Independent vs Indie Music

By Emily Yeomans

Music is an art understood internationally, going beyond cultural, regional, and language barriers. Just as art mimics reality, the music scene is constantly changing, morphing to appeal to a target audience and rapidly expanding as more and more artists pursue a career. Perhaps one of the most notable changes of the music industry is the growing gap between independent music and indie music. 

Prior to the digital age, the independent and indie genres were essentially identical, with both expressing an artist’s ability to produce music without the help of a record label. However, the music industry at the time was largely dominated by these labels. 

Lucas Goularte, the frontman of TheeJapaneseSchoolGirls, states, “used to, you kind of needed that stuff because in order to get heard, you needed them.” With these big-name companies converting the music industry into grounds for economic gain, they held the power to make or break every artist that entered the playing field. 

This dependency would ultimately be what held the independent and indie genres together, with very little opportunity for music artists to break free of the market they had unknowingly entered. 

However, as the rise of social media entered the scene, it disrupted this cycle of control, and allowed for artists to become exactly that—artists, as opposed to products. 

In today’s world, music artists no longer have to depend on record labels for publicity. Social media platforms are open for anyone to access, and a short clip can lead to a career in minutes. This allowed for a gap to form between artists and record labels, provoking growth within the independent community.

As advances in technology continue to alter how music is accessed, shared, and created, it allows for artists to create music that sets new boundaries and norms. With the newfound freedom that artists possessed with their music, gaps slowly became more evident. Independent music became more of an umbrella term, and indie music diverged as a subgenre consisting of experimental elements and a loose environment.