What is Indie?

What is Indie Music? This is something that’s been stirring in my noggin for a few months now.

According to Wikipedia, from whom all good and perfect gifts flow, Indie Music is defined as, “a term used to describe independence from major commercial record labels and an autonomous, do-it-yourself approach to recording and publishing.”

Ah. Ok. That clears things up.

We’re soooooo indie. Well… wait. Are we?

No label? Check. Autonomous, do it yourself? Check, with caution. We have no label, no A&R, producer, we are the writing team, but to call it totally do-it-yourself seems a bit disingenuous. I mean… we have a business partner. We booked a great sounding room. We hired great players. We’re hiring a great mixer.

But… we tracked all the vocals at home.

Then there’s the whole “Indie Aesthetic” thing. Wikipedia goes on, “A ‘lo-fi’ aesthetic (i.e., an often deliberate lack of polish and a more “authentic” roughness and imperfection) has often been associated with indie…”

Hmm.

See, here’s the thing. I don’t really do Lo-Fi. It’s never appealed to me. I like records that sound great. I want our record to sound great… I want the vocals crispy and in tune. I want the kick drum to hit you in the gut. I want the guitars to melt your face.

Sure, I appreciate some Lo-Fi music, but it’s in spite of the recording quality, not because of it.

But… at the same time… I don’t like slick, overproduced music either. Well.. occasionally… but again, it’s because something appeals to me in spite of the production, not because of it.

I once described our music as “Mid-Fi,” a term which I am sure I heard somewhere, but I can’t remember where. Mike, our keyboard player, told me that should have been the name of our record.

I think about this, because I have absolutely no issues whatsoever with selling out to whomever is buying. You wanna use Signal Chain on a Radio Shack ad? Where do we sign? I know what the song’s really about. If you wanna pretend it’s about electronics, great. Show me the dough. I have kids to feed.

I have this idea… perhaps it’s terribly indie of me… but my idea is this: If a song is written with artistic integrity, there’s nothing that can be done to strip it of that. To me, if the song is pure, sell away. If you wrote it to sell… you’re not indie.

So what is indie?

Is it a sound?
Is it a worldview?
Is it simply a factual statement?