quote:

Posted by Rubberchicken:

I feel that peoples opinion of what an indie band is is 'a-band-that-i-like-that-isn't-too-pop,or-my-parents-dont-listen-to'.

Even wiki has a better grasp of the genres than most of you. And for that whenever you go to post a band here from now on double check your retarded ass with wiki.
Ensures less sad induced head shaking for us readers.

Arguments about what is "indie" or not have been going on here since this forum started, and a million other places for probably over 20 years. Thankfully you came in and rescued all of us from ever having to worry about this argument again. The solution was so simple! Just look it up on Wikipedia? Really? How could we have missed that? Ohhhh, because we're retarded.

On behalf of the entire Metacritic forums, I'd like to thank you for finally laying this issue to rest and saving our retarded asses, Rubberchicken. Us Phillip J. Fry types really need some of you smart folks to look out for us. You're a real Rockefeller.

“Wikipedia is the best thing ever. Anyone in the world can write anything they want about any subject. So you know you are getting the best possible information.” - Michael Scott, from The Office

Wikipedia is amazing... people always hating on it....

Wikipedia is just proof that people in our country have wayyyy too much free time. Time that could be spent having babies or making guns. Haha.

Daft Punk - Homework & The Orb - The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld

These two albums pretty much directly inspired some of our favorite indie acts to take up dance music. (LCD Soundsystem, Panda Bear, etc.)

Dont twist my words Im not saying wiki is the 'be all end all' Im merely stating that even wiki knowns what genre certain bands are more than most people here.
There is a huge difference between indie and alternative. So people dont be afraid to use the word rock or alternative instead of abusing and cheapening the word 'indie'.

Someone posted a thread asking if indie is dead.
Same thing happened with grunge/emo/nu-metal and any other genre that tv/magazines cashed in on. people exploited it and turned it in a gay fashion sense then bands that were of these genres denied being them out of embarrassment. Same thing will happen to indie and it will be because of people like you lot.

"Daft Punk - Homework & The Orb - The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld
Alot of the elctronica inspired indie rock and dance music artists of today were inspired by these two records."

A post like this.. Daft punk are not indie and just because an 'indie' band listens to these albums does not mean they are some how all of a sudden classed as indie. Let alone a band that released an 'influential indie record'.

I just had a quick scan of this thread and only found ONE thats ONE band that is classed as indie 'Guided by Voices'.
wonderful. Keep up the great work.

"Indie" is a fairly nebulous term, and you seem to be a fairly pretentious guy.

He may be pretentious but while lecturing on a fake genre he can't even get it straight himself.

How is Guided By Voices the only indie band in this thread? Did you bother to look at the first page? Dude, get your head out of your ass... you're making yourself look stupid.

quote:

I just had a quick scan of this thread and only found ONE thats ONE band that is classed as indie 'Guided by Voices'. wonderful. Keep up the great work.

Wait, what? Just a quick look through the thread reveals that all of these other albums were released on independant labels (which is, ya know, kinda the definition of "indie")

My Bloody Valentine - Isn't Anything
Neutral Milk Hotel - In The Aeroplane Over The Sea
Slint - Spiderland
Pavement - Slanted and Enchanted
Interpol - Turn on the Bright Lights
Dinosaur Jr. - You're Living All Over Me
Spiritualized - Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space
Sunny Day Real Estate - Diary
Fugazi - Repeater
The Jesus Lizard - Goat
Beat Happening - Jamboree
Operation Ivy - Energy
Arcade Fire-Funeral
The Stone Roses - The Stone Roses

Seriously, Guided By Voices is the only indie band mentioned here? Fugazi isn't indie? Pavement isn't indie? I don't even know why I'm arguing with someone who said that, other then the fact that I don't like it when people insult the entire forum when they're clearly wrong.

Fugazi is about as indie as you can get.

Oh yeah, wait a minute. Now this guy is coming back to me...

quote:

Posted by Rubberchicken in the "Best Indie Rock Bands" thread on 2/2/07:

Don't worry kids if you're too stupid to remember ALL the genres you can just file them all under indie, at least this way you can spend more time focusing on making your hair look spot on and making sure your belt matches your pants etc.

That's pretty funny. I was thinking that if you weren't so caught up in filing your music into your own fantasy subgenres then you might actually be able to enjoy it. Isn't that the point? Am I wrong? Someone please tell me if I'm wrong.

This is also the same guy who lists Neutral Milk Hotel under has favorite Indie rock bands, but then comes in here and says they're not indie. But let's not get "indie" mixed up with "indie rock". It's soooo easy to do.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: sans_success,

Whoever said Sunny Day Real Estate invented emo obviously hasn't heard Rites of Spring. THEY, in fact, invented emo, and a decade earlier at that. And whatever Rites of Spring didn't invent "emo-wise" Dinosaur Jr. did around the same time, just listen to the vulnerability in J. Mascis' voice, now that's emo. Or even Ian Mackaye's band Embrace could be cited as very early emo, it was post-Minor Threat and pre-Fugazi, with no Guy Piccioto (sp?). The Replacements and Husker Du also played a part in advent of emo, and Charles Thomspon, er, i mean Frank Black, cites Husker Du as a primary influence.

All those bands belong on here, but for some reason, they are absent... FOR SHAME!!!

Arcade Fire? Ever heard of the Talking Heads? Arcade Fire are just dandy, but they're basically a really bummed out version of the Talking Heads topped off with violins, piano and a mean ten members. Get "Remain In Light" on here, if not for Robert Fripp's fantastic solos on "The Great Curve" alone.

