Henry’s Music Blog

Note: For any English readers, we are referring to the American form of Indie Rock, meaning on an independent label, and not the English form, as a byword for Alternative music.

At a certain point in most genre’s lives, the genre stops really existing, and becomes an umbrella for all that sounds slightly similar. For example, Metal. Metal as a genre doesn’t really exist anymore, it’s just what you say when you don’t have the time for 3rd-wave goth-electronic black metal. And this has pretty much happened with any main genre anymore. Everything’s been broken down to the point of insignificance. I feel this is working in the opposite way for Indie Rock.

Back when Indie Rock started, it was just a label put on anything put out on a smaller label. But now, it’s been condensed into much smaller fields since the 2000s, around the time of the release of Interpol’s Turn On the Bright Lights. Back when Indie Rock started in the 80s, there wasn’t a limit to what you could do with an Indie Rock label, both figuratively and literally. But anyway, let’s start with the history of Indie Rock.

You could argue that Indie Rock started with The Velvet Underground, what with many Indie Rock bands taking influence from them. However, if they were the first, that means they wouldn’t have a follower for about 10 years, with Punk taking up that space. But eventually, Indie Rock got its big start right near the start of the 80s, with REM and the college radio hit “Radio Free Europe”. From that, Indie Rock became one of the dominant genres in music. Indie Rock just started trying out different styles, with every band finding something else that fit them. If you could find a genre, you could could find an Indie band doing it. Except maybe Prog, at least until the Decemberists showed up. Then, in the 90s, it pretty much became the dominant force of music for a time. And due to Sub Pop being an Indie label, Indie Rock created the most acclaimed band of the 90s, Nirvana.

I always say that the 90s were a very strange time for media, and no where was this more true than for music. Think about this; the 90s were the point where Primus could have any form of success. Some of the Indie Rock artists became absolute critical darlings, like Nirvana, Pavement, and PJ Harvey. Some became cult favorites, like the ever-present Ween. Then there was the commercial success of Automatic for the People. REM’s first album after the super hit “Losing my Religion”, Automatic for the People was one of the biggest hits of the 90s, spawning from the success of “Everybody Hurts”.

ut after that, things took a slight downturn. REM never recorded anything as good again, Pavement made one more classic album and then got bored, Kurt Cobain killed himself, and Daniel Johnston… actually pretty much stayed the same.There was the occasional big album that came out from it, like Odelay or In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, but at this point, the main force on the radio switched to Nu-Metal, which I’ve already talked about, and Electronica, like Dafft Punk or The Prodigy. Indie Rock needed something to make it relevant again. And to make themselves new, they went full retro.

Now, since I’ve found a good stopping place here, I’ve decided to split this into two posts. On Wednesday, I will return to talk about the last decade, and its part in the history of Indie Rock. We’ll talk about Interpol, White Stripes, The National, The Shins, Spoon, and anyone else who’s part of the discussion. Goodbye for now.