Is Indie Dead?
by Jessica Hopper, who is the author of The Girls' Guide to Rocking

It's a poorly-reasoned essay that sets up straw-men and concerns itself largely with bands that have seen mainstream success. Some of them with indies, some having moved on to majors after toil or a modicum of chart success — conflating success with the death of... independent business models? I am not sure I follow the reasoning.

As bland as Death Cab for Cutie are, that band put their backs into their entire career. I saw them play a half-filled bowling alley in their Barsuk days. Their success with Barsuk has helped the label thrive and do things like put out the David Bazan record I loved last year. Spoon sold albums in the low-mid thousands for the first half of their discography — the fact that they have grown to become popular over what — 18 years — and popular with moms and Urban Outfitters shoppers? That's not the death knell of anything — that's how it works. Would them languishing in obscurity be a sign that DIY is thriving? She seems to be conflating popularity with selling out, which aren't mutually exclusive. Bands have always gone to majors. Her imagined dialogue with some indie rocker from 20 years past who would supposedly be galled by an "indie band" on a major label seems strange given that that indie rocker of 20 years ago would at that point own R.E.M's early Warner Brothers catalog, which was still good by then. 19 years ago, My Bloody Valentine's Loveless came out on Sire, which was a major by that point. I don't remember any sort of handwringing over that at the time. The Replacements and Husker Du had major label records to their credit (Sire and Warner Bros.) at that point.

If someone wants to get riled up about whether Grizzly Bear are indie or not, as some sort of semantical debate that implies authenticity (it doesn't) or maybe whether "indie" is an idea that sells records (it does!) — that's their time to waste. I saw Grizzly Bear play to three people and Bob Stinson's mom at the Uptown Bar in Minneapolis not 6 years ago; they are boring now — how they make their money now or their new found fame does not scandalize me. The disappointment of mall kids liking YOUR favorite band is a disappointment as old as punk itself. If this talk of indie revolves around the label and where the money comes from, rather than how bands operate, larger principles they exhibit, etc. — then what we can say is INDIE is thriving. Bands used to have to go to majors because there was a ceiling, there wasn't the ability for a small label to keep up with the needs of growing bands. Now indie labels can and do — but that said, that's not a very productive conversation about capital, us or them. If St. Vincent not being on a label run by two kids who are stuffing album sleeves by hand in their living room is upsetting, then go mail order some fucking cassettes. Or don't listen. Or just be stoked that we are in an era of femme-shredders headlining bills. Be shocked by something genuinely shocking, not the distro chain behind XL Records.

The answer to the IS THIS SCENE DEAD? stories is usually NO, IT'S NOT DEAD IT'S JUST BORING — it can also be brought on by writers who have lost touch with what is new and exciting, and just given into covering whatever publicists send them.

Lastly, If the world that Pitchfork reports on is someone's sole working idea of the underground, that is a shame. There will always be kids toiling, always deep weird DIY layers under there, fanzines, kids and grown ups and totally inaccessible bands doing it for the scene — just like there always has been. That impetus does not die. Ever.

If American indie rock is such a bummer, she should investigate Canadian hardcore or the amount of female fronted bands coming out of the LA punk-weirdo scene — two scenes that are unquestionably alive.