The concept seems a little misleading these days, but indie music really began by wearing its heart on its sleeve and was sincere in its fight against the commercialism of the major record labels. Believe it or not, indie music's roots go as far back as Sam Phillip's Sun Records days in the 1950s in Nashville, Tennessee, if not further. Then still just budding stars, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash made up the famous Million Dollar Quartet.
If the indie boom burned bright in America, it was a completely different story over in the UK in the 1960s. Top draw producers were getting increasingly frustrated with the major labels' concern of merely selling records, encouraging them to form independent labels of their own. But even these were bought up by the major labels. The British music scene would eventually have its say though when the punk revolution took the world by storm in the 1970s. True, The Sex Pistols and The Clash were major label bands but many of the rest were indie acts. REM is probably recognised as the band that modernised the concept of indie over in America and since the band's rise in the 1980s, indie music has gained house-hold acceptance. And of course, Seattle's Sub Pop became one of the most widely known because of its association with Nirvana. The rest, as they, is history.
So where did indie go wrong, then? Well, the greatest advantage a major label has over an indie label is its distribution network. It was only a matter of time before this happened and with the countless marketing outlets available on the Internet these days, from iTunes to … hey, 2crank, bands are able to earn greater royalty payments and retain creative control of their music.
But when major labels come into the picture and offer lucrative deals to indie bands, these musical outfits are often easily distracted. It's hard to fault these bands either because, after all, everyone needs to pay the bills. Many indie bands have been known to live by their principles, though, never trading commercial success for creative expression.
Strangely, indie today is also a genre. But really, indie can be nasyid music, Tamil songs or electronic instrumental musical pieces. Independent music really only ever was supposed to represent artistes who did what they did on their terms, without the promised benefits of commercial returns.
So the next time you come across a band pretending to be an indie act, don't instinctively judge, or worse, begrudge it for doing what keeps it going. It's a hard life! So they say …
