What Vincent J. Novara and Stephen Henry think about indie rock and what I think about what Vincent J. Novara and Stephen Henry think about indie rock

Novara, Vincent J. and Henry, Stephen. "A guide to essential American indie rock." Music Library Association 65 (2009): 816-832.

Business Stuff

In this article, Novara and Henry look at a timeline of indie recordings and the way they and the artists' attitudes develop from 1980 until 2005. It begins with alternative rock groups like Dinosaur Jr., who were "successful in working...outside the boundaries of the commercial mainstream," and follows this path until there is a split between the 'mainstream' alternative rock and indie rock in 1992, with the band Pavement, when lo-fi recording came to prominence (Pavement - Summer Babe, Pavement - Zurich Is Stained. This era of indie rock is alternative rock's stubborn attitude towards "selling-out", as many thought Nirvana had done. From here, the article looks at late-90s post-rock and how indie music begins to draw from varied sources for the influence, such as jazz. This era seems to be a reaction against the music industry's search for a new Nirvana. The final section looks at indie of recent years and how they have become a large force within the music industry.

In Hibbett's article, he contrasts post-rock and the lo-fi era, while in this article, they are compared as one genre building on another.

Something interesting of note from this article is that early indie artists had little reason to go to a major label because on their indie label they were given higher royalties, had more creative control and had better access to upper management, so they weren't just on an indie label because it was cool. This was until the explosion of Nirvana, whose story promised mounds of money for bands who wanted to make the switch to a major label.


Rant Stuff
 
This kind of resisting the mainstream makes sense to me (if you can even call it that; it seems more like the path of least resistance). Bands were with their indie label not because they are ideologically opposed to a major label, but because they could write music how they wanted to and were paid better, both of which helped their careers in the end. Maybe indie today, in some ways, wants to re-create the 'old-days' and this is one way to do it.