Columns
|
Indie
is Dead, Long live Indie
Can it be that it was all so simple then? Mod versus
Rocker, Rock versus Pop, Young Punk versus Old Fart, Dance versus Rock,
Indie versus Mainstream. Time was, you knew where you stood. And if you
didn't, you wouldn't have to wait long before someone came along and told
you, usually with some force. In the early days of punk, Malcolm McLaren
even produced a T-shirt to give The Kids some assistance in this regard.
Headed by the slogan "One of these days you'll wake up and realise
which side of the bed you've been sleeping on", two lists. One list,
clearly the list of Bad Things, includes The Liberal Party, "Dirty books
that aren't that dirty", Led Zeppelin, and various other institutions
that were clearly outmoded, maaan. On the other side, a list of such cool
modern faves as Lenny Bruce, The Society for Cutting Up Men, and The Paris
Riots. The message was clear: Which side are you on? And if you stay on
the wrong side, what hope for you come the revolution?
Of course there never is a revolution really, because that's not how pop
works. These things always ebb and flow, fashions come and go, then return
and retreat. My Dad for example, has a jacket that's so old it's been
fashionable on three separate occasions. Who'd have thought that Goth,
reviled in the early 90's as the most absurd youth cult in history, would
within the decade rule Central Bank Plaza of a Saturday afternoon? And
yet pop has always ignored such cycles, preferring to speak in these polarising,
messianic tones, assuring us that this is Year Zero, and Things Will Never
Be The Same. It does so because it is speaking to an audience of 14 and
15-year-olds, who are just reaching the age where it's nice to have some
sort of a cause to believe in. Having no political convictions to speak
of, probably having never yet fallen in love, their facility for devotion
is at once undivided by any outside interests, and unsullied by disappointment
and disillusion.
When I was fifteen and keen to find the band who would change my life,
I happily stumbled upon Nirvana. Now these guys were perfect. They were
fashionably unfashionable in a way that has been the prerogative of all
alternative bands since the original of the species, the Velvet Underground.
They were, at first at least, spoken of far more than they were listened
to. And most importantly, they opened up a whole new horizon of musical
possibilities. The magazines that first put them on their covers also
spoke of other bands like the Pixies and Sonic Youth. They never spoke
of Bryan Adams or Guns'n'Roses.
Already then, an us-and-them divide was forming. When Nirvana played the
Point in 1992 I was the only one in my school who made the pilgrimage
(my parents Ð and for this I am truly eternally grateful Ð let me go despite
it being the day before one of my Junior Cert. exams), the remainder of
my musically inclined classmates saving themselves for the bigger but
emptier event of Guns'n'Roses at Slane. In the years following, I have
met people who also attended that gig in the Point, and there is a lovely
feeling of kinship there, like when two Irishmen meet in a bar abroad
and discover that they share a lifelong devotion to Home Farm FC. Two
Man Utd. Fans wouldn't appreciate a moment like that. You meet Man U fans
everywhere, so it would barely be remarked on. Similarly, I can't imagine
the feeling of belonging, the sense of time and place felt by those at
Slane has lasted anything as long as has mine. From my discovery of Nirvana
onwards, it was clear what side I was on. Give me your struggling, your
obscure, I would cry, your huddled masses seeking a minor feature in NME,
the wretched refuse of the Top 40. I'll take them in. I'll take all of
them, even Ned's Atomic Dustbin.
It's things like this that help you through your adolescence. Though shy,
paranoid and generally terrified of everyone, you could know, immediately
upon meeting a stranger, whether or not you'll have anything to talk about,
simply by looking at his T-shirt. Kudos could be earned for particularly
obscure knowledge, or ownership of a relic such as a 12-inch slime-coloured
Senseless Things E.P., featuring their "hilarious" thrash version of the
theme from "Minder". If you met a better informed aficionado, he (and
they were, are, nearly always boys) could guide you ever further into
the jungle of indie, lending you an album which would once again open
up a whole new chain of possibilities.
In time, the huge success of Nirvana meant that indie opened it's doors
to a huge number of new listeners. The next craze, Britpop wasn't just
a press creation, but a fully-fledged pop phenomenon, complete with screaming
girlies. The alternative became the mainstream, and in time artists as
diverse as Fatboy Slim, Travis, David Gray and Moby are in the position
of enjoying huge mainstream success, while retaining an amount of credibility.
