This list conclusively proves that democracy needs to be destroyed and replaced by a one-party totalitarian Maoist government
This list conclusively proves that democracy needs to be destroyed and replaced by a one-party totalitarian Maoist government
Well idk anyone who stans The Wombats cus they kinda suck but “indie music” is a pretty broad term, doesn’t mean being underground (or even being good, necessarily)
Like Mac Demarco, Tame Impala, Current Joys, Cage The Elephant, Clairo, MGMT, Men I Trust, TV Girl, Omar Apollo, Cigarettes After Sex, Backseat Lovers, The Smiths, Arctic Monkeys, The Strokes, etc. are all some of the most popular “indie” artists with gen z and had a song or two big on tiktok, but that doesn’t make them “tiktok music.” So many popular artists from Nirvana, Foo Fighters, and Smashing Pumpkins to Elliot Smith, Pink Floyd, and The Cure have had a popular tiktok audio at some point.
Pretty much all my friends and most my friends’ friends have dozens to hundreds of hours of music on their spotifys, usually pretty diverse stuff, so I never really thought of “tiktok music” as that big of a force except maybe in discovering unfamiliar artists and genres
I don’t think I’d call any of those artists indie, especially in the current year. They’ve all seen enormous success - like millions and millions of monthly listeners. Most of those artists are just big names that saw mid/high charts success in their time and then were added to a Spotify curated ‘indie’ playlist. 95% of the names you just listed are in the pop music category, and made music that easily slotted into the mainstream at the time. None of them really break form or push the genre.
My parents probably know a song by all of those bands except maybe 2, and all they’ve ever listened to is the big radio stations.
No offence, but listing Arctic Monkeys as an indie band for people with diverse taste is exactly what I was talking about with the wombats, except maybe even more extreme.
Indie doesn’t mean underground or genre defying, I think you missed my point, because I specifically listed indie artists with enormous success instead of smaller artists to show some of its mainstream appeal. If you googled any of these, “indie,” “indie rock,” of “indie pop” will show up as their genre. Indie is an umbrella word and vague style, a band doesn’t become non-indie after becoming popular.
And damn I doubt my parents would know more than maybe two of these
I was differentiating between the music on OP’s list and other mainstream music more people listen to. But most people listen to plenty of less popular songs too. If I listed artists with under a million monthly streams that obviously wouldn’t represent many people besides maybe my friends and I, because there’s practically limitless amounts of small artists
Depends on how you define it. The indie definition has shifted recently away from definitions relating to record labels/production companies (which would put Mac Demarco in the runnings) and into a definition more closely related to alternative, which has made the label pretty meaningless. So yeah, true, the definition is very malleable.
I disagree that many people listen to stuff much smaller than artists putting in a million. I’m always perusing for new music so I ask a lot of people what they’re listening to at the moment - even total strangers. I don’t tell them this to their face, but it seems to be a bit of a monolith.