Indie Rock's Tipping Point

An interesting article on today's music scene titled "Indie Rock's Tipping Point" BY MARTIN EDLUND (January 11, 2005) in The New York Sun:

"It's not like emo, where you've got all these bands where there's a defining factor," says Jordan Kurland, manager for Death Cab for Cutie. "Arcade Fire, Bright Eyes, Death Cab: Aside from cheap records and depth of lyrics, there's nothing that ties them together. Not a divinable theme like grunge, where it's based around guitar and flannels."

On today's radio scene, excellent points:

"The same democratizing force has transformed radio in recent years. Even as ClearChannel continues its homogenizing march through commercial radio, Internet and satellite stations (XM and Sirius) have sprung up. Today, indie rock (along with jazz, blues, bluegrass, and just about everything else) is available in places that never had the benefit of a good, land-based college or independent radio station. Local independent stations like KEXP in Seattle and KCRW in Los Angeles have found a sizable national and international following for their programming over the Web.

These changes in rock are part of a broader cultural shift: the indie-fication of popular culture. Artists who traditionally appealed to narrow niches are gaining a mainstream following - or rather, they are seeing their niches expand, even as the audiences for "traditional" outlets like network television and radio stations radically shrink. And unlike pop culture of the recent past, which concerned itself exclusively with the lucrative 12-to-18-year-old age group, this culture appeals more broadly: to 20- and 30-somethings as well."

More on the decline of music due to corporate influence.

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