Genre researchIndie music

What is indie music?

In music, independent music, often shortened to indie music or "indie", is a term used to describe independence from major commercial record labels or their subsidiaries, and an autonomous, Do-It-Yourself approach to recording and publishing.

Indie Origin

Indie music originates from the 1960’s when the music was mostly pop and rock. Lyrics from indie inspired peace and love, and ‘Velvet Underground’ were one of the first indie bands to come onto the scene. However Velvet Underground sold very little records at the time due to being different, but they did inspire other artists to follow them in the type of music they were producing.

Differences from mainstream One difference from indie music from other

mainstream labels is that indie artists work on their own, they record and produce their own music. This gives them the freedom to produce whatever music they want to.

Being independent has its disadvantages as well, when you’re on an independent label you have considerably less power and marketing prowess.

Major labels have a much higher chance of being played on a radio station because of the major label contacts.

Key Bands – Velvet Underground

Velvet underground recorded their first demo in 1965, they are the most influential indie band, and set the trend, all the storm came the summer after they recorded their first demo

Key Bands – the Stooges

In 1968 The Stooges were signed by Elektra. Danny Fields was floored by the music they produced and decided to sign them, however they made no money for Elektra records but this was a big breakthrough for indie music.

Typical instruments

Indie music has a wide variety of sounds as it covers a lot of basis. However, the main instruments used with indies are the guitar, drums, vocals, bass and keyboard. This is because indie covers indie pop, indie rock etc.

New indie

Indie music has slowly but surely became a mainstream sound. The radio stations are starting to play more indie as more and more people are becoming interested in the sounds that it produced rather than the pop bands which are controller by big labels. Bands such as the script are being more frequently talked about as a mainstream band while they are actually classed as an indie band.

Indie production

Indie bands normally sell albums rather than just singles, this is because they aren’t big enough names to sell a single and get enough sales to make a good enough revenue from it. Indie also seem to use abstract album covers rather than using concept or artist covers.

Album covers