, I LOVE Kanye West, and I bought Macy Gray's albums. When Gnarls Barkley got popular, I was one of the happiest to see it. My point is that it's pointless to lament the collapse of the 4 major labels. This collapse won't change anything about the type of music that's available to us, it'll just broaden what's indie to include the types of music that once fell under the conglomerates' power. So let's stop using "indie" to mean alternative pop/rock, and let's stop using "indie" to mean pretentious hipster. Can't we just start using "indie" to mean "independent?" Or is that too far-fetched?