Rewind your memories to July 31, 2004. Modest Mouse’s “Float On” was sailing along at number one on Billboard’s U.S. Modern Rock Track chart, and Franz Ferdinand’s “Take Me Out” was on its way to number three. Fast forward to August 21, 2007. Vice Records released This Is Next: Indie’s Biggest Hits Volume 1, an indie-rock compilation designed to “reach beyond the core album consumer and toward the casual buyer.” Is this the death of indie rock as we know it?
Probably not. Before you start burning your Shins albums in protest, consider some musical history. Indie rock has been flirting with mainstream appeal since the days of the original czars of the genre, the Velvet Underground. Their last great record, 1970’s Loaded, was essentially the band’s attempt to appease Atlantic Records, which requested an album “loaded with hits.” Atlantic got what they asked for—a collection of breezy pop and radio-ready rockers—though the record still failed to place on the Billboard chart. Loaded is an archetypal “sell-out” record, but it’s a damn good one and the perfect entry point for music fans unaccustomed to the detuned guitar clatter that marked the Velvets’ earlier material.
Modest Mouse presents a perfect parallel. In 2003, major label Sony forced the band to scrap an album’s worth of recordings, demanding something more easily marketable. The Mouse delivered the goods, and 2004’s Good News for People Who Love Bad News went platinum.
Why mention these two cases, which occurred 34 years apart? Both show bands compromising artistic integrity in favor of mass appeal, while still putting out a quality product in the process. Sure, the move calls into question a band’s underground cred and—gasp!—hipness, but it also allows for more exposure to interesting music. Besides, “crossover” hits like Good News convert fans who will later explore the band’s often adventurous back catalogue, widening the market for indie music in general.
If anything, we need to accept the death of indie as referring to a band’s low-budget, high-flexibility status. The term will live on as a marketing tool and, more importantly, as an approach to music that refuses to compromise.
