(real) Indie ..

Some of my favourite Indie groups:

Arcade Fire
The Decembrists
The Flaming Lips
Joy Division
My Bloody Valentine
Neutral Milk Hotel
Sonic Youth
Xiu Xiu

I like the albums I have by them but need to listen to them all more often.

 -- Ivan

Don't even get me started on NME...being a mere 18 I'm possibly expected to like the sort of music they cover in their paper, but their hack journalism and blind following of flash in the pan bands just turns me right off. It's arguable in some respects that they are amongst those most responsible for the backlash against prog since the late 70s. NME recently disgusted me with their 'best British albums' poll which had The Arctic Monkeys at Number 5 (!), about a week after the album was released!! To be fair, some of my fave albums that are usually ignored, like the fantastic 'Oddesey and Oracle' by The Zombies, 'Bryter Layter' by Nick Drake and 'SF Sorrow' by The Pretty Things, were in there, but featuring an album that was technically hours old in a best ever poll was quite ridiculous.

I must admit I do find most indie rather 'soft' myself- bands like Keane, Snow Patrol, The Killers, The Bravery and of course, Coldplay, are amongst the wettest bands ever to masquerade under the term 'rock' and all do technically belong to the indie genre.

One band that has a degree of promise, though their singles seem to have been as uninspired as most indie fare, is The Mystery Jets; I heard a 10 minute epic by them lately that reminded me a little of King Crimson meets Caravan, though some Spinal Tap esque 'Listen To The Flower People' silliness creeped in at times. Yet, this shows some promise that at last indie acts may start experimenting beyond the usual territory...

what does indie mean?? how can a band could be considered indie, really i dont know that genre...

seeing the posts, most of the bands are english, i have heard a lot of times talk about brit-pop genre, coldplay, keane, travis, flaming lips, i dont know if brit pop and indie are the same...

sorry for my ignorance

Vompatti thanx... im seeing that Joy Division, The Smiths, are the most mentioned bands here, i like them, specially Smiths, maybe "indie" is on the later 80´s early 90´s

Vompatti wrote: ^Brit pop and indie aren't the same thing, but I'm not sure about the definition of indie either. Anyway, The Smiths , Joy Division and early R.E.M. are some of my favourites. And if Echo & The Bunnymen can be considered indie, they're great too.

Oooh, yes, REM :) Document is a bloody good album :D

Yeah, Echo is cool :)

And The Ramones ..

Hey ho! Let's Go!

I guess they're not indie though ...  

:S

x

Is Embrace an indie band??

help me!!

memowakeman wrote: Is Embrace an indie band?? help me!!

Indie is a very vast term. It's hard to know for certain in some cases. I don't know who Embrace is though, so I'm of no help.

i love the decemberists, the smiths, logh, lewis, modest mouse and most definitely the futureheads

I'm not exactly sure where the term "indie" in music came from, but I'd
speculate that it came from "independent cinema". Hence albums in indie
music are those that weren't released by one of the major labels.
Interpol's Turn On The Bright Lights is an indie album because it did not
directly involve a major label, Franz Ferdinand's self-titled is not. Wilco's
music is generally not indie but they were kicked off their major label for
the left-field Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (highly recommended for a prog fan
not allergic to alt-country) and had to release it independently. Bright
Eyes used to release under an independent label, I think up until Lifted.

I think that as the years have gone by it's become easier and easier to
come up with your own recorded music and distribute it without having
to deal with a major label. It's perfectly conceivable that the future of
music is not with the major labels at all.

Anyway, some of my favourite indie rock albums of the past five years:

Avey Tare And Panda Bear (now known as Animal Collective) - Spirit
They've Gone, Spirit They've Vanished
Okkervil River - Down The River Of Golden Dreams
Xiu Xiu - Fabulous Muscles

And the best of all, Sufjan Steven's Illinois

I like indie, but I must say it has got to be one of the most terrible genre names ever (being it is hardly descriptive).

Anyway, Modest Mouse is deffinitely my favorite when it comes to indie, but I also like My Bloody Valentine, The Pixies, The Smiths, The Shins, Secret Machines, The Flaming Lip and a bunch of other stuff too. I also absolutely love Coldplay and Death Cab for Cutie, but I guess their status as indie bands is fairly ambiguous? maybe? I don't know, they're at the top of the list with Modest Mouse, The Smiths and My Bloody Valentine for me.

Edited by helofloki