A Guide to Indie

What is “indie music”? Whatever you’re thinking, you might be (pleasantly) surprised. From Motown to Chicago house to the borderless sound of now, join us in celebrating the artists shaping culture from the outside in.

The term “indie music” is usually associated with something difficult or obscure, or at least something self-consciously removed from the mainstream—music that fights for its own private space. But the reality is that some of the most beloved music in the cultural canon is “indie music,” both in the sense of having been released on independent labels and in the sense of providing meaningful counterprogramming to whatever the standard message was at the time. Take Elvis or Little Richard—both products of indie labels, both artists with strong Black roots at a time when blatant segregation was still an organizing principle of American life. You don’t even have to get into their sexual dynamics and it’s already radical. Or Motown, an indie label whose music defined ’60s pop while projecting an image of Black sophistication and upward mobility as rich as Duke Ellington but even easier to grasp. Yes, indie could be difficult, but it could be as sweet as The Supremes, too. By the time punk rock came along in the mid-’70s, being different had become its own kind of identity: the rebel, the hippie, the activist. You could hear it as a revolution, and it was. But you could just as easily hear it as an extension of early R&B or doo-wop, or any other sound that cared less about professionalism than raw feeling. These were the outsiders who reshaped what we considered in.

The ’80s and ’90s were when the idea of “indie music” as a conscious rebellion against the mainstream really coalesced. You know the story: the noisy, challenging band that breaks new creative ground in part by mercilessly destroying the old. No more prog rock, no more arena anthems, no more hair metal or airbrushed song-suites or living large. As a bumper sticker for SST Records—a label founded by Black Flag guitarist Greg Ginn and home to some of the most revolutionary guitar-based music of the ’80s—put it, “Corporate Rock Still Sucks.” It turns out that a lot of corporate pop and dance music still sucked, too, or at least didn’t offer the creative freedom you could get by doing it yourself. Both Chicago and Detroit had incredible house and techno scenes catering to Black, brown, working-class—and in the case of Chicago, explicitly LGBTQ+—audiences marginalized or ignored by the mainstream, while amateurs from Olympia to Glasgow to Tokyo applied the primitivism of punk to the sweetness of classic pop because pop is what they loved. A dynamic was being challenged: Just because something had corporate backing didn’t make it good or popular, and just because something was underground didn’t make it difficult or unappealing. Take N.W.A or De La Soul—both totally different takes on the still-young sound of hip-hop, both at least as popular as their major-label peers. Was indie an ethic? A sound? It was still getting defined—and, in its own indie-ish way, played with and subverted at the same time.

Part of what was great about indie in the 2000s and 2010s was how permissive it was: bands like Animal Collective melting down electronic and experimental music into bright, psychedelic goo; artists like Solange and FKA twigs making the traditionally extroverted sound of R&B feel spacey and avant-garde without losing any of its sensuality. Boundaries that once felt firm—that being a serious music fan somehow meant forsaking joy, for example—suddenly seemed porous, and pop fans who might’ve felt boxed out or turned off by underground music in the past found something they probably didn’t expect: fun. Even serious bands seemed to lighten up, or at least take a more diverse approach—the biggest being Radiohead, whose left turn into electronic music didn’t just bring mainstream listeners further into “alternative culture” but decentralized rock music for a generation raised on guitars. The global pastiche of M.I.A., the sleek-but-intimate electro-pop of The xx, Tyler, The Creator helping a generation of kids vent their trauma while goofing off at the same time: This wasn’t what indie music sounded or felt like 15 years earlier, but it was the appeal by this time. Pair that with the revival of Glastonbury and rise of festivals like Coachella, and you’ve got a sea change: indie less as a mode of production than an attitude or lifestyle—an inviting one, even.

The genre-dissolving that started in the 2000s really ramped up in the decade-plus after. Nobody embodied the shift better than Frank Ocean, an enormously talented singer-songwriter once employed by a major label but who found more success creatively when he broke off into his own private world. It was a radical idea: Not only could you thrive outside the system, but you could actually grow your audience by becoming more idiosyncratic, instead of the other way around. The 4-track tape machines that helped democratize recording in the ’80s and ’90s turned into the GarageBand (hello, Clairo) and iPhone/iPad of today (Steve Lacy, hi). Along with them came a generation of artists willing to take creative risks at light speed with little to no overhead and—through the power of social media—a nearly direct connection with their audience. It’s not that you couldn’t imagine the druggy emo/hip-hop hybrids of Drain Gang/YEAR0001 or the overstimulation of hyperpop in another era, but it’s almost impossible to picture them making an impact at the scale that they are. And while it might be cynical to wonder how this stuff would’ve gotten adjusted had it been released by a major label, just remember that before Bad Bunny, the idea of someone going platinum in the US without ever singing in English was inconceivable.

As much as “indie” is about pushing boundaries, it’s also about preserving tradition—especially when that tradition is marginalized or lies outside the commercial mainstream. Survey the state of things in the 2020s, and you’ll see a lot of this: música mexicana, throwback jazz, underground rap seemingly unchanged from the late ’90s—niche sounds that seem to exist in their own little bubbles but are thriving in real, inspiring numbers. The point is that artists who, in another era, would’ve had to assimilate—or at least adjust—in order to reach beyond their niche now have the freedom to stay pure and still connect. It’s also a reminder that indie was never just about rock music, but about the spirit of standing out in your own field no matter how big or small. (Just look at a label like Sub Pop, which released music from Nirvana in the ’90s, The Postal Service in the 2000s, and artists like Beach House and Weyes Blood in the 2010s—an example of changing with the times while keeping your original mission alive and intact.) The staples and stamps and zines and photocopy machines that held subcultures together in the ’80s are online now. If you really love something, there’s a good chance other people out there do, too, and it’s never been easier to find.