Article Response: Indie Kids

Also, I know some people who have managed to become adults, with jobs, and suchforth, and remain indie at heart. Those are the saddest of all.

Happily insular,

No offense taken, Larm-O

It got me thinking, is indie rock way over-represented online or do I just move in the wrong circles? I mean, that stuff doesn't sell all that well. How come there seems to be so much more coverage of music/ dissection of scene for indie rock than for other genres? (All those "How to love an indie boy"-type joke pieces that have floated around through the years, very similar in content to this piece.) I'm sure Autechre sells as much as Modest Mouse. I want more sites like Skykicking and Josh Blog (FT obviously has radio pop covered.)

and there seems to be something a little desperate about this need to constantly slag indie rock culture in a generalized sort of fashion (in between reviews of clientele and piano magic, neither of whom i would have heard of without ft). it reminds me of j.d. considine's suspicion that people who constantly bitch about pop do so because they don't like the fact that pop moves them.

but of course there are kids who are all those things. come to ottawa sometime.

The reason I talk about indie in general and indie culture is multifold. I find the 'culture' in general frustratingly uncritical - endless bands, endless reviews, precious little to say about most things. I also find the culture irritating even when the music is lovely - I don't see that this is a contradictory response. So I write about bands that I find interesting or I find matter to me, and a lot of them happen to be indie. (I also find guilt fascinating as a response to music, obviously).

Why do I find the culture irritating? Well, my main serious bits of the article were the ones focussing on insularity and the oddly patrician approach to taste and music discourse I find in the indie 'scene'. Speaking personally, as a pop fan, I've spent countless postings, articles and e-mails having to defend my tastes from their very root. And I think that's been really good for my development as a listener, a writer, etc.

So FT takes a stand against indie because it amuses me, and because I think it's good for people to be confronted with dismissive opinions: most indie rock criticism not only takes indie to be the centre of the musical universe, it also leaves the attitudes and assumptions behind the music unexamined. Our counterweight may be crass, but at least it's there. Usually I drop a line into a review somewhere or a side-point in an NYLPM piece and try to keep things reasonable and polite; sometimes the frustration at stuff gets to me so the hammer is tried rather than the chisel.

As for intelligent writing, it's all very well but I so rarely get any feedback. By shoving some of Tanya's stuff front and central at least responses are guaranteed. Thanks, as ever, for yours!

When you refer to indie kids, what do you precisely mean, for instance what albums would a stereotypical indie kid your are refering to would have bought in 2000? and what would their favourite albums of the 90s be? Does Indie kid mean boring britpop and dull dadrock that would encompass shed 7, stereophonics, cast, oasis, kula shaker, montrose avenue, bluetones and all that rubbish that MM/NME celebrated for most of the mid 90s onwards.

or are indie kids that wear identical tshirts, baggy jeans, and sometimes hooded tops they seem to only like 3 bands blink 182/offspring/ green day - you know those hidedous 13-18 old i see wondering around in groups - sheeplike, unoriginal and dumb.

my comment re unoriginality was mostly directed at the easy jokes about masturbation, ugliness, and social maladjustment. i really don't think it's necessary to answer "why are they wrong?" or "why doesn't it matter?" here. i realize it was meant as humour but i thought it was weak, partly because it was unoriginal.

maybe you have a different perspective over there but here indie rockers are a) 80% male and b) an extreme minority. most people don't even know what indie rock is. it's not a scene any straight guy would get into for a shag. most indie rockers have had their tastes criticized (and had to defend them) a million times ("punk was a fad," "you can't hear the words," "they can't sing," "it's just noise," "can't they even tune their instruments?" . . .). much more, in fact, than the typical pop fan (which you obviously are not), whose tastes *are* the social norm.

