When did indie stop meaning independent?

I got an email from Amazon about indie albums for less than £5 but looking at the bands/artists under the indie category, most of them are not independent. It seems to me that indie is used to describe a form of inoffensive pop rock instead of independent or unsigned acts.

When need to get back to the days when indie meant independent.

I think indie has always had those two different meanings. Just like pop can mean anything that's popular on the charts regardless of genre or it can mean accessible melodic songs with mostly live instruments that may not even be on the charts.

You could say the same about R&B, since when did that become electro/dance music?

It's just labels for things based on the style, like 'indie' fashion... it's all just stereotyping.


The way I look at it, is if something's not marketed in the right genre, I can easily just change it in my iTunes and keep myself happy

Tbh i think its another thing S/A/W were responsible for. In the late 80's there was alot of real indie in the charts, three times more in fact then S/A/W. But waterman claimed they were producing pop (manufactured pop) and i think ever since pop has meant that manufactured pop. traditional pop (guitar based) was then refered to as indie.

I think it is actually called R'n'B rather than R&B.

"Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B and RnB, is a genre of popular African-American music that originated in the 1940s."

Doesn't really matter how you abbreviate it. Still, that quote also manages to show how the meaning of it's changed over the past 60 years. I didn't really hear blues in mainstream R&B ten years ago, let alone today haha

Indie is just short for 'independent' but it lost it's meaning (being signed to an independent label) by about the mid-80's when it started to refer to a type of sound as a genre, regardless of whether the artist might even be signed to a major label. I don't see any connection to Stock Aitken & Waterman - plenty of pop acts who play guitar aren't considered as 'indie'.

Yes, that's true. When I hear the word "indie" used as a genre, I think of more rock based things, although not hard heavy metal type of rock, rather than guitar based pop. It's become kind of the same as how alternative rock is used.

What about the White stripes 7 nation army?... that was ten years ago and dripped with blues!

What about blu cantrel/sean paul 'breathe', that too was heavily bluesey.


Yes i know that! Its MY generation that created the genre!

I disagree, most pop acts since busted who play guitars ARE refered to as indie, pop nowdays means manufactured boy/girl bands.

7 Nation Army wasn't really 'R&B' though was it? Weirdly, I'd actually describe them as an 'Indie' band.

And do you think? I wouldn't have said Breathe was bluesy haha! That's just me though I guess ha.

Some of that early Rhythm and Blues stuff from the forties and fifties is incredible music. I was horrified when they resurrected the (abbreviated version of the) term about 20 odd years ago to describe a new style of music that I really, really loathe.

No they aren't. No-one calls McFly or Scouting For Girls "indie" and gets away with it.

Indie doesn't have to mean guitars, either. That's a recent development.

That's about right really. The S/A/W thing is about how the industry needs to label bands or artists either for marketing them or sometimes for marginalising them.

No 7 nation army was about as blues as 1966 eric clapton got when he was with john mayalls bluesbreakers. its not a coincidence that jeff beck has played with the white stripes either.


They do m8, ive heard that...not that i agree, i certainly dont!

No no I meant describing the song as R&B, when in reality the band is a 'rock band'. I get what you mean though about the sound it has.

I think this kinda proves the point though that artists can take inspiration from all kinds of genres and merge them together.

It's weird because I see some people saying 'quoting kate nash cuz indie' and yes most of these people are teenagers and I just think what on earth are they talking about...is indie a new trend/phase or something

Really? I think most people called bands like Arctic Monkeys, Razorlight, The Kooks etc 'indie' not pop acts.

Calm down with the exclamations. You aren't the only one who was around in the 80's.

I posted that because it's factual; not specifically for your attention, it just happens to share the same post as something else I was responding to ie. your erroneous claim that "ever since [Stock, Aitken and Waterman, c.1986 - ] pop has meant that manufactured pop. traditional pop (guitar based) was then refered to as indie." You know the one that you've now changed to mean "ever since Busted", ie fifteen years later, c.2001.

If you're happy with the notion that people really consider Hanson, The Bangles or McFly to be indie bands because of their guitar playing work away.

OK, so Indie, as a contraction of Independent, was a way for rock journalists to describe post-punk new wave bands, many of whom were signed to independent record labels. Quite a few were signed to majors, though, so the term started to lose its original meaning of bands being signed to indie labels and to describe a sound and an attitude and outlook - largely guitar-based rock bands who wrote and performed their own material and were an entity in their own right as opposed to the producer-led pop acts.

The term got more blurred as independent record labels started to go into partnership with majors (like Creation did with Sony) and major labels took an interest in indie bands during the Britpop years.

In addition a lot of indie labels sadly folded - Creation, Factory, Rough Trade etc. - and artists trudged off, caps in hand, to major labels, often ones which had an offshoot label dedicated to nurturing indie type acts (Polydor had Fiction, Warners had Blanco Y Negro etc.).

To confuse things even further PWL was independent in the strictest sense - Pete Waterman had his own record label and his own recording and production facilities, so by definition the likes of Kylie and Rick Astley and all the execrable SAW acts were indie!

So indie really doesn't have much in common with its original definition any more but it's more about musical style, originating with New Wave and sticking more or less to that ideal.

Ohhh... i see... my bad


True, but do you really think that mc fly is a million miles away from them? esp the kooks. I dont think they are indie, i know they arent, but i think theres a perception by some that guitar bands per se are indie, an incorrect presumption. thats all im saying.


Because there was precious little guitar pop from the late 80's until 02 when Busted made guitar pop fashionable to a young audience. now guitar music during the gap between saw and busted was around in proliferation, grunge, britpop, in particular, but many saw it as an extension of late 80's indie and not as pop. Even when busted appeared, kids didnt know what to make of it and they were charged with "trying to be rock" or " they think theyre rock" simple because there hadnt been much guitar based pop for many years aimed at a young audience.

I dont think its right, but i do think theres a growing perception that 'indie' means guitar..

I think "indie" still means "independent" or, at the very least, it means "not mainstream"... and it covers a wide variety of genres.

Guitar-heavy garage music is a big part of it, because that's the epitome of indie.. a couple of kids playing in their friend's garage. You get a lot of lo-fi indie, just because that, historically, was the easiest and cheapest to make.

But there are all types of indie.. here's a random sampling from my playlists:

Indie lo-fi psychedelic (Mr. Gnome)
Indie Jazz/Funk (Medeski, Martin & Wood)
Indie chillwave (Washed Out)
Indie soul (Theresa Andersson)

I agree with this. It's shorthand for "alternative", away from the more clearly defined genres, like metal.

Not according to this article:


http://www.allmusic.com/style/indie-rock-ma0000004453

I can see the point about the testosterone thing actually, although Nirvana is a poor example. Kurt Cobain wasn't particularly macho, in his demeanour or his songwriting.

Different people would draw the line in different places, I suppose. I think that article is a US-centric view.

Nowadays 'indie' is used to refer to any song that goes outside the conventional sound.

For example, Lana Del Rey is referred to as 'indie' by the general listener because of her 'weird' style, but she isn't 'indie' at all as she comes from a professional label.