Re: this post (see comments for a bit more explanation, and the first comment in particular for some good ol’ fashioned indienet anono-snark).  I don’t really want to explain in detail what I’m looking for; I’d rather find stuff and have that stuff explain what I’m looking for to me, if that makes sense.  (I [...]

Depressingly on-point post-SxSW take from Advertising Age on indie’s long road to Automotive Brand Enhancement.
Basically, in the post-unit-sales, file-sharing era, indie music is ever more about marketing. The music, in fact, becomes marketing for an event (e.g., a concert) or merchandise (e.g., a T-shirt) and/or marketing for a third-party product (e.g., a Scion xD). Marketing [...]

Earlier today, Tom Ewing (this guy) used the word “performative” in a blog post to describe a particular form of online mediation.  The specifics of Tom’s vague use of the word weren’t as important as the fact that someone used the word in a blog post.  In my particular realms of academia, performative is a [...]

“Bands are moving from being bands to being one and two pieces because of the economy. It’s really expensive to be in a band right now, so it’s easier to get acclaim by what you post to the internet.”
Like everything else he writes or says, this Eye Weekly interview with Christopher Weingarten is full of [...]

“That’s very simple. ‘Indie’ is short for ‘independent.’ Independently released music is not directly financially dependent on any of the four major labels (WMG, Sony BMG, EMI and Universal). ‘Indie’ does not refer to a style of music; it refers to the financial circumstances of its distribution. Anybody who tells you otherwise is lying to [...]

But it’s not like EPMD or anyone directly inspired by them is going to break Clear Channel rotation today. The deals are going to those who have already scored cross-over dance hits (from electremo sensations Drake and Kid Cudi), to teen dance-acts (Soulja Boy, the Jerkin’ kids) to neo hip-house artists (LMFAO and Far East [...]

“Our main gripe with Wynton is his self-serving rhetoric about what constitutes jazz. As he erupted on the scene in the ’80s, Marsalis gained an unprecedented bully pulpit through the media and his association with Lincoln Center. He used this power to redraw the boundaries of the entire genre, declaring that only acoustic music that [...]