of course indie rock criticism is indie-centric. it wouldn't be indie rock criticism otherwise. i've long ago stopped reading pitchfork regularly for that reason but that's just my taste. reviews are more important for fans of non-mainstream music who aren't exposed to the music they like through radio or TV. i have also been frustrated by the "experimental but not too experimental" aspect of indie rock taste but, hell, at least they generally tend to be more open to experimental music than most people. ultimately not everyone's going to be obsessive enough about music to cultivate a thousand aesthetic sensibilities and invest heavily in each one. i don't see the need to pick on people who have a specific taste.

some of the music i like and some i don't but i'm not sure it makes me a more critical listener than anyone else just because i prefer the magnetic fields to pedro the lion or camera obscura to don caballero (or ligeti or nagamani srinath or coltrane or bauhaus or boston to pavement or yo la tengo or aix em klemm or whoever). there are after all enough people who love rachel's and despise my bloody valentine.

*sigh* i'm coming off as really defensive of indie here, which a number of indie rockers who know me would find very funny. there are flaws with the scene/s that can turn you or me off but mostly these are all just come down to basic human tendencies (social insecurity, naivete, sexual desire, need for companionship, . . .) it's not a scene for everyone, especially if you're not a raging fan of indie rock, and it's not a scene i would wholeheartedly commit myself to, but again, that's just me and my taste. i don't know.

so yes, i thought it was fucking brilliant, though some of the 18 points were much funnier/true than others. some were kind of lame. but then again, who am i to judge indie rockers? my favorite band is still the velvet underground, so what do i know.

There are always people like yourselves who denounce the popular, well-known bands and say 'Indie kids have shit taste/are narrow- minded sheep because they don't like *insert obscure band who no one has ever heard of, that you would be able to find in any record store and you should feel like an idiot for not knowing them*'. I'm always open to listening to exciting new bands. But if I hear a great band I'm not going to throw casual references about them around so everyone will be impressed with my cool taste and lord it over others and say 'Ohmigod, do you like Shed 7, they're so passe'. I still love Shed 7. Don't deny something worthwhile and enjoyable just because *now* you're cool, in your sole, lonely definition of the word.

i.e. not Mrs. Spears, but Jessica Simpson

Anyway, Shed 7 are a poor example because they were shit before they were hip, they were shit while they were hip, and they're shit now. It'd be like me using J Lo to defend pop, or something.

I chose Shed 7 because it's such a popular band to put down (and I still do like them). I could have put any well-known indie band - the Bluetones maybe. It doesn't matter which one I put because, as I expected you said the equivalent of 'Ohmigod, do you like Shed 7.'

And yes, I have talked to indie kids. A lot of them are lovely - this is why there is a nice big caveat on the side of the article saying we don't really hate them. Most of them dabble in musics other than indie, which is great: some genuinely do have as narrow taste as is being painted, and those ones often end up becoming prominent in the 'scene' and hence being judged unfairly by relative outsiders like myself.

Meanwhile yes I gave the obvious answer to Shed Seven, but I don't see that it proves much of a point other than that a lot of people ENTIRELY CORRECTLY hate Shed Seven. It'd be like saying, you're a film snob, you don't like Battlefield Earth, and me saying no because it's rubbish, and you saying a-ha! Told you so!

the thing about the article is that it hit a few tender points about the amount of conformity in the scene. But I'm happy with the music I listen to and the way I look and I felt I ought to defend it.

I still like Shed 7...

VIVA THE REAL REVOLUTION OF ROCK AND ROLL THAT WILL ONE DAY TAKE YOUR SOUL AND SPIT OUT THE SHIT THAT IS WHINY LITTLE BOY MUSIC! VIVA THE TIME OF TRUE REDEMPTION, THE TIME OF TRUE MUSIC! ONE DAY YOULL SEE AS I SIT IN MY THRONE AND JUDGE YE THAT WORE BLACK FRAMED GLASSES AND CLAIMED TO LIKE BOTH AT THE DRIVE IN AND THE SPICE GIRLS!

