di Josh Jackson (Paste magazine, feb.2010, p.6)
Read AlsoIt might seem strange for Paste to proclaim the death of “indie”. Our magazine’s rise to modest renown has been on the backs of everything that might be considered part of that realm. Our publishing operation has been as independent as it gets, launched outside of the entertainment and music industries by three guys in a one-room office in Decatur, Ga. Much of the music and film we cover is stamped with the “indie” label, and we’ve highlighted video-game and fashion designers working outside the mainstream channels.
But the moniker has always bugged us, partly because we’ve never been sure exactly what it meant. We’ve always cared more about the quality of the art than the way it’s marketed – there are amazing stadium-sized bands on major labels, and there are amazing bands putting out their own records and opening for equally obscure headliners in dingy clubs. We’ve always seen it as our job to celebrate both, to make the magazine a meritocracy. And we’ve never begrudged the upstart artists who find a broader audience – or marketing partners.
As a genre descriptor, indie has been used to identify everything from folksy singer/songwriters to synth-based dance pop – we’re guilty of using it loosely even within our own pages. But with indie acts showing up in TV shows, commercials, movies, radio, sales charts, magazine covers and arenas, the word has lost whatever meaning anyone might have attributed to it.
So we asked Paste assistant editor Rachael Maddux to answer the question, “Is Indie Dead?”. The answer was an emphatic, 8,000-word “yes” [...]. Indie is dead, in part, because indie has won. The pop pabulum it was fighting against still exists, but it’s no longer the only species in the mainstream. The playing field has been leveled; well-crafted, authentic music and film no longer need to be defined by what they’re not. While the music that grew out of truly independent movements lives on, we’ll continue to celebrate it for how it makes us feel and think and dance, not how indie it is. And we’ll continue to look beyond indie rock to the best music, regardless of genre. We’ll continue to search for signs of life in movies, books, TV and video games, regardless of their origins. We’ll do it independently, of course, but we don’t think it’s enough of a handicap anymore to remain a badge of honor.
