What is Indie Rock?
What is Indie Rock – The term indie rock is certainly not a new thing in the world of Indonesian music. Its appearance in recent years has managed to steal widespread attention. As with the term “indie”, the emergence of indie rock has also become a hot topic of discussion because it is considered to have musical works that tend to be minimalist, simple, and serene.
Indie rock is also often associated with music to accompany certain situations, such as in the afternoon or evening while relaxing. So, what is meant by an indie rock?
What is Indie Rock (a Definition of Indie Rock)
Indie Rock means “independent”, as does the term “indie”. Instead of being considered as a genre of music, indie rock does not refer to just one genre of music but can adopt a number of genres such as pop, folk, punk, metal, and rock. Indie rock bands are generally formed within small labels and on relatively low budgets. The band that carries the concept of indie rock is shown by the do-it-yourself attitude of the bands and artists involved. They can keep working without signing in or cooperating with a big record company.
Although independent, distribution deals are also common with large corporate companies. However, the labels and bands they form are trying to maintain their autonomy to allow more freedom to explore sounds, emotions, and subjects that have limited appeal to large mainstream audiences.
In the United States, the influences and styles of these indie rock artists vary widely, including punk, psychedelia, post-punk, and country. The terms “alternative rock” and “indie rock” were also used interchangeably in the 1980s, but after many alternative bands followed Nirvana into the mainstream in the early 1990s, “indie rock” began to be used to describe those bands, working in various styles, which neither pursued nor achieved commercial success.
The History and Development of Indie Rock
After we get to know What is Indie Rock, we want to know the development of Indie Rock. Historically, indie rock is a genre of rock music that originated in the United States and England in the 1970s. Originally, indie rock was used to describe an independent record label, the term was later associated with the music they produced and was originally used interchangeably with alternative rock or “guitar pop-rock”.
In the 1980s, the use of the term “indie” (or “indie rock”) began to shift from a reference to record companies to describe the style of music produced on punk and post-punk labels. Meanwhile, in the 1990s, grunge and punk revival bands in the US and Britpop bands in the UK entered the mainstream, and the term “alternative” lost its original counter-cultural meaning. The term “indie rock” became associated with bands and genres that remained dedicated to their independent status.
Then in the late 1990s, indie rock developed several related subgenres and styles, including lo-fi, noise pop, emo, slowcore, post-rock, to math rock. Until the 2000s, changes in the music industry and the growing importance of the internet allowed a new wave of indie rock bands to achieve mainstream success, which raised questions about its meaning as a term.
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In the early 2000s, a new band playing a simple version of rock guitar and back-to-basics emerged into the mainstream. The commercial breakthrough of this scene was led by four bands: The Strokes, The White Stripes, The Hives, and The Vines. Emo also entered mainstream culture in the early 2000s. (What is Indie Rock)
Aesthetically, indie rock is characterized by a careful balance between accessibility of pop with noise, experimentation with pop music formulas, sensitive lyrics masked by ironic demeanor, attention to “authenticity”, and depictions of simple men or women.
