Indie music is any music (generally in the vein of pop, rock, folk, hip-hop/rap or alternative) released either on an independent record label or without any record label.
Hipsters are known to proudly tout their collections of "obscure" music. Obscure music is almost always indie by definition, as music on major labels generally has extensive advertising and promotion behind it. However, indie music is not always obscure.
(Image from BBC Music News/Third Man Records)
You may be wondering at this point if I will ever explain the actual merits of indie music. The answer is yes. That is going to happen right now.
The upside of indie music is that the musicians are allowed to maintain total artistic freedom - they do not sign binding contracts that give their labels the right to veto material, influence their genre, or force an artist to come up with another album.
Another upside, more appealing to the left-leaning among us perhaps, is that the artist gets to keep a larger percentage of every dollar that comes in from music sales. In addition, no large corporations are receiving a cut - the percentage of profit that does go to the label stays with that small, independently-owned company.
In conclusion.
Indie music is generally created with more creative freedom and is free from corporate influence. Obscure artists are also exempt from the issue of corruption by fame, although that may be an issue for another post altogether. Basically, if you're going to criticize a hipster for their pretentious taste in music - hate the hipster, not the music. The music has merit, even if only in theory.
How big do you think an indie label can get before hipsters start defining it as a corporation itself? Does that ever happen?
ReplyDeleteThat is a good question! Usually though, it's the ethics of an indie label that keep it from being perceived as a "big bad corporation."
DeleteFor instance, XL (home to Radiohead, Adele, The Xx and Vampire Weekend) is a respected indie label, despite being home to some incredibly high-volume artists. ANTI- (home to Tom Waits, Wilco, Billy Bragg and Kate Bush) is another example - and it's actually a subsidiary of an even larger indie label called Epitaph, founded by the guitarist of Bad Religion.
Jason Aldean is signed with an indie label...just saying.
ReplyDeleteThat's interesting! You don't see too many country artists on indie labels, never mind indie labels devoted to country music like Broken Bow. I hadn't heard of this before.
Delete