And what about the Fall's "This Nation's Saving Grace"? Stephen Malkmus basically dismisses Pavement's early work as a rip-off of the Fall, and is that on here either? No.

Big Black and the Jesus Lizard practically invented noise rock, so their "Songs About Fucking" and "Goat" albums, respectively, warrant inclusion on this here place.

There's this tiny little band called Wire who got completely ripped off by both the Strokes and Spoon, but for some reason both of those bands are on here but Wire is nowhere to be found. All three of their albums belong on here somewhere.

The Vaselines and Beat Happening invented the whole Twee-pop thing, so they also belong on here.

Television? Gang of Four? Public Image, Ltd.?

Drone and Stoner/Doom metal wouldn't exist without the Melvins, whose album "Boris" was used to name a group of Japanese noise-mongers that everyone should enjoy. I love me some Boris.

Clearly, some people need to find these albums and listen intently, because today's "Indie" wouldn't exist without the aforementioned bands.

Dude...you're totally right.

But this is supposed to be the most influential indie records...of the past 20 years.

Oh but he worked so hard.

He's still right about The Melvins. And here are some other oft-neglected metal subgenres:

Black metal:
Burzum "Burzum" (1992), "Det som engang var" (1993) and "Hvis Lyset Tar Oss" (1994)

Death metal and grindcore:
Carcass "Symphonies of Sickness" (1989) and "Necroticism - Descanting the Insalubrious" (1991)

Doom
Cathedral "Forest of Equilibrium" (1991)
Disembowelment "Transcendence into the Peripheral" (1993)

Industrial
Godflesh "Streetcleaner" (1989) and "Pure" (1992)

Stoner
Sleep "Holy Mountain" (1993)

"Miscellaneous" Metal
Neurosis - pretty much everything, but especially "Souls at Zero" (1992) and "Through Silver in Blood" (1996)

In my humble opinion, pretty much anything you listen to in metal these days has been influenced by one of these albums (and of course, Black Sabbath, but that's way before any of us were born, right?)

Oh, and what a nice 600th post! Do I get some guru love or what?

Yum.... Sleep. They can do no wrong. ever get stoned and listen to "Dopesmoker"? Good times.

Some of those albums were released within the last 20 years. And some of the others were re-issued within the last 20 years, so by bending the rules, i think they should qualify... eh? No? Alright fine.

But yeah, defining "indie" is like defining "emo" or "prog," in that both terms should apply to most bands when they try and create music. Music is always about progression, and not a rehash of old prog music (ahem, Mars Volta); meanwhile, isn't all rock n' roll emotional in some way? So-called "indie" is a similar term in that it really tells us nothing about the kind of music being made. If both the Shins and McLusky can sit in the same genre, that's when you know something is wrong with that tag. And then there exist all these lame variations on the genre: indie-pop, indie-folk, indie-rock, etc. What the hell is that? Not to mention all the other subgenre's that fall under the "indie" umbrella: drone, noise, punk, post-punk, disco-punk, post-rock, twee, blah blah blah.

Basically, anyone arguing for a universal definition of "indie" is going to end up either incredibly disappointed, or else they already have some incredibly strict definition for it and are unwilling to open up their mind.

Are the Flaming Lips not indie because they're on Warner Brothers now? What about the first decade of their career in which they had no budget, no flashy gear, and everyone could care less about them? Oh wait, i know, they're sell-outs. YUP, that's it. A good many of the albums that are so incredibly influential to indie music came from major labels, so why limit a genre to something so silly and absurd? Loveless came out on Sire, a subsidiary of Warner Bros., sold diddly upon initial release, but has gone on to become the blueprint for countless indie bands. Same goes for Kid A, Richard D. James, The Soft Bulletin, Remain in Light, the list goes on and on and on.

My apologies for the rant.

I saw some people saying

Neutral Milk Hotel - In an Airplane Over the Sea

...i agree

quote:

Originally posted by CleverName84:

My apologies for the rant.

I love rants! This forum, and others like it, continually have this debate. Wouldn't it be refreshing if, for once, we posed the question from the other side - What are the most influential major label albums of the last XX years?.

The home-slice that said there is no "indie" on this post definitely needs to dislodge his head from his sphincter because, MAN ALIVE, he spews nothing but shit.

Fugazi are the DEFINITION of indie. They are the yardstick to which every other "indie" band should be measured. They refused to sell merch because they thought it would turn their band into a commercial entity; they had a relentless work ethic; and they refused to do interviews with major publications because they ran ads for cigarrette and alcohol companies. Indie should be defined not by what label a band is on, but by their work ethic, their D.I.Y. nature, and how they compose themselves as musicians and even people. Fugazi never sold out, never charged more than $12 a ticket for a show, and somehow managed to sell over a million records over their career (PLEASE REUNITE NOW!). Big Black had a very similar ethic by the way, but Steve Albini was, and probably still is, a crass, condescending person who is punk incarnate.

And wikipedia knowing more about music than the people on here? That's the most ridiculous thing i've ever heard. There have been numerous occasions in which i have read something on wikipedia and been absolutely mortified that they got something so terribly wrong. What are you going to say next, that MTV has its finger on the pulse of indie-rock?

You just proved that people really need to learn how to do research, because wikipedia is WEAK. Go to college, learn how to do some scholarly research, and then maybe, JUST MAYBE, you can utter something not as mentally-challenged as what you have been writing. And I'm not including your poor to terrible grammar but, needless to say, you should go buy a book on proper grammar.

With that, i will leave you with this: "It is better to remain quiet and thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt" -- Mark Twain.