In the immortal words of Pete Townshend, "meet the new boss, the same as the old boss", I was struck by how it was almost as if, for all the rumblings and mutterings from indie fans, that instead of reinventing the world of music, all we have succeeded in doing is change the playing pieces on the board. The infrastructure remains, and it is now merely a matter of allowing the players to settle. It is true that sales are down, and the internet plays an increasingly crucial role for the surivival of a modern musician, but, at the end of the day, there is a gnawing sense that perhaps nothing much has really changed. In fact, "indie" is now a defineable sound - a little Decemberists, a little Shins, lots of the ubiqutous Death Cab for Cutie, a bit of Arcade Fire, the list goes on.
And yet, we now have Adele, proudly scorning major label advances for "creative" reasons, and settling on XL as the proper home for her "sound'. The cynic may point out that this could have merely been a ploy to lend her some credibility to a modern audience, but the fact does remain that she can actually complain about the amount of tax she has to pay on her income. No discredit to her, although her music may not be for me, I cannot criticise her talent or success. But if you were thinking of her as somehow edgy, or alternative, I am afraid you shall remain sadly disappointed. My point is that the Arctic Monkeys are now enjoying a number 1 album, released on indie heavyweights Domino, with a release that seems to have taken strong pointers from the Manic Street Preachers. In other words, we're back in amongst the Brit Pop wars, all whilst Damon Albarn is off creating rock operas about an obscure alchemist and mathematician.
I have been reading Peter Doggett's excellent There's A Riot Going On, and in it, he makes the point that in amongst the upheaval of the 60's, although there was a sense of purpose, there were vastly differing views on achieving those aims. Disagreement was rife, even, on what the purpose was. The focal points (in America at least) were racial, and Vietnam, but in amongst this, there was the knowledge that pacificist protest was futile, and also that violence was incongruent to the enlightenment proffered by philosophical studies. It was an age of dichotomy, an example well illustrated by the use of Bob Dylan used as an ignition point. He furiously denied it, remaining aloof and rejecting any and all claims to his attention, and yet, despite this, through his refusal to explain anything about himself (and his proclivity to bend the truth) he became a demi-god, revealing truth, in whatever form was sought, to whomever wished to hear it. One of his greatest assets was leaving his lyrics open to any interpretation that people sought to find within them.
But in the world of indie, one forgets that the asset wielded by the artists and fans was that the label "indie" did not denote anything. It merely reflected a mode of distribution of music. You could hear art rock, obscure metal, dreamy trance, electronic music in fact, anything at all. The grouping meant absolutely nothing, and yet, we have all become so enamoured by this notion of being "an indie fan" that somehow we have all become grouped in as a flannel wearing hipsters with our heavy-rimmed glasses. I suppressed a chuckle this week as I saw a "Top 25 Indie releases of 2011" on Vh1, and in that there was one of the songs from Death Cab for Cutie's latest album. My fiance, whom I shall say is under training - and to my sister, yes, you could call it indoctrination - snorted and exclaimed, "How are they indie!?". The point was well made, as although they have always been marketed under the alt-rock/indie banner, they made the leap to the majors quite some time ago. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it does throw mud into already confused waters. It may be a generalization to claim that in the rush to try and place a label on the shifting tastes of music fans that we been have forced to some degree of conformity, which one could justifiably associate with a slight loss of identity.
Indie fans were never angry, and there was never really a general rallying point. Sure, the fans did fit quite neatly in a defineable demographic - white, middle-class, educated- and yet, within that group, there were vastly differing views on what constituted a good release, and what didn't. The uniting point was a certain contrariness to locate "true' talent, and a desire to find music that somehow provided entertainment. I would never discount the social aspects of it, and this, of course, can all be included within the difficult sociological tendencies that lead to music becoming popular, and the reason that one can never really know what will succeed and what will not. It was an exclusive club that was united, in its early days, by the difficluties in obtaining the music, the rural denominations governed by the bands, and the small and short-lived reigns of the artists. Now, they have the opportunity to make a career from music, and reach a world-wide audience. It is true that with the competition, it is more difficult to succeed, but as much as the fans may like to pretend that it remains an exclusive club, this cannot be the case any longer.
The realities are now quite well described by the opening remarks in the Pitchfork review of the Washed Out release Within And Without: "Despite being the butt of jokes because of its goofy but actually spot-on name, chillwave as an idea and a sound is here to stay. Synthesizers are in; guitar-based rock has taken a backseat to diffuse, rhythmic dance music; and the sound's key influences (broken, blissed-out electronica, hip-hop) have leached into most interesting music happening right now." We are a target market, they are looking to find you, and they think they know what you want to hear. Personally, I get a sense that is probably best illustrated by paraphrasing Sir Humphrey from Yes Minister. On many an occasion, he advises Minister Hacker that he should "tell the people what they want to hear, and then continue to do whatever you were going to do anyway". We have lost both of these, as in the early days, we were simply not told anything (or, at least, this was the perception). With the growth in popularity of the indie sound, and the internet, we became informed and hence kept in the loop, whilst the artists continued with their work. Now, we are told, and they try and give us what they think we want. The problem is, we don't know, and within the erosion of the ideology, everyone is, perhaps, starting to feel a little lost.
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