A friend pointed me toward this article in The Independent.

It finishes with the line “If we end up with 20 years of Tory government, it’ll be The Pigeon Detectives’ fault”, which I think is awesome.

Basically Tim Walker articulates what many of us have suspected for a long time, that ‘indie’ music is not really all that indie anymore, in the same way that ‘alternative’ became quite mainstream very quicky.

He points to the lack of soul and general attitude that any new band with ‘The’ in the title seem to ooze from none of their respective orifices, before going on to call it mortgage pop played by kids who have nothing more important to say than ‘mum I’m in a band!!!!’. All true. I lose track of who this band or that band is and they all seem to sound the same to me.

However, I don’t think the outlook for independent music is as bleak as Walker makes out. True, he mentions of course XL with their genuine indie standing (i.e. they have resisted corporate buy-outs), and to be fair, the club scene has more indie record labels than you could hope to count. Some more successful than others. Some should be shot for the shite they release, but others bust a gut just to make ends meet to help people like me release odd assortments of sounds that certainly won’t be letting us but porsches, or even anything from GM, but help us totter along making ends meet and having a damn good time doing it.

NEEDS MORE INDIE ATTITUDE. and less file sharing.