indie rock

"Indie Rock" is all about independant musicians and labels putting out music that the major labels wouldn't want to; that the commercial radio stations wouldn't want to play; and that generally is derivative of rock music. Some relevant nodes include Ani Difranco, Yo La Tengo, superchunk, jimmy eat world, promise ring, and much, much more. College kids seem to dig it, like at UIUC and UK.

Indie Rock is short for independent rock, which makes everything not put out by a major label generally fall into this category. Although genres under indie rock can vary, the phrase is occasionally used interchangeably with punk rock. In short, majors will sell indie rock if they feel it to be profitable; they are not interested in art, they are interested in the bottom line. WB would sell an album with "Fuck Warner Brothers" if people would buy it.

A form of music that is less dependent on "media-blitz" and more dependent on whether the music and lyrics have soul.. a sort of personal reflection for the sake of personal reflection rather than the cash-cow that our media has turned songwriting into.

Indie may or may not have a particular sound to it, and the phrase "indie rock" spans across so many genres. It's not really just about rock anymore, although I suppose you could talk about indie pop, indie rap, emo, fuzz pop, noise rock, twee, math rock, prog rock, pomo, and whatever other subgenres come to mind. Basically it's a trend to make music as an art form, and not so much as a money making venture. The mere idea of trying to classify a definitive list of indie bands is absurd considering that there will always be some indie fan out there who will denounce whatever it is you're listening to as being lame.

According to the brand new Grove Music Guide: (http://www.grovemusic.com)

As a style label indie is not particularly useful, although it does carry connotations of sensitive, somewhat introspective personas who generally lack strong vocal projection.