Spiritually, What Is It
Something existential, economical, emotional, geographical
Marnie Stern: To me, indie rock is defined by an ethos that is unpolished, unmaterialistic, urgent, music-loving, and driven by a creative, discarded group of people.
Randy Randall: Indie rock is at its best when it provides a safe, welcoming space for outsiders and voices that connect with communities on the fringe. Sensitive, personal, depressed music could be seen as accepted in the indie rock camp […] Hopefully indie rock will be remembered by the acceptance and inclusivity it could at times provide. On the flip side, I would wish a quick CTE to the straight white college jock mainstream embrace that mutated into the jam bandification of the term.
Karly Hartzman: I think the real markers of this music are experimentation and ingenuity that are brought about by budgetary constraints, time constraints (a lot of people on indie labels are in school or have to have a job outside of music), and gear constraints. I think these limitations often make for a more personal and unique stamp on the music.
Ryan Schreiber: Stripped back to its purest essence—at its most codified—indie rock is a very specific, tangible thing: a lineage of guitar-based music with a strong DIY ethic and ties to local, grassroots music scenes. It’s slapdash and rough, raw and imperfect, occasionally experimental and inventive, but always strongly focused on pop hooks and songcraft. Through the decades, I’ve seen it mutated, hijacked, and fractured into a hundred hyphenates, but ultimately, indie rock seems content just to be itself again.
Ben Gibbard: Definition number two, to me, is it’s more of an esoteric idea about people who are making music from an iconoclastic position that is made in opposition to what is commercially successful at that point. Not necessarily out of defiance, but just out of independent spirit. I was trying to not use the word “independent” in any of my explanations, but this is the one place where I feel like you can’t get away from it. And that music can exist on major labels. That’s Sonic Youth, that’s Built to Spill, you know, Perfect From Now On. Built to Spill signs to a major label and they make the Pacific Northwest Dark Side of the Moon.
