Popular youth style indie rock

Rock music has been the most popular style for young people for almost a hundred years, and not only. Groups collect huge stadiums, to which thousands and tens of thousands of fans come. This direction has generated a huge number of subgenres, so each listener can find a group or performer for himself. Indy-rock is one of the most popular trends for today. But what is this style?

Brief initial characteristic

Indi-rock is a direction that exists in an independent commercial and information space. The name comes from the word independent, which means "independent" in English. By and large, this genre can not be called a separate kind of music, since this term includes a wide range of ways of expression, which, however, have some common features. In particular, such performers are issued exclusively on independent music labels (so-called indie labels). It is the counterculture that is the unifying moment for all groups of this genre.

Eighties: Origins

The prototype of such an area as indie rock was the so-called college scene in the USA, the key performers of which were bands like REM and The Smiths. Since these guys played mainly guitar music, they were able to make up an alternative to the synth-pop, which was popular in the early eighties. Initially, indie rock was associated with harsh and rough music with a strong punk-rock influence, for example, like Pixies, Meat Puppets, Minutemen, Hüsker Dü, Dinosaur Jr. Another "father" of the modern independent scene is noise rock, which is a discordant and chaotic music with a distorted sound of guitars. The main representatives are Swans, Sonic Youth, Big Black.

The birth of an indie pop

The release of the collection entitled "С86", which was attended by musicians such as The Pastels, Primal Scream, Wedding Present, had a huge impact on many indie rock bands in the future. It was thanks to this compilation that a noise-pop appeared, for example The Jesus and Mary Chain, which combined a "wall of sound" with simple melodies and noise elements. Also, the popular trend was indie dance, a significant group of which was New Order, experimenting with house and techno. Another important style was shoegase, which was characterized by the active use of guitar effects and loud "floating" sound, an abundance of feedbacks and distortions (My Bloody Valentine, Ride).

Nineties, and the exit of style in the mainstream

The alternative scene in the early nineties was transformed by grunge and performers such as Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam. These groups were able to achieve deafening commercial success. In the face of The Offspring and Green Day a punk movement revived. At the same time gained such popularity as Britpop, whose "fathers" were indie rock performers of the late eighties. As a result of such transformations, the term "alternative" began to be applied to light commercial rock music. "Indy Rock" was also named only the group, which were published on independent labels.

Nowadays

At the moment, indie rock is a collection of different styles. Here and low-fay, and emo, and post-rock, and sadkor, and mat-rock, and shoegazing, and space rock, and kraut-rock, and the drip-pop, and various noise, and even post-punk. All groups of these directions are characterized by experimental relation to music, mixing of different orthodox genres (electronics and rock, classics, folk, jazz and blues). The spread of the Internet has contributed to the promotion of indie artists among fans. At the beginning of the two thousandth there was a fashion for the emo style, which quickly went into the mainstream. Postpunk-rivayvl has spread due to the huge number of bands imitating the aesthetics of garage rock and old school post-punk. Mixing of indie music and electronics has generated such a subgenre as "indetronica", which is characterized by dance rhythms in the spirit of rave music.