Why I Love Indie - Steff Metal

Why I Love Indie
May 25th, 2010 | Brutal Tunes
Last week, I explained to the uninitiated why I, as a metalhead, am required to hate Indie music. Now, to even the field, I will attempt to find reasons why I, as a metalhead, love Indie music.

Metal can learn a lot from Indie – not in musicianship (I think we own them in this regard) but in the power of creating buzz. Indie has cleverly created a culture around knowing more obscure bands than anyone else.

If you’re in an obscure band, this is only a good thing. There’s no better way to sell hundreds of records than telling people that guy in the corner has already heard of your band.

Mind you, knowing obscure bands is easy to fake. Dr. David Thorpe of Your Band Sucks! shows you How to Fake It. How to Fake It (Part 2) and How to Fake It Reader Advice.

You’ll definitely find this attitude in metal too, but I don’t think it’s as much an ingrained part of the subculture as it is for Indie. You can listen to Slayer all day, every day, nothing but Slayer, and you’re still a metalhead. I don’t think you’re allowed to do this if you’re Indie. Indie encourages exploration – to reach into the furtherest depths of the underground to find the new, exciting, innovative sounds.

Indie men go out of their way to appeal to women. With their twee clothing and fondness of tea and songs about falling in love, they appeal to a broad female market, hence – Indie will never die out, due to it’s ability to procreate and continue the species. For metalheads, finding enough chicks can be a real problem, and is the main cause of the metal genre being on the brink of extinction more than once.

A lesson learned from Indie: the female metal fan is an untapped market. That’s why Ville Valo gets so many chicks – he’s only competing against himself.

Indie merchandise always looks awesome, and they’ve always got something to fit girls. In contrast, women’s metal shirts suck. They’re better than they were 10 years ago, but they still suck. C’mon guys, what do chicks love more then loud music? Shopping. Lets put two and two together, man.

A thought: I’d love to create a pin-up calendar of hot metal blokes. Volunteers?

Label-less musicians have to think outside the box when promoting their bands. Indie musicians embrace so-called “new” media – they’re the ones talking up their music on blogs and twitter and creating buzz online. They’re the ones partnering with local artists and performance dancers and forming collectives with other bands and being generally proactive.

They’re the ones figuring out how to get their music noticed by advertising professionals, TV producers and movie professionals. They understand there are more methods than ever to get their songs heard.

Also, since within “Indie” all the subgenres sound the same, apart from being labeled as Indie – an ubiquitious label as is – a band can actually sound however you want without people calling them “sell-outs” or musing about their new direction.

Metal, on the other hand, demands slavish adherence to sub-genres.

If your band starts in one sub-genre and then try to something radically different, you’re “selling out” or “going commercial”

If you start in one sub-genre and create ten albums strictly adhering to you distinctive sound, you are “not developing your sound”.

If you start in one sub-genre than move to another, you were never “

I’m not sure how much the musicians care about these things – since as long as you’re playing what you love, who cares what genre it’s in? – but the fans and critics sure do. Indie critics devote less space to debating genre dynamics and can spend more time discussing … I don’t know, the music.

Here are some Indie bands and why I love them:

Amanda Palmer

Amanda Palmer

She did have major label representation but now does not – is a prime example of an Indie artist creating unprecedented buzz online. She also uses her reach on twitter and her blog to create epic mean buzz, and add additional income streams to selling records and touring, which I think is pretty much essential for any artist today.

I adore her music but also, I enjoy reading her blog and watching her career because of her business sense.

The Killers

One of those rare indie successes who – I feel – deserve every ounce of success. When I hear their songs, I think of England (no, not like that …).

They are excellent musicians who’ve perfected a signature sound, use beautiful production and they kill live. Can’t fault them.

Nick Cave

Nick Cave

Um, because he’s beautiful.

Clearly, I am not particularly well-versed in the genre of “Indie” but if you’ve got any decent recommendations – or you’re an independent metal band with a video on YouTube – shout out in the comments below. There might be an “Indie” Metal Mistape at the end of the week …

Yours with two forks and a spoon

9 Responses and Counting...

v 05.25.2010

I recently bought a lamb of god girly shirt and its awesome but it is certainly the exception.

