If the early ’90s was a catastrophe for the indie scene, the new millennium has been a huge success. It seems as though the big labels have poached every genre they possibly can, that bands are rejecting them en masse, and that the Internet has provided a way to get the music out to fans that has never before been attempted. The result is accessible, quality music in almost every conceivable drama.
In this atmosphere, it has become impossible to identify music by its sound, or even by its sales. Best selling albums such as those put out by The Postal Service or Panic! At the Disco illustrate the new reality that is the indie music scene. Both bands are in fact pretty experimental in nature, with the Postal Service focus on electronica and Panic’s eclectic sound of every conceivable musical sound. There are still elements of soul, rock, and mellow listening to be found on the indie scene, and many bands popular through the ’90s (such as Collective Soul and Candlebox) are now on their own labels or established indie labels.
In this atmosphere, there is a lot of conflicting opinion as to what indie music entails. Two definitions can be thought about here. The first is fairly simple, established in the ’90s; an indie act is any one that is not signed on with the big three labels. Another way to define the indie scene is in comparison to the acts signed by big labels, and played on the radio. Any recent listen to a local station should alarm music fans everywhere: the same artists or style of music is played over and over again, on every single radio station. Big labels laud themselves for being a mix, but the truth is there is a lot of R&B, even more pop, and a few dozen acts considered "rock" thrown in to appease those who do not know better.
Fans who do not like the feeling of wanting to stick augers in their ears have turned en masse to the potential of the internet. Because of the ability of the medium to disseminate music worldwide, it has become a major promotional tool for indie artists of all genres. Style of music seems no longer to be an issue, as grunge, punk, mellow, and electronica artists are often found on the same pages, if not under the same label.
In this true do it yourself era, there is more potential to have success as an independent artist without compromising your music or your message than ever before. On the downside, fans who might consider themselves hardcore "indie" also seem at a loss to define the movement, and thus any music that has any likability factor is dismissed. Fortunately, this attitude is present only at one end of the spectrum, as is the case with most things in life. So, if someone is trying to tell you that an artist is not indie because they sold a certain amount of records, you might want to look into how those records were sold and who produced the album. Perhaps now more than ever before, music has the opportunity to truly be judged (for the first time by both sides) by the quality instead of by the amount of sales.
Although big labels have long made money by poaching out the sound developed by indie labels, nothing in the history of music parallels the success they enjoyed by swiping the alternative style that developed in the ‘80s and getting it played on the radio. Suddenly, dozens of alternative acts were thrust into the spotlight, and hundreds of more began to imitate the dirty distortion that had up until now been under wraps in the garages of the nation.
Never before has a scene experienced such a bizarre mix of triumph and angst. The very foundations of indie at this time were on the basis of the anti-movement, and with the alternative suddenly becoming the main, thousands of fans lost their identities. This was soon reflected in the artists, as major acts such as Nirvana struggled to come to terms with their new commercial reality.
The indie scene was still around, to be sure, but if one is really honest about the music being churned out, you have to admit that it sucks. After all, when dirty music gets popular, what is the new alternative? Should Bret Michaels and company now be put proudly on display on the shelf as the new Dinosaur Jr? Or, should the indie labels become the last beacon of hope for a breed that for the first time in music was not making any money at all, the pop act?
The answers were not clear for some time, until artists such as Liz Phair and PJ Harvey once again changed the definition of what “indie” truly meant: now, instead of a type of music, indie belonged to the recording style. In this case, that was a style stripped right down, and if your voice or music sounded TOO good, then you had to make your record on the worst equipment possible. While artists such as Sonic Youth continued to put out good music (as did Liz Phair and even PJ Harvey, if we’re being honest) the grunge movement had meant a big change in the indie movement: the music found there was for the first time, actually total crap. There was nothing else to draw from.
Fortunately for the whole scene, artists once considered indie soon found out why the big labels were so detested by genuine acts. Stripped of creativity and forced to work on someone else’s schedule, many of the alternative bands began to try and buck the system. Pearl Jam sued their touring company and refused to bow to the demand for videos; Nirvana made a record so under produced it was mocked. Nevertheless, the major label’s money power would triumph and they were able to still the voices in opposition, one way or another.
Perhaps the fights with artists of integrity opened the eyes of major labels a little bit as to the difficulties in signing real artists, because by the middle of the 1990s pop had once again began to rear its ugly head. The Spice Girls, Backstreet Boys, and N Sync meant that the indie scene could once again be thought of as musically credible, although the big labels had now decided to destroy long time stalwart punk music. Maybe punk was the last surviving genre in indie worth listening to at the time; whatever the reason, it was about to be rudely taken away.
Sarah Records in particular was to make an impact and a statement about the indie scene in the early ‘90s; the label was closed as owners declared that they had achieved their purpose in popularizing their music. Little did they realize that the scene would be revitalized in the near future, when fans began to ask themselves “what the hell is so ‘alternative’ about Oasis?”
Sometimes, music doesn’t have to scream that it is unique and gorgeous to be noticed as so. Such is the case with My Last Mistake. Although the name may be misleading, My Last Mistake is a one-woman show for the most part, powered by the smooth voice and guitar strummings of the United Kingdom’s Leah Newcombe (Richard Norton is credited with second guitar work).
Newcombe’s Sad, Beautiful Day EP might be taken as typical girl music if it wasn’t so darn earthy. Everything’s out there on the songs, from the earnestly sorrowful “The Story of Us” to the pining longing of “Wish I Was You”. “Maybe, Maybe Not” is a trip into relationship sorrow, a confused and somewhat angry young woman trying to find her way out of an emotionally turbulent tryst.
Newcombe brings back something that has been missing from music for a while, now; a woman whose powerful renderings are straight from the soul. She shuns the dance loop for the effects of two acoustic instruments and rejects mike effects in order to show off a dreamy voice, and comes out on top because of it.
