No it doesn't necessarily mean "I AM KING OF THE INDIES." It depends on the song, what it sounds like, what you can do with it. The term "indie" isn't the only alternative to "pop." You might try the word "semipopular," coined by Xgau.
Semipopular music is music that is appreciated--I use the term advisedly--for having all the earmarks of popular music except one: popularity. Just as semiclassical music is a systematic dilution of highbrow preferences, semipopular music is a cross-bred concentration of fashionable modes. I'm not putting it down, for this is the music I am always praising ecstatically--the r&b takeoffs of Van Morrison and Randy Newman and Nolan, the easy electronicism of Terry Riley, the Wayne-Newton-with-a-bite of Nilsson, the self-conscious hillbilly plainsong of Tracy Nelson Country and (a very convoluted case) the Everly Brothers' Roots. Indeed, since writers and musicians usually prefer semipopular music, some of it even becomes popular; The Band and the Grateful Dead and Rod Stewart could all be argued into the category. My favorite examples, however, are untarnished by such associations. First is the Flying Burrito Bros., who on their first album offered the most outrageous combinations of pedal-steel and wah-wah distortion, verbal obscurity and country soul, all through the medium of a lot of ex-Byrd not-quite-stars. But even better is the Stooges, whose sole purported attraction, Iggy, continues to possess every star quality except fame.
I suppose semipopular music is decadent. It wouldn't be the first time that decadence has been the source of acute aesthetic pleasure. And indeed, the way it is so often enjoyed--quietly, stoned perhaps, in the company of a few friends, on a sound system that can convey its technological nuance--is very insular. But because it originates in a certain fondness for what other people like--a kind of musical populism much more concrete than that of the folk music of the early sixties--I think it is basically salubrious, a source of private strength that doesn't recoil from public connection.
And I'll add something about Iggy that Xgau didn't: Iggy reached for the populace and made claims on it. First three lines of the first song on his first album go:
It's 1969 OK All across the USA Another year for me and you
That makes the song more pop than indie even if he'd only played it once, in his attic.
Of course, it would never occur to me to say I like a song because it's pop or because it's indie. I mean, what boring reasons to like something!
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2006-08-08 05:05 am (UTC)Semipopular music is music that is appreciated--I use the term advisedly--for having all the earmarks of popular music except one: popularity. Just as semiclassical music is a systematic dilution of highbrow preferences, semipopular music is a cross-bred concentration of fashionable modes. I'm not putting it down, for this is the music I am always praising ecstatically--the r&b takeoffs of Van Morrison and Randy Newman and Nolan, the easy electronicism of Terry Riley, the Wayne-Newton-with-a-bite of Nilsson, the self-conscious hillbilly plainsong of Tracy Nelson Country and (a very convoluted case) the Everly Brothers' Roots. Indeed, since writers and musicians usually prefer semipopular music, some of it even becomes popular; The Band and the Grateful Dead and Rod Stewart could all be argued into the category. My favorite examples, however, are untarnished by such associations. First is the Flying Burrito Bros., who on their first album offered the most outrageous combinations of pedal-steel and wah-wah distortion, verbal obscurity and country soul, all through the medium of a lot of ex-Byrd not-quite-stars. But even better is the Stooges, whose sole purported attraction, Iggy, continues to possess every star quality except fame.
I suppose semipopular music is decadent. It wouldn't be the first time that decadence has been the source of acute aesthetic pleasure. And indeed, the way it is so often enjoyed--quietly, stoned perhaps, in the company of a few friends, on a sound system that can convey its technological nuance--is very insular. But because it originates in a certain fondness for what other people like--a kind of musical populism much more concrete than that of the folk music of the early sixties--I think it is basically salubrious, a source of private strength that doesn't recoil from public connection.
And I'll add something about Iggy that Xgau didn't: Iggy reached for the populace and made claims on it. First three lines of the first song on his first album go:
It's 1969 OK
All across the USA
Another year for me and you
That makes the song more pop than indie even if he'd only played it once, in his attic.
Of course, it would never occur to me to say I like a song because it's pop or because it's indie. I mean, what boring reasons to like something!