Some great ‘indie’ (regarding release and not so much sound) are:
Abysmalia
Dark Suns
Anekdoten
Anglagard
Agalloch
Callisto
Carrier Flux
Ermetica End
Evoken
Esoteric
Inciter
The Ocean
Intronaut
Kylesa
Ocoai
Minsk
Jakob
Hateform
Battlefields
Omega Massif
Estradasphere

omg I could keep going. The ‘indie’ bands as noted for their sound (which is really just anything that used to be called Alt or Grunge or Mod or Synthpop) I like are all on major labels now but whatever – Broken Social Scene, Desert Sessions, PJ Harvey, Sparta, Don Caballero, Damir Urban, Interpol, The Chameleons, The Smiths, The sisters of mercy, the cult anything with a ‘the’ in front of it…Pinback etc
E.Bleak

Nick Cave is THE MOST BEAUTIFUL.

If “indie” covers Morrissey, the Magnetic Fields, Einstuerzende Neubauten (later albums like Perpetuum Mobile qualify here, I think), Leonard Cohen, the Mountain Goats, and similar, then I’m all behind the genre – looking for the darker themes shared in most metal in other genres is a fun way to broaden your horizons and find some unexpected influences.

For example, I never would’ve paid attention the Mountain Goats and their twee vocals and acoustic guitars if the show Moral Orel hadn’t used them over the end credits of one rather heart-rending episode, for instance, and their lyrics get seriously dark….and Leonard Cohen will always be my soulmate of gloom and doom.
Imogen Reid

Thanks for this Steff, and for answering this question in the first place. I think the reason why Indie music has a certain charm which enlightens me, if I can try to see a pattern or a similarity in all the Indie bands I like (because the bands I like seem to stretch over a range of genres despite all being classed as ‘Indie’), is because they remind me of the world around us, in this very age too, in a positive way. It makes me feel at home because I can relate to most of the songs almost instantly, and the lyrics usually are not superficial. I like Metal music too, sure, but most of the time the songs are about either a fantasy world, or a part of history (or, very rarely, the future) and if they are about the current world, they tend to be filled with an angst which I can only really listen to if I’m in the mood.
The Indie music I like is not so intense. It tends to be a bit happy-go-lucky (for which I can understand if a Metalhead does not like it) but if it’s not (such as Nick Cave and Amanda Palmer) then it has themes of sadness which seem (at least to me) to be more human and less ‘staged’, for want of a better word. As a result, I can be in any mood and still want to listen to it.
Here are some Indie bands/artists which you can love, hate, or class in the ‘Meh’ section. I’m just throwing them out there for you to take or leave:
Florence and the Machine, Arcade Fire, Sufjan Stevens (yes, he’s a Christian boy but that man sure has pipes), Chad VanGaalen (animator as well as musician- he animates his own music videos and they are wont to give nightmares), The Beautiful Girls, Broken Social Scene, The Shins, Vampire Weekend and Regina Spektor (sort of like Amanda Palmer but without the face paint).
YES (agreeing with you) Nick Cave and Amanda Palmer are awesome.
And YES (agreeing with person above) The Mountain Goats are great too. :) For the record, I hear that the guy from The Mountain Goats is also a Classicist.
Cheers,
Imy (The Multigenre-loving friend.)
Euphoria

I definitely agree with you about metal band shirts. My room mate’s birthday is this week and I wanted to get her a metal shirt, a CHICK’S metal shirt. My three choices were Arch Enemy, Amon Amarath, and Iced Earth… all great bands, but bands she ALREADY has the chick tshirts for. So frustrating. I think that metal chicks definitely have more of the DIY spirit though because I’ve seen some great handmade shirts.

And though I ranted on and on about Indie music before I have to say I share a love with the bands E. Bleak has listed as well as the Smith and Siouxsie and the Banshees (who are more Indie than Goth IMHO).
steff

Urgh – I was going to get an Amon Amarth shirt at Wacken, and they had a decent one, but then I turned it over and it said “Viking Bitch”. I hate shirts with words like bitch and slut and fuck and shit on them. I always feel guilty wearing them – like I’m offending every second person. So no Amon Amarth shirt for me :(
Paulina

“C’mon guys, what do chicks love more then loud music? Shopping. Lets put two and two together, man.”

So true! And even if a band has shirts for girls, they never fit well.

I’m a pretty small girl. I bought an Amon Amarth babydoll t-shirt a few years ago. Small was an understatement. The shirt was made for a skank or a toddler. Luckily, they now have better shirts in normal people sizes…
Paulina

Also, with regards to the “Viking Bitch” shirt. LOL. I have the tank top. Not many people notice the bitch, so I think you would have been fine with it.

The Valkyria ones that they have out now are pretty nice. And soft!
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ISABELLA

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