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Post by Devil Marlena Nylund on Oct 28, 2014 22:04:46 GMT -5
I label all of the music in my iTunes that helps form playlists based on genre and such. But I never label anything as "alternative rock" and instead just threw everything either under "rock" or "indie rock", but now I'm wondering for reals, what is the difference between alternative and indie? Is it merely a timed thing, where alternative is 1990s-early 2000s and indie is mid-2000s-now? Is alternative still a thing that is separate from indie?
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Green Baron
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Post by Green Baron on Oct 28, 2014 22:14:21 GMT -5
I label all of the music in my iTunes that helps form playlists based on genre and such. But I never label anything as "alternative rock" and instead just threw everything either under "rock" or "indie rock", but now I'm wondering for reals, what is the difference between alternative and indie? Is it merely a timed thing, where alternative is 1990s-early 2000s and indie is mid-2000s-now? Is alternative still a thing that is separate from indie? yes yes yes don't let the alternative charts tell you if it's dead or not, they ignore most of the alternative rock anyway. This is a really bad way of telling, but I base it off the following. Hipsters tend to like stuff that gets labeled indie rock - i.e your Nationals, Interpols, Modest Mouses, Pixies, Arcade Fires of the world. Most of them started around the 2000s, so I guess we could use that... But alternative rock is still a thing. Weezer, Anberlin, Nothing More, Royal Blood (two alternative rock bands that because of the current times find success in Active). Most of the new acts today are more indie-leaning with their atmosphere and sound, but true "new" alternative rock acts are hard to find popularity.
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halo19
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Post by halo19 on Oct 29, 2014 11:54:40 GMT -5
It was mostly aesthetic.
In the late 70s and early 80s, rock had a blossoming underground and was very much unlike the contemporary acts of the time.
Alternative AFAIK is a more North American term and during then extended to acts on major labels, too.
Ever since alternative got mainstream, then subsequently indie, it's seemed reasonable to just look at all of the stuff as rock. A genre that's been around for over 60 years is sure to evolve and to me those styles were more a generational shift than anything else.
When grunge was a thing, alternative and indie became separate again, but even acts like Built to Spill went major in the 90s. Then you have post-grunge, Britpop, the mainstream emo and modern pop punk that were definitely not indie in aesthetic.
Since the iPod commercial days, indie sort of lost its meaning, and you can now be on Merge and have 2 chart-topping albums and one that barely missed it.
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Pipa
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Post by Pipa on Nov 2, 2014 9:08:07 GMT -5
My general rule of thumb is, if I'm more likely to hear it on AAA, I tag it as indie. If I'm more likely to hear it on Alternative, I tag it as Alternative. But most of the time I go by what Wikipedia says because I can't make decisions on my own.
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Post by K. on Nov 2, 2014 9:43:16 GMT -5
Well I feel ignorant. I thought indie just referred to whether they were signed to a big label. I didn't know it was a substantive category as well.
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