Defining The Terms: Indie and Pop

By Nicholas Neyhouse on December 18, 2014

When I looked up “Indie” in Flickr

The terms indie and pop get thrown around so often that I’m not sure we even know what we are talking about when using them anymore. I’ve heard either term used for: clothing, music, personalities, books, and movies. I can understand calling books, movies, and music indie, but how did personality or clothing get thrown into the mix? Can something that is originally indie become pop? And why have these two simple terms become so expansive?

To begin, the terms are abbreviations of the words ‘independent’ and ‘popular’. Independent comes from when an artist creates their work either entirely independently or with a label/publisher that does not receive funding from a major corporation. Pop comes from when an item is accepted and liked by the mainstream population.

When theorizing on why clothing and personality can become indie or pop it becomes clear that the clothing and personalities are directly related to the people that produce the movies, music, and books. Certain clothing items, are worn repetitively by actors in independent films or by musicians in indie bands. Or those movies could have characters within them that wear certain clothing items like the infamous red beanie in “The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou”. These clothing items become part of a culture that is built around independent movies, books, and music. The opposite can happen for pop culture, where musicians or actors that produce popular music wear certain clothing items, and those become popular within the mainstream culture.

Indie receives a stigma of being underground and for “hipsters”, but this does not make sense, because a lot of indie bands have become extremely popular. Bands like The Black Keys, that started out on independent labels such as Alive and Fat Possum, are now extremely popular. For instance their newest album debut as number 1 on the charts. The Black Keys did change labels and added producer Danger Mouse, and that is when they picked up a larger following , although the only way they made it to those labels is by continuing to gain popularity. As well the band Bon Iver, lead by front man Justin Vernon, has only been on indie labels (Jagjaguwar and 4AD) and he won grammys for best new artist and best alternative album.

So Indie groups can definitely become popular, although can they become considered pop music? I think the stigma sticks with them that they started as independent, and that holds them back from receiving the pop label. Although when actually looking at whether or not the mainstream population likes the music, it has clearly been pointed out that the music is accepted by a large portion of society.

Independent movies, such as the large collection of cute and quirky films by director Wes Anderson, gained an exceptional amount of popularity as well. In his most recent film, “The Grand Budapest Hotel“,  he included a variety of extremely popular and famous actors from Willem Dafoe to Adrian Brody. Again, these independent projects have included popular and famous people that gain the works a lot of mainstream attention, but society does not see them as pop pieces of work because of their indie culture.

Indie and pop have built a culture around them that has always been there, but now seems to encompass the normal everyday person. Pop culture has always been prevalent in society, but the focus recently points to an increase in a building indie culture. With stores like American Apparel and Urban Outfitters that seem to sell the “indie” look the average person can play off of the fashion that indie movies and music has created. So even the image of “indie” has become mainstream.

When boiling it down it almost does not matter if it is indie or pop, because independent art may eventually become popular. So categorizing as indie or pop, while it may place an idea into your mind of what the film or music may be like, it in actuality is a false indicator of content. The terms really just explain where the content came from, but not what the content consists of, because indie and pop culture are so diverse in content overall. It’s completely fine if you like independent things or/and popular things, but understand that what is indie may become popular.

 

photo: Marina Montoya, taken September 23, 2008

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