emaahnova

Indie is dying. And it deserves to. The singers tend to drone, monotonosly. The guitar is as repetitve as Irish weather. They dress the same, they sound the same. The Kooks, The Courteeners, The Holloways, The Rascals, The View, The Wombats, The Automatic, The Pigeon Detectives, The Hoosiers. All generic. The thing about this "landfill" or "mortgage" indie is, unlike Blur and Oasis, they all sound like they're from the same producer, the same studio; it's generic, whitewashed, "ball-less" indie sound.

And I can't believe I was sucked in.

However in my defense, the bands I loved first have been around since the dawn of the indie scene; before I was born. Blur, Oasis, The Stone Roses and The Smiths. I worshiped Oasis, I danced to Blur. And then, this summer, I was sucked into the mindless, fast paced slur of The Fratellis and I want to hang myself.

"John Niven was an indie fan in the 1980s, an A&R man in the Britpopping 1990s, and is now the author of Kill Your Friends, a sadistic satire of the record industry of which he was once an enthusiastic member. "I was in Gap a few weeks ago and there was some sort of generic indie music playing," he says. "I was with a friend who's a promoter and a bit younger than me. After about three or four tracks I asked him: 'Whose LP is this?' And he said, 'No, it's a compilation.' Every track sounded identical. The guitars, the production; all these bands sound like they're made in the same studio with the same producer. It's such a ball-less, soulless, generic whitewashed indie sound. You could probably take a member from each band and throw them together in a new group and no one would be able to tell the difference. They're completely interchangeable. Scouting for Girls are like the sound of Satan's scrotum emptying. They're abysmal."" - The Independent

I first started learning about what indie actually was at the beginning of this summer. I knew the genre. The drone, the sameness, the names beginning with "the". The way it made me want to kill myself. But I felt like I actually LEARNED something when I read an article about MGMT. They said they wanted to go back to the roots of indie and actually be independent. "Well thats just fine" I thought to myself. "I can like them." So I looked for their myspace and started listening and decided that they weren't too bad. But why did I block my judgement so much as to actually believe that The Fratellis and Scouting for Girls are good bands. Oh the humanity. The indignity. THE REPETITIVE GUITAR RIFFS!

NME diluted my judgement. They interviewed a band that said they wanted to be different and to change the way indie was heading, to actually be independent, use small record labels. So when I listened to them did I hear something that I wanted to hear? To be completely honest, at this stage, I can't remember any of their music or even what they sound like. Which isn't a good sign. But I something happened to me at that point. I let my guard down.

Perhaps it's less that indie deserves to die and more that the youth of today, need to get bored of the "landfill indie". Faster.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going home to burn my skinny jeans.