-heidi

I myself decided to dress in a generic indie rock fashion, with the "ironic" t-shirts, the tight courdoroy pants, the repulsive late- 70s tennis shoes, et cetera. I couldn't bring myself to wear the buddy holly glasses, but that's immaterial. The point is, I've never gotten more action in my life. I didn't realize that "hey man, I love your shoes" is what passes for a pick-up line among the bed-head indie tarts.

I don't even listen to indie rock, I hate it, I listen to rap. Not even that college "hip-hop" turntablist snooze crap, but real shoot- em-up die-nigga RAP rap. But so long as I wear my little tight shirts and maintain the perfect slouch, it's all indie. Rap can be indie, reggae can be indie, and god knows disco can be indie. It's about looks, it's about sex, and that's all it's about.

Girls don't like music anyway. They're buying those $200 7-inches because they're cute, and they think of them as a lifestyle accessory more than a vehicle for music. It's girls that fuel emo and any other type of music made by crying pussies in red Saucony shoes.

And with God as my witness, I swear that when I'm able to perfect my indie rock style, I'll be able to do anything I like. I will masturbate and poop in the middle of the road with complete impunity. Hey, it's all indie.

Hip-hop snob complain that hip-hop became hip-pop (as if that's a bad thing) sometime between Young MC and Mase. It was always pop. All the sacred cows, Run DMC, Grandmaster Flash, A Tribe Called Quest, made music that was undeniably and unapologetically pop music. Sometimes it was even materialistic, bling bling, shoot em up, coke snorting, hard-rocking pop music. Nothing has changed.

sure, talib's album isn't good, same for jt money, same for trick daddy, who cares? being a top 40 gangsta doesn't automatically make an album listenable same way that being intelligent and speaking honestly doesn't. equating big balla clichés with an 'exciting' artist that 'has life' is just sophmoric. admittedly, the indie-hiphop template is rapidly getting tired, but so is your revered mainstream hiphop 'shoot- em-up die-nigga' template (and the former is far more enjoyable to begin with). when artists work to make original works that rise above stagnation or cliché, that is when you have music that is exciting. i see the roots doing this, i see jay-z doing this. they're not mutually exclusive. i have no problem with rap being pop, that's exactly what it has always been and what it will always be, just as rock is pop and country is pop. it's music and it's art.

(as i side note, i'm also very disturbed by the misogyny in your lengthy indie post as well but it's too late to address that meaningfully, and so let me just point it out for now. mr.herbert's 'mission statement's instant embracement by the other members of the forum is a close-up example of how howard stern/rush limbaugh/that guy from fox news 'tell-it-like-it-is' assholes create huge cults around their deplorable statements and awful generalisations. it's super-funny to say that girls don't really like music and are just buying records as fashion accessories if you have the mentality of an antisocial ten year-old boy, but otherwise it's just sexist)

I don't know if Britain is different from Ireland in this respect, but the people buying the sort of middling crap that seems to go under the "indie" label here are not really part of any scene at all. the markers have been changed so much with the huge growth in the pop industry, that popular (ish) rock is very very accessible to the average 18, 19, 20 year old. So we're talking alot of the Coldplay clones, aswell as Coldplay, U2 perhaps, Charlatans, that type of thing, Travis. the fans are just your average lad types. I get the impression Britain might be like this too from magazines and the like.

I disagree the mocking is healthy - quite the opposite - it's lazy and now very monotonous.

I like glam, mod and northern soul. Liking all sorts of things is a good thing.

I'm glad we agree on something.

i'm just asking.

also, makeoutclub.com, one year later, still offers proof that not every point made in the piece was off. cheap? sure, some of them were. but none were based in anything 'obsolete' at all.

gee whizz - I have not seen that makeoutclub for about a year - there are some laughable sad American girls on there, cliched beyond belief - horn rimmed glasses, pasty faces because they don't eat meat, i am so sensitive, alternative and unique statements, surprising a lot of bible followers - i suppose the christian right particularly in the south has a stronghold on culture/life in the US, straight cut fringes, naff emo/contemporary punk bands listed by the dozen - some of them have so narrow AND LIMITED music tastes!

