Indie Rock
02 Iunie 2008 Morrison
Indie rock is rock music that falls within the indie music
description. The term is sometimes used interchangeably with indie music as
a whole, though more specifically implies that the music meets the criteria
of being rock, as opposed to indie pop or other possible matchups. These
criteria vary from an emphasis on rock instrumentation (electric guitars,
bass guitar and live drums) to more abstract (and debatable) rockist
constructions of authenticity.
The music commonly regarded as indie rock is descended from what was
known as alternative rock during the 1980s; this name refers to the fact
that it was an alternative to mainstream rock. Alternative bands of the
time, in turn, were influenced by the punk rock, post-punk, and New Wave
movements of the 1970s and early 1980s. During the first half of the 1990s
alternative music, led by grunge bands such as Nirvana and Pearl Jam, broke
into the mainstream and achieved commercial chart success. Shortly
thereafter, the alternative genre became commercialised, as mainstream
success attracted major-label investment and commercially-oriented or
manufactured acts with a formulaic, conservative approach. With this, the
meaning of the label "alternative" changed away from its original,
more countercultural meaning, and the term "indie rock" fell into
greater use.
"Indie rock" is shorthand for "independent rock,"
which stems from the general rule that most of its artists are signed to
independent record labels, rather than major record labels. It is not
strictly a genre of music (given that musical style and independence are not
always correlated), but is often used as an umbrella term covering a wide
range of artists and styles, connected by some degree of allegiance to the
values of underground culture, and (usually) describable as rock and roll.
Genres or subgenres often associated with indie rock include lo-fi,
post-rock, shoegazer, garage punk, emo, slowcore, c86, twee pop, and math
rock, to list but a few; other related (and sometimes overlapping)
categories include alternative rock and indie pop.
Typically, indie artists place a premium on maintaining complete control
of their music and careers, often releasing albums on their own independent
record labels and relying on touring, word-of-mouth, and airplay on
independent or college radio stations for promotion. Some of its more
popular artists, however, may end up signing to major labels, though often
on favourable terms won by their prior independent success.
