What is Indie music?

We’ve heard this term everywhere lately. The word and style are fashionable, however, few of us really know what it means to be indie.

The term “indie” comes from the word independent, and all music that reaches the public through its own means falls into this category, that is, without a record label to support it.

They are groups that focus on highlighting their own style, showing the music that they like to create without depending on global trends or a brand that pigeonholes them into a certain genre. Their music could fall into the cult category, since they only reach those fans who go beyond the commercial.

Characteristics to be “indie”

There are certain guidelines that characterize indie groups:

When the group is not linked to circuits of the music market or sound or advertising diffusion. That is, they themselves promote their music with their own means. When it is done with a purely artistic and non-commercial vocation. When the style or music of the band does not fit into any parameters of commercial labels. That is, if it’s not pop, or rock, or salsa… but all of that together, it’s indie. When the record label that releases the recordings or promotes the concerts is small or amateur. That is, it is not Sony, nor Warner, nor Universal. When the entire artistic process is controlled and supervised by the musicians themselves, and conditions from marketing departments or the media do not interfere.

Many of the bands we listen to today started within the indie movement, like “Foster the people” (Pumped up Kicks), but they achieve so much success that they are absorbed by a record label and lose their independent character.

Throughout history, many genres and bands have been classified as “indies”, due to their innovative nature and because they presented alternative proposals to what was known at that time. This is how genres such as reggae or grunge began, which as they gained an audience consolidated themselves with their particular label and the big labels became interested and hired artists to produce them.

Indie Music

Currently there are many bands that play this type of music, and thanks to electronic media and social networks they have managed to position themselves in the taste of followers of this genre.

Here we present 5 options so that you can identify the characteristics of the movement and when you listen to a song you can affirm that it is indie music:

Foals

Two Door Cinema Club

empire of the sun

Franz Ferdinand

Arctic Monkys