h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The term "indie" derived from the independent labels that many British bands and music fans began after the punk boom of the late Seventies. The first true "indie" record is generally considered to be the "Spiral Scratch" EP released by Buzzcocks in 1977.
There was a political significance to the early indie movement in that it allowed artists to make music without first gaining the approval of the music business establishment. Many of the indie record labels soon folded - but some thrived, and ultimately provided homes for a wealth of talent. Those who began their recording careers with idies included Elvis Costello and Ian Dury (Stiff), Joy Division/New Order and Happy Mondays (Factory), The Smiths (Rough Trade) and Billy Bragg (Go! Discs). 4AD, formed in 1980, gave us Pixies, Throwing Muses and Cocteau Twins among others. Creation Records began in 1983 and soon acquired a cult following with acts like The Jesus & Mary Chain and Aztec Camera, but would have to wait until the Nineties for its greatest triumph with Oasis.
In due course the indie movement spread to America, where the music concerned was more generally known as "college rock" or "alternative rock". The logistics of record distribution across the USA made it hard for American indies to challenge the major labels in the same way as their British counterparts, but nevertheless there were some notable successes. Seattle's Sub Pop, for instance, launched the massively influential career of Nirvana.
During the Eighties, many major UK record companies either bought up successful indie labels or simply launched their own "indie" subsidiaries to showcase the forms of music previously promoted by the genuine independent labels. Consequently, the term "indie" came to denote a style of music - broudly speaking, guitar rock that is not heavy metal or AOR - rather than the means of production. Within this broad definition can be found many of the most critically-acclaimed and best-loved rock acts of the past 10 years: Oasis, Blur, Radiohead, Nirvana, Pulp, Catatonia and Manic Street Preachers to name but a few.
I hope that sets the record straight. I also hope that in future, the editors at h2g2 will take a little more care over quality control, rather that giving undeserved Approved Entry status to dismissals of entire musical genres written by people who clearly have no knowledge of or interest in their subject.

that's really hard to read mate but it is very very good...
submit it as a new article to supersede the original article
because it is a little more detailed... the old article will
still be accessible so it's not like you're elbowing it out
of the way.
I'm really into New Wave stuff like Magazine and Joy Division
so I'm glad that someone else has posted stuff that refers
to that kind of stuff... I do think it's when people started
innovating instead of just going for the megabucks and thats
when the music started getting really exciting and the record
companies lost interest completely... if you do write a full
guide entry though try and make the "Nirvana", "Manics" etc
parts link to approved articles about those bands... I'm
pretty sure there will be entries about them. And if not why not

It's right that the indie refers to independent record labels, but it
would be wrong to say that it's all alternative or underground stuff.
I've just looked at Radio 1's indie chart for this week and at number
one in the singles is Sir Cliff, with his Millenium Prayer and in the
album chart the number one is Steps and Steptacular. During the 80's
one of the most succesfull indie labels was PWL, bringing you Kylie,
Jason and Rick Astley amongst others.

Must say though I do prefer the more alternative/underground stuff.

Thanks, Oscar. Sorry if you found my earlier posting hard to read - I don't wind up easily, but that posting was written in real anger. I guess you're right - the best reaction is to follow the old Northern English maxim "If you want the job done properly do it yourself. I'll try to come up with a chattier version of my earlier tirade over the weekend. BTW with your (fine) taste in sounds, you might find some of the links in the "Music Website Jukebox" section of my page quite interesting...
It's also true that the definition of the word "indie" is highly ambiguous. Qualification for the indie chart is based purely on the question of whether the record is DISTRIBUTED (not necessarily released) by a major, and therefore all kinds of musical styles can creep into the chart. Nevertheless, I think that if you say the words "indie rock" to most British music fans, they'll assume that you're talking about something that sounds not entirely unlike Oasis.

all i can see is almost all the music i like is labled as 'indie' therefore i feel justified to lable myself an official indie-chick. Is this so wrong?

Ah now you're qualifing indie by adding the word rock to it
I mean if it's in the indie chart it has to be indie doesn't it?
Then again there are some of those singles on the indie chart
that I could imaginge John Peel (purveyor of things indie and
underground for much longer that I've been alive) playing on his
shows.

Not at all. Love, guitars and gruyere to you.

and eyebrows, guitars and small cheese to you my freind.

Thank you. But without wishing to spoil the cosy mood, I must say that I don't entirely agree with your headline. There's some good music in most genres. However, if forced to stick with one style, it'd be indie/alt.rock for me.

