Indie rock

Indie rock is rock music historically associated with independent record labels and a wide range of unconventional songwriting, sounds, and production practices.

Post-punk: A diverse movement that extended punk rock through experimental sounds and approaches after the late 1970s. Its experimentation and independent infrastructure shaped early indie rock.
DIY ethic: A principle of making and distributing cultural work independently rather than relying on established institutions. Small-scale self-organization lets indie rock scenes create music outside major-label systems.
Sonic Youth: An American rock band known for experimental guitar tunings, noise, and links to New York’s underground scene. Their abrasive experiments expanded indie rock’s musical vocabulary.
Alternative rock: A broad category of rock that developed outside mainstream conventions and later entered popular charts. Alternative rock overlaps with indie rock but became a wider commercial category.
Rough Trade Records: A British independent record label founded in London in 1976. Its releases helped establish a durable model for independent guitar music.
Lo-fi music: Music whose recording preserves or deliberately uses audible technical imperfections and limited production. Rough recording can signal intimacy, economy, or resistance to polished studio conventions.
Pavement: An American indie rock band whose loose performances and oblique songs became influential in the 1990s. Their deliberately unpolished style became a touchstone for 1990s indie rock.
Britpop: A 1990s British pop-rock movement that foregrounded melodic songwriting and national cultural references. Britpop shared artists and infrastructure with indie rock but pursued a more overtly mainstream identity.
C86: A 1986 NME cassette compilation associated with jangly, underground British guitar pop. It gave one influential strand of British indie rock a recognizable name and sound.
Home recording: The process of recording music outside a commercial studio, often with equipment in a private space. Affordable home recording broadened who could produce and release indie rock.

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