This is just daft.

I grew up in a suburb of Georgia and removed completely from any scene at all, until high school when i made the periodic trips to Athens to see Olivia Tremor Control or Elf Power and started making pseudo-Flaming Lips songs on my 4-track at home. I had read alot about my parents' 60s revolution and was in love with the music; the way people dressed at these shows felt good, Mr. Roger sweaters and all, like a cheerier, more fun version of Nirvana. At school i wore ties and blazers and t-shirts cos I saw a picture of Syd Barrett and he looked so dandy and experimental at the same time. My parents thought I was crazy and/or on drugs, and asked me several times in fact.

Around this time I started hanging out with people in Atlanta, who had impeccable thrift store post-Grunge fashions and were making improvizational music with old synthesizers and cheap guitars and stuff. They referred to each other as 'kids' and this was the first time I ever heard the term. It seemed to ecompass a lot of the musical/stylistic ideas i was pursuing at the time.

My little brother was into hardcore and screamo and i would drive him around to all these shows and i looked weird enough to fit in and get into the pit and all that. I moved into a punk rock house with some kids that were members of a band that is now A Small Victory, and they were nice guys, we stayed up late nights dumpster diving and listening to Bjork and all that. I met and fell in love with a goth girl and died my hair black, which has since then morphed from a shaggy-haired George Harrison '68 look to an Oliver Twist look to a Classical Greek cherub look. I never thought that i should imitate others but i did like the look of black and ran with it.

I tried to listen to At the Drive In and couldn't get into it. My roommates also had a lot of non-ironic pop around like the Dirty Pop of N*Sync and Britney Spears and all that. Anyways, over the years I bounced between hanging out with different scenes (mostly the local punk scene), becoming increasingly conscious of the Stylism that worked its way into them.

It's funny cos today maybe I would be a stereotypical indie kid; last week my mom called me up to say that she went to a department store and all the styles looked exactly the way i dressed in high school.

Nowadays I go to school for art and live with two private art-school kids, and they constantly look like models. It seems like that whole group kind of stems from the indie kid elitist model (especially since they're all at the right age) but more elegant and self-defined. Sorry for the long post.

Oh, and I do love The Smiths and The Cure (go ahead, cruxify me).

#15 (plus 16 and 17) articulates something I've been sensing for some time. This shrinking of the genepool is progressive, such that you can't possibly have too many more generations of some of these strains of indie before the perpetual inbreeding between simplicity and amateurism results in collapse into demented whimpers. It's like generation 0 offered a refreshing DIY reaction to the most ornate popular music of the 70's. But by generation 23 or whatever those living in the self-referencing cave so long without allowing themselves to appreciate a truly swinging brass arrangement first hand or, I dunno, even a genuinely driving or complex or funky rhythm, are going to have too few tools to construct even the most rudimentary pop song. Presumably most have broader tastes, it sounds like it in fewer and fewer cases, and I can feel my brain cells dying.

When did the cool kids (who usually are considered to have ample spending money) start copping the style? How can two stereotypes at opposite ends of the social spectrum be so similar?

or are indie kids the popular kids in high school now, like the jocks? I'm confused...maybe things have changed....I would think the popular kids all listen to rap and play sports, etc....or maybe Dave Matthews band or something....

Man....I guess maybe the indie folks I know are different or something but the people in bands I know pride themselves on being able to play....good drummers are revered....every "indie" type person I know loves James Brown and Miles Davis...I guess I know more people that are punks not indie or something...but it seems like "indie" on this thread is becoming some kind of wierd catch-all for everything people hate or something....

what the fuck are crumpets anyway?

I think that kid Chris Herbert upthread was pretty funny, and misogynistic, but i think the big tymers are funny too so whatever.

Really? That sounds like a character from Dickens almost....or something....that's an awesome name.

-- M@tt He1geson

OTM

genius.