Much prefer your version of events - get it submitted NOW Love your Jukebox too. I pronounce you a man of excellent musical taste - well, in my opinion anyway.

true there is good music of other types, some songs are just Anthems. I too like the jukebox but i'm puzzled, where are the stereophonics?

Leeloo - what can I say but "thank you". I will rewrite and resubmit the piece this weekend - I'll try to refine it a bit as the version above was written in anger in about 10 minutes!
Gorgonzola - glad you like the Jukebox, and oddly enough I added The Stereophonics a few hours ago. So answer to your question is now that The Stereophonics are right there where you'd expect, just after Stereolab!

I just read the drivel in the original article.
What absolute bollocks.
I bet when Liz Fraser was listening to the playback of her take on 'Song To The Siren' that she was upset at how lo-fi it sounded compared to the 'difficult' and well-composed music produced by Status Quo, like their classic meisterwerk 'Margherita Time'. If only Flaming Lips could have learned just a couple of 12-bar blues progressions and only the pentatonic scale they could have come up with some challenging stuff rather than the bland easy music they knock out.
Oh and if Mark E. Smith could just rhyme his words a bit more and sing you know like someone ace like David Coverdale, he'd be great.
And so on...


Indie music is not a 'genre' - it is a non-genre. Here is my reasoning…

Most bands who can't be immediately pigeonholed into an existing and 'commercial' style have to start out on an independent record label because record companies tend to want music that is like music that they have already successfully sold.

It's easy. They don't have to think.

Only when a good indie band slog their way into visibility after playing support slots in rock'n'roll toilets for bloody ages do the companies come and show an interest.
The major record companies kill many independent labels by syphoning off the talent that the indies have spent years backing, leaving them with a roster of less-successful acts. The musicians may have been struggling for years and then someone comes and waves a wad of cash under their noses, so you can't really blame them for jumping into bed with a big company.

Factory Records, one of the biggest indie labels in the UK was sunk partly because one of their acts (Happy Mondays) overspent making one bad album whereas if a major like Sony have an act that fails, they write it off against the profits made off the back of identikit Boy-Bands and all the other fodder they produce.

Indie labels tend to be rather different than Major labels in that they are run by music lovers and not accountants. They're busier looking at the cutting edge than the bottom line.

If it had not been for labels like 4AD, Factory, Stiff, 2 Tone, Creation (i.e. BO - before Oasis) etc. then the music scene in the UK would be in an even worse state than it is now.
I'll back that statement up with some examples. 4AD records, via their in-house cover artist Vaughan Oliver, made everyone realise what cover art should look like.
Factory Records released New Order's "Blue Monday" on 12-inch only and made that format (and the concept of long-mixed dance tracks) a viable proposition. Based in Manchester, they were also one of the only successful record companies outside London.
Stiff brought humour and branding to the party and proved that indie labels could market pop music as well as (if not better than) the majors.
2 Tone helped bring white and black kids together to appreciate a hybrid of different musical styles. Without 2 Tone, how could bands like The Specials have made a name for themselves outside London?
Creation Records had the belief in Primal Scream to give them time to grow as a band from jangly to rock to dub and dance music. If they had been signed early by a major there is no way they could have produced Screamadelica before being dumped as lossmakers. Screamadelica (and this is all IMHO) is the most important British album since 'Never Mind The Bollocks' and was the pivotal moment where rave culture fused acid house with rock music. At the same time that Creation released 'Loaded', major labels responded with Candyflip's shite cover of 'Strawberry Fields Forever' and awful 'remixes' of tracks like 'Reach Out I'll Be There'.

Most of the innovative dance music in the world began on independent labels and was spun by DJs in clubs months before being snapped up by majors. Major companies can offer worldwide distribution and marketing resources that indie labels can only dream of.

I must point out that there are sub-labels of majors that can be bold in their choice of artist. Island Records, for instance, had a great roster of musicians in the 70s & 80s. But only because the head honcho, Chris Blackwood, loved music. So Island had Bob Marley, Nick Drake, early U2 et al.

Unfortunately, when most major companies try to create a buzz around an untried act they end up giving the world another Sigue Sigue Sputnik or Vanilla Ice.

I could go on at even greater length, but I fear it's all a waste of time.
- TWF

Well said, Wisest Fool. If I'm not much mistaken, that posting was written in a similar red-mist frame of mind to the one that prompted my rant at the start of this thread.
Here's a curious thing: if you go to the homepage of "acid", the low form of life who bashed out the original entry, you find that it's the only thing "acid" ever wrote for h2g2. He, she or it never got around to writing a homepage intro, let alone a forum or journal entry - just this one, offensive, inexplicably "Approved" Guide Entry.
Which prompts the thoughts:
a) How odd, and
b) Good riddance.

