Let's face it. You are a corporate music fan, born from corporate radio, culled from corporate playlists, clothed by Abercrombie and Fitch. Your punk is Good Charlotte, your sensitivity is Ben Harper and your haircut is frat-boy. You, whose headphones blare nothing more creative than Dave Mathews Band, sip Starbucks coffee (and you know how much their bean pickers earn). You are a mass-commercialized ideal. Your free will in music selection is but an illusion. You are everything that is wrong with music.
You see how obnoxious that sounds?
Well, freshmen, in three easy lessons you too can sound that obnoxious. Hate society? Searching for righteous indignation? Become indie rock today. You'll become a vegan, shave your head, protest a war, Taco Bell or the sociopolitical majority and decide that the only bands worth listening to peaked in 1983 with 12 fans and a Eurobus fitted with beds.
Why wait to learn an effective sigh for each and every CD your roommate puts in? Why wait to sell your TV and radio to pay for a turntable, new-wave haircut and blue zipper sweatshirt? If you start squinting now, by the end of this article you can get your very own Buddy Holly glasses.
Since the early '90s when independent musicians realized the benefit of eating, independent labels reflected as much of a desire to earn money as major brands do. The label itself is no longer a key factor in music being hip. Radiohead was never on an indie label but has indie cred; John Mayer is recording for the miniscule Aware Records and has no credibility, indie or otherwise.
There are a few key indicators of bands permissible to those truly indie rock. Has the album been released yet? Have you actually heard any of their songs? Bands like The Datsuns and The Music were press darlings until their albums were released, instantly making them passe.
Their coolness depended on punk-magazine hype and the fact no one had heard how mediocre they actually were. Was the album recorded using modern technology? Does the band use guitars not culled from garage sales? In this era of unprecedented technological advances, all the cool bands strive for lo-fi; intentionally poorly recorded, White Stripes chic. If you can hear inflection, the rock group just isn't trying. Did you hear the song on the radio? Other people, especially DJs, are not allowed to like the same music you do.
Contrary to popular opinion, being indie rock has little to do with music. Anyone can like Bell and Sebastian, many can even wear the T-shirt. However, it takes a special kind of music fan to dress in a $25.95 factory-aged vintage logo Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles shirt, tailor-ripped jeans with matching throw-back Vans Old School sneakers. It takes a special kind of dedication to spend an hour each morning creating a meticulously disheveled haircut.
Remember that appearance is everything. Buy two cases of beer, one drinkable, one of Pabst to mine for labels. Affixing a label with a blue ribbon over the actual label of a better beer neatly conceals the fact that you think your enjoyment is worth the extra 35 cents. Never be seen with any album older than four years on a format other than a record. House of Pain is campy on a record player, creepy on a CD. Everything is cooler on vinyl and everything on vinyl is cool-records are the key to hiding the fact that you like Iron Maiden and Air Supply.
The payoff of becoming indie-rock is to be perennially better than everyone else. Make sure they know it. Continually remind people that their opinions are, in fact, vastly incorrect. \You think that band 'X' is your favorite band, but you are in fact wrong."" Always appeal to your absolute knowledge, without it you are lost. Repeat ""You didn't know?"" as a mantra, and only close conversations when you can't use it.
As it turns out, you have heard of every band. Learn wild card responses to a music group being unexpectedly pulled into a conversation like ""I liked that band's earlier work, but their new stuff is puerile."" You may be reminded that this is the band's first album. The say, ""I saw them play at CBGB. NME was hyping their live shows for months.""
Reserve NME for when times are dire. Although this British magazine is the most respected source of internationally acclaimed independent music, no one can afford to buy a weekly magazine shipped from London. Use NME to prove any point, but only sparingly enough to keep interest in reading each issue down.
Yes you too can be indie-rock in three easy lessons. And people can hate both of us for it together.