This is not without it's advantages: the mainstream offers music of far
more quality than it did some years ago. But if everyone's alternative
these days, what are they an alternative to? Where's the us-and-them?
Are any of the bands feted by the music weeklies likely to build up sufficient
momentum, and command sufficient devotion to announce, as The Stone Roses
so thrillingly did at Spike Island "Now! Now! The Time is now!"?
The simple answer is no. I find it hard to visualise a feud between the
Coldpay fans and the Travis fans, though admittedly that's only because
I can never tell which band is which. (If the Ocean Colour Scene crowd
show up, my confusion may become too much to bear) In any case, it's not
music with any revolutionary import. No irate parent is likely to ever
shout "Will you turn down that infernal melancholy-yet-tuneful racket!"
What we have now, instead of two distinct and opposed categories, is a
larger, more eclectic mainstream, surrounded by esoteric ghettoes. The
NME recently ran a special issued devoted almost completely to Hip-Hop.
Before it's final expiration, Melody Maker was largely reporting on the
rather silly Nu-Metal scene, beloved of Central Bank Goths. (Hot Press
of course only ever write about U2, The Corrs, Phil Lynnot's Mother, and
what great lads it's own founding writers were.) This is a recognition
that if you want an alternative to what's hitting the charts, there's
no longer any ready-made scene to look to. But an alternative can be found.
In the old days, you just turned on Dave Fanning. These days, there has
emerged a recognition that, to escape hearing "This Year's Love" for the
tenth time in the hour, you must go out into the ghettoes.
The likes of Donal Dineen, Tom Dunne and the late lamented Uaneen Fitzsimons
made a virtue out of this lack of any set agenda, and pioneered eclectic,
genre-hopping radio shows. I once heard Donal Dineen segue from Orbital
into something by Ð I kid you not Ð an Armenian folk musician. After a
shaky start, Dunne's Today FM show, Pet Sounds has become compelling radio,
even throwing in the odd comedy record by Peter Cook or The Marx Brothers.
It's refreshing that this kind of eclecticism is emerging, because like
any esoteric Church, the Church of Indie had it's drawbacks, not least
of which was the internecine bickering. I once had a nostalgia-tinged
conversation with a college friend on the great Nirvana Ð Smashing Pumpkins
feud.
"It was something very basic", he said, "You just wouldn't
get on with Pumpkins Fans. I mean, I listened to the Pumpkins a few times,
and I'd always be polite about them if I was talking to a fan, but they
were shite weren't they?" I brought up the topic of Pearl Jam fans,
and he become more vitriolic. "They were all tossers in suede jackets
and roundy glasses. Acted all sensitive and poetic to get impressionable
girls". Pearl Jam you see, were the safe choice. A little left-of-field
sure, but not indie enough for the serious devotee. Like a Situationist
sect, members could be cast out for not being indie enough.
Related to this was the snobbery, the assurance that you were listening
to the right music, and that others were wrong. People would have closet
records, ones they loved but wouldn't admit to owning. They would attempt
a stalinist revision of their pasts, burning all their AC/DC T-shirts,
and attempting to create the illusion that as children they listened only
to the works of German avant-garde jazz-terrorists. (I've met people who
have outgrown their teens, developed in all other respects into well-rounded
adults, yet continue to carry on like this. They congregate particularly
heavily around college radio stations and the club scene, and really ought
to leave that kind of messing to the school-kids, who need it far more
than they do.)
Teenagers, lacking the disposable income to buy lots of records, rely
on late-night radio for much of the music they hear, so it's amusing to
think that fifteen-year-olds are being reached by Dunne's evangelising
of Johnny Cash's most recent album. Whether they'll pay it any heed is
a different matter, but at least the horizon has been opened to them,
in a way it may not have been when indie still existed as a definable
entity.
It's possible, indeed likely, that in a few years, a new band will grab
The Kids the way their older brothers and sisters were grabbed by Nirvana,
The Stone Roses, The Smiths or The Clash, and will promise to lead them
into a promised land, where all the bands they like will unite and do
battle with all the bands they don't like And Things Will Never Be The
Same. For now though, listeners should enjoy and celebrate our Independence
from Indie
Fergal Crehan
5th June 2001
|
Topics
|