I've got my practical head on today

As a sub-ed myself, I know the way the 'system' works within h2g2. It is just a systematic guide to the acceptance/rejection of submitted articles.

When a sub-ed receives a batch of articles to edit, we don't get names attached (this is to try and keep us objective about the article itself). I think it would be a mistake to out of hand reject articles written by people who don't participate in the community side of the site. What if someone like Steven King visits the site, picks a pseudonym, contributes one article and then disappears for a few months (for any number of reasons). It would be a shame to not have their words approved if they haven't told us what they did last week or replied to a forum discussion about Marshmallows.

A one-shot article writer will have received an 'article approved' email from the h2g2 editor, Mark, and will hopefully be prompted to return to the site to become a bit more involved.
I think this is a good thing. More input into the Guide will help it to grow. Often it's the entries that people vehemently disagree with that get the most feedback and feedback is the thing that separates h2g2 from something like Encarta.

The best (and most exciting) thing about the Guide is that unlike an enyclopedia on book or CD-ROM, it can grow.
As 'Oscar' (who works on h2g2 incidentally) pointed out in this thread, anyone can suggest more detail for an entry that has been approved and that new information stands a chance of being added to (or even replacing) the original entry. It is highly likely that if h2g2 is still around in five years (and I personally have invested a lot of time in it, so I hope it is) then very few, if any, of the current approved entries will look the same as they do now.

'acid' has done a useful thing. He/she has decided to put in an entry on indie music. They don't like it though. So the approved entry goes up and people disagree with it and criticise it.
I'd like to quote Voltaire, who said-
"I may disagree with what you have to say, but I would fight to the death to defend your right to say it".

If someone visits this site and has never heard of indie music and then they look it up, they will not only see the entry but all these criticisms too. And in time, if the critiques are constructive enough, the entry itself will contain both sides of the 'argument' about what indie music actually is. I never really consciously realised how deeply felt my concept of 'indie' music was until I read the entry, so it has raised my shackles and led me to produce a retort i.e. it got the old grey matter working - not something that usually happens to me on a Friday Night

I have posted to a thread on a discussion of 'evil' elsewhere on the site and it has some parallels. Evil has been posited as 'necessary' as it wakes up the powers of 'good' to stop it. Even if *we* disagree with 'acid' and his view on indie, it has given us a kick up the arse. So I actually hope 'acid' comes back and writes more stuff here. Maybe I'll actually agree with the next 'acid' article, maybe not. In the long run it's all helping the Guide.

I, personally, still stand by my first impression - that the view presented in the approved entry is bollocks. But *we* can do something about it. And let's not forget that most people don't 'get' indie music, so maybe the entry as it stands IS unfortunately representative of what most people think about it.
Take a look around h2g2 forums and you'll see a lot of people attacking and defending all sorts of things. Just looking at music you get all sorts of peopl e discussing the merits/demerits of Goths, Heavy Metal, Dance music etc. It's all reasonably healthy and the beauty of it is that no-one's actually getting beaten up about any of this. Sticks and stones usually hurt more than words IMHO

btw Although I'm a sub-ed, I don't *work* for h2g2 and none of the above is necessarily the view of the h2g2 'staff' themselves. I believe it's pretty close though, but I may be completely wrong.

- TWF

Wisest Fool, the above is well-argued, wise and not at all foolish. To repeat myself: the positive message of this little argument is "if you want the job done right, do it yourself".
Which I shall.

Have you done it yet ?

(-:

From Distant Shores

Totally agree that the version here in the forum is much better than the approved entry.

Anyway, it looks like a few people round here have a good taste in music so I think I'll plug an entry of mine (A334533: London Indie Clubs) which I'm trying to make into a pretty good guide although it'll rely on reader's help. So if you're in the London area or have been to an alternative club in the capital, scoot over to the page and put what you want added in the forum.

Sorry for the shameless plug, but anyway:
http://www.h2g2.com/A334533

And hurry up and get that posting put up as an entry! We need better representation than some of the best albums of all time being compared to sub-Status Quo!

What an idiot!

It should be http://www.h2g2.com/A334522

Can I blame it on the gin even if I haven't drunk any?

Wow - its wierd that in this forum there is a 6 month break between the last two enteries. Does this happen often as i am not a regular. Big fan of music though, all types.