What Holly Kruse thinks about indie music

Kruse, Holly. (2003) Site and Sound: Understanding Independent Music Scenes. Peter Lang Publishing. New York. 

Chapter 2 – Telling the Story of Independent Music. pg 5-28

In the beginning of 'indie' when it was known better as 'college' rock, bands could find themselves shot to national stardom without receiving any commercial airplay. This kind of success created a mentality that you do not have to sign to a major label to become popular. The mentality has continued on in the realm of 'indie' music ever since and has developed indie into a genre that defines itself as oppositional and its participants as outsiders. The chapter also looks at how the genre was hard to define back in the late 80s. A record store manager said that it was difficult to describe the genre as bands like Public Enemy, a hip-hop band were huge on college radio waves as were bands like Jane's Addiction, which is a more typical 'alternative' band. There were so many different sounds floating around the airwaves in those days that it was difficult to say what this 'indie' or 'alternative' or 'college' rock was. The concept of music being alternative is problematic because (from Jim Greer), “'A lot of music that's potentially mainstream-bound fails because it's bad. Does that make it alternative?'” For some, being successful on an indie label was a way of saying “fuck you” to the mainstream record companies. The chapter then goes on about the history of indie music and the scenes involved.

It seems as though a successful indie band, such as R.E.M., lives in the contradictions between mainstream and marginal, authenticity and artificiality and local and national.