Indie Rock Facts

Origins and early development

Indie rock originated in the United Kingdom, United States and New Zealand in the early to mid-1980s. The term originally described rock music released through independent record labels and drew on uk diy music (for example the buzzcocks, desperate bicycles and television personalities) and the new zealand dunedin sound (for example the chills, tall dwarfs, the clean and the verlaines), alongside college radio jangle pop acts such as the smiths and r.e.m. The genre solidified during the mid-1980s with the nme's c86 cassette and the underground success of bands like sonic youth, dinosaur jr. and unrest.

Evolution or diversification

By the 1990s many indie rock bands released albums on major labels and the term came to refer more to a musical style than solely to independent distribution. Subgenres and regional scenes developed, including slowcore, midwest emo, slacker rock and space rock, while local variants such as baggy, grebo and shoegaze emerged. During the 1990s the mainstream success of grunge and britpop brought greater attention to indie rock and led to a split between acts that conformed to mainstream radio and those that became increasingly experimental.

Cultural or musical significance

Indie rock has been linked more by an ethos than a single musical approach, encompassing a wide range of styles from hard edged grunge influenced bands to do it yourself experimental groups and punk folk singers. The 2000s saw a mainstream reentry through the garage rock and post punk revival led by bands like the strokes, the white stripes and the libertines, followed by acts such as bloc party, arctic monkeys and the killers, and the further proliferation of the genre into blog era and related movements.