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Publication: The Tartan, , Carnegie Mellon University , Pittsburgh, PA
by IAN GILES
Have you ever heard someone say they like listening to “indie” music or have an “indie” style? The music term “indie” started out referring to anything recorded that wasn’t distributed by one of the Big Six record labels: Warner Music Group, EMI, Sony Music, BMG, Universal Music Group, and PolyGram. While early indie music was associated with DIY rock aesthetics, those were simply emergent properties of the artists who were unable or unwilling to work with major labels. Whereas avant-garde is a designation of an aesthetic position, indie was simply a designator of a mode of production.
In recent years, indie has largely become an aesthetic definition tied up in previous indie music and its associated styles which seem alternative but in a way that...