For almost a hundred years, rock music has been the most popular style among young people, and not only. Groups gather huge stadiums, which attract thousands and tens of thousands of fans. This direction has generated a huge number of subgenres, so each listener can find a group or artist for themselves. Indie rock is one of the most popular destinations today. But what is this style?
Brief initial description
Indie rock is a direction that exists in an independent commercial and information space. The name comes from the word independent, which means “independent” in English. By and large, this genre cannot be called a separate peculiar style of music, since this term includes a wide range of ways of self-expression, which, however, have some common features. In particular, such artists are released exclusively on independent music labels (the so-called indie labels). That counterculture is a unifying moment for all groups of this genre.
Eighties: the origins
The prototype of such a trend as indie rock was the so-called college scene in the United States, whose key performers were groups such as REM and The Smiths. Since these guys played mostly guitar music, they were able to create an alternative to synth-pop, which was popular in the early eighties. Initially, indie rock was associated with harsh and rough music with a strong influence of punk rock, for example, like Pixies, Meat Puppets, Minutemen, Hüsker Dü, Dinosaur Jr. Another “father” of the modern independent scene is noise rock, which is an unstable and chaotic piece of music with a distorted sound of guitars. The main representatives are Swans, Sonic Youth, Big Black.
The birth of indie pop
The release of the compilation entitled "C86", which was attended by such musicians as The Pastels, Primal Scream, Wedding Present, had a huge impact on many indie rock bands in the future. It was thanks to this collection that noise pop appeared, for example, The Jesus and Mary Chain, which combined the “wall of sound” with simple melodies and noise elements. Also popular was the indie dance, a significant group of which was New Order, experimenting with house and techno. Another important style was shugeyzing, which was characterized by the active use of guitar effects and a loud “floating” sound, an abundance of feedbacks and distortion (My Bloody Valentine, Ride).
Nineties, and mainstream style coming out
An alternative scene in the early nineties was transformed thanks to grunge and artists such as Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam. These groups were able to achieve resounding commercial success. In the person of The Offspring and Green Day, the punk movement has revived. At the same time, such a trend as Britpop, whose “fathers” were the indie rock performers of the late eighties, gained popularity. As a result of such transformations, the term "alternative" began to apply to light commercial rock music. “Indie rock” also began to be referred to exclusively as groups that were published on independent labels.
Nowadays
At the moment, indie rock is a combination of different styles. Here and low-fi, and emo, and post-rock, and sadcore, and mat-rock, and shugeyzing, and space-rock, and kraut-rock, and dream-pop, and various noise, and even post-punk. All groups of these directions are characterized by an experimental attitude to music, mixing different orthodox genres (electronica and rock, classical, folk, jazz and blues). The proliferation of the Internet has promoted the promotion of indie artists among fans. At the beginning of the two thousandths, a fashion for the emo style appeared, which quickly went into the mainstream. Postpunk rivevel has gained popularity due to the huge number of groups imitating the aesthetics of garage rock and old school post-punk. The mixing of indie music and electronica gave rise to such a subgenre as “inditronics”, which is characterized by dance rhythms in the spirit of rave music.