Gage Katz
Eric Dinsmore
English 114 B
April 23, 2012
The Independent rock
scene is an ever changing genre within the rock world. Having its roots set in
the early 90’s and having influence date back as early as the 80’s, Indie rock,
as it is called, has lasted through multiple generations, and continues to
define many young adults.
The
first Indie bands, then just noted as Independent bands, were mainly played on
college radio, as their abnormal and unique sounds played on youth culture’s
need to separate themselves from the generations before them. Bands like The
Pixies and The Smiths, recorded and performed songs that differentiated heavily
from the music of the time. These bands went on to influence some of the most
famous grunge bands of the 90’s. Kurt Cobain of Nirvana has openly praised The
Pixies as the band that influenced him to write many of their songs, including
Smells Like Teen Spirit.
While
the Indie bands of the 80’s influenced many genres of the 90’s, the genre has
stayed in the focus of young people, and continues to be a mainstream success. Today
bands like The Fray, The Mars Volta, and Manchester Orchestra still have claim
to the Indie rock genre, and while their sound has shifted from unusual and
strange into light and easing, their claim to being independently operated has
stayed somewhat intact. When considering
Indie rock, it is important to note that though many of these bands have found
mainstream success, their lyrical content and overall style still reflect the
bands of the 80’s.
The
influence of these bands, then and now, has remained focused on youth culture. As
noted above, these bands found success in adhering to youth’s desire to separate
from older generations and be identified as hip, young, and artistic. If we
look at today’s Indie market, we can still see these ideals. The modern day ‘hipster’
happens to be the target audience for many Indie bands, however to say that
this market is one that the genre attached to, would be to mistake a culture
born from a genre, with a genre targeted at a culture.
The
culture of a rebellious nature is not one that is new to our society, in fact
any cultural group over the years can trace their source to a need to separate themselves
from the ideals of their predecessors. Elvis Presley and early rock is an
obvious revolution against the ideals of their time, and later bands like
Anthrax and Black Sabbath, though they rejected a new standard, were shaking
things up in popular culture, and forced society to embrace new ideals, new
concepts, and new ways of life. The hipster’s way of life is one that craves
new input, new fads, and new trends.
The
modern day hipster is the self-proclaimed antithesis of conformity. It may be
interesting to note that this ideal was also held by the 00’s ‘emo’, but there
is a very specific distinction between the two. Though these genres have
similar roots, they differ in that the ‘emo’ was conced with lack of identity
and loss of quality of life, while the ‘hipster’ and modern day indie is more
concerned with the strife of the individual. Simply put, the emo lacked
identity, while the hipster focuses itself on crafting one.
A Hipster of today is
well read, listens to massive variety of music, and claims to be cultured in
ways that surpass their non-hipster counterparts. While there is a lot of other
musical influence going on in the indie rock listener’s life, the genre in
question is often an underlying similarity among all of these pseudo nonconformists.
Where the hipster defines themselves is in doing what is offbeat. The hipster
will read books that won’t be made into movies, wears clothing you wouldn’t find
at Abercrombie and Fitch, and most importantly, won’t listen to music found on
the radio. The idea of music that pleases the masses just doesn’t sit well with
the hipster, and it is here where indie rock finds its audience. The whole
concept of indie is to be offbeat and different, just like the hipster.
The question then is
how the music affects the hipster. As stated above, the themes of these
lyrically conscious bands tend to be focused on issues of identity. More specifically,
they focus on concepts of relationships, ways of life, and struggles that the
average 99% percenter would have. These concepts in songs are not different
from most other genres, but it’s the way the indie bands go about it, the way
their lyrics are filled with strange unexplained metaphors and their
compositions that separate themselves from the crowd. Manchester Orchestra’s
opening line to Simple Math reads “Hunter eyes, I’m lost and hardly noticed,
slight goodbye.” These lyrics are not straightforward, but a little cryptic and
ambiguous, the rest of the song is needed to get a full understanding of the piece,
and even then there are some questions left by the listener. This gives the
hipster something to analyze and understand something to question and answer,
something to fiddle with in the recesses of their mind.
The hipster defines
themselves as a seeker of knowledge and understanding, however not in the
empirical sense. Rather the hipster looks to understand and know art, often
through the lens of a camera, or with a spray paint can rather than accepting
academia’s definitions of composition and art. The hipster looks at composition
and style and finds ways to separate themselves from histories main stream
success.
In their lives you may
find things that go unused by most of society, record players, tape decks, and
all sorts of analogue trinkets that have long since been replaced by more
modern technologies. Even with the newer pieces of techs that they use, a mac
laptop, an iPhone, even modern cars, are being hipped with older tech, or at
least the appearance of older tech. We can walk into many hipsters’ bedrooms
and find covers for iPhones that look like cassettes, big studio headphones that
plug into mp3 devices, laptop cases that sling over the shoulder and Billy
Holly glasses.
The hipster of today is
a throwback to things less known, less produced, and less culturally popular.
They look towards the simplistic and stylish, finding interest in bands that feature
banjos, like Mumford and Sons. The music and the life style go hand in hand, a
genre for the eclectic and interesting that is both eclectic and interesting, a
genre that focuses on separating their identity from the masses, for a group
that separates themselves from the masses. And of course there is a
contradiction in that they are a mass that separates them from the mass, but
contradictions are a part of the American tradition. This is not a point I care
to back up here further then pointing out that our most prominent contradiction
is in the idea that any of the 99 percenters may be able to make it into the 1
percent, though we all know that it is physically impossible, given the number
of 99 percenters and the exclusivity of the 1 percent.
In short, the modern
day hipster is defined by the indie scene, and vice versa. They are two groups
founded on the same principles, and adhere to similar lifestyles. To say one
created the other is false, rather each feeds into the other.
Works
Cited
"Manchester Orchestra." Simple Math Lyrics. AZ Lyrics, 10 May 2010. Web. 22 Apr. 2012. <www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/manchesterorchestra/simplemath.htmlhttp://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/manchesterorchestra/simplemath.htmlhttp://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/manchesterorchestra/simplemath.html
Frikkle, David. "Kurt Cobain." Kurt Cobain carries a torch for The Pixies. N.p., n.d. Web.
22 Apr. 2012.
<www.rocktorch.com/2009/11/26/kurt-cobain-carries-a-torch-for-the-pixies/>
