Talk:Indie music scene

Major recomendations for this article
Most of these bands are not signed to independent labels! A label that is owned by one of the major US labels IS NOT INDIE.
 * 1. Change the name of the article to "Independent Music Scenes".
 * 2. We need to have at least 2 categories of scenes, "large" and "small".
 * 3. We need to include cities outside of the anglosphere.
 * 4. We need to include regional cities and towns, perhaps only at first those within the anglosphere.
 * 5. Consider the possibility that we may have to expand this article into other articles based on continents such as; "Independent Music Scenes in North America" and "Independent Music Scenes in Europe" and "Independent Music Scenes in Asia", etc.
 * 6. Remain strong on policies that insist on using mainstream media sources for references, we all know there are no mainstream media entities that accurately report or publish anything concerning alternative cultures in any manner befitting an encyclopedic reference.
 * 7. If you are going to use original research you must be sure that it is correct.

Nick carson (talk) 14:04, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * 8. Nashville, TN needs to be added, especially if Murfreesboro (a MUCH smaller scene) is mentioned. As someone who spent the majority of their life in the Manhattan/ Brooklyn vicinity before moving to Nashville, I can assure you that the indie scene here is worth mentioning.
 * 9 The Raconteurs are also from Nashville, not Detroit. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.82.99.253 (talk) 20:46, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

the Indonesian independent music scene
In Indonesian, the independent music scene also has growing fast, just like a grass in the big savana. however mostly the claimed of Independent band or indie band is just because of they can not have an access to the major labels. (well, thats ruin the truly independent band whom truly stand and doing they creation in independently ways Rossa mam (talk) 17:38, 2 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I think you totally wrong Rossa mam, Today in Indonesia, They have dozens of Indie music Label, FFWD, Yesnowave, Aksara, Rooftop, Blackmorse, Rockspace Records, and many more . Many Independent band grows from this label and they all truly stand and doing their creation in independent ways. Band such as The s.i.g.i.t and Salman Aditya for example. (Tommyvarcetti (talk) 05:33, 10 July 2010 (UTC))

Non-Anglophone indie music scenes missing
No reference to Non-Anglophone Indie Music Scenes exists here. This is a huge bias, since some of these scenes influenced contemporary-era music as well. In this article also the term scene is attributed only to genres such as rock and metal. However the term nowadays refers to rap or electronica regional scenes as well. I hope that all the above matters will be covered by the article sometime soon. Omnipedian (talk) 06:26, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I totally agree, Independent music is so badly underestimated on wikipedia, which is understandable because most people live, eat, sleep and think within mainstream society & cultures. There are massive scenes in cities all over South-East Asia, Japan, Italy, Germany, France, Spain, the list goes on! And regional towns also have independent music scenes, here in Australia alone, scenes exist in Geelong, Newcastle, Woolongong and Launceston, albeit smaller scenes...and a word on Independent Music... I'd estimate 80-90% of art, music, film, is created within independent spheres, while mainstream culture accounts for 10-20%, which is usually anywhere bewteen 0 and 30 or more years behind the independent spheres. Just something to ponder. Nick carson (talk) 14:04, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Is it just me or does this page seem to state that americas indie scene basically changed music as we know it today......a tad of bias methinks

Agreed, this does sound somewhat biased. There must be indie scenes in countries all over the world and not just English-speaking countries. Russia and India have thriving underground scenes, for example. Also, this is a question: does Boston have a music scene? Blackmorningsun

This is a really important page, but it was hard to find. Almost every (real, as opposed to manufactured) band should link to it really. Metallica were a prt of the famous Bay Area Thrash Scene, Ramones they Ney York Punk Scene, the Beatles the Liverpool/Mersey Sound scene. It'd be really good if people could start making more links to this page. Tubefurnace 12:34, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Tubefurnace, but I think it could use a lot more work. Cudos to whoever started it, but where are the obsessive music geeks that memorize every detail of every band they've ever heard? Here's where they should be dumping all that stuff. And it would be great to have more informed documentation of the scenes. Everyone seems to agree that the DC punk scene was very influential, but the intro paragraph (not the listing) only really mentions Ian MacKaye's bands and the Bad Brains, two groups that reportedly hated each other's guts... 69.49.44.11 16:49, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Re:Providence
It's cool to see AS220 mentioned. It would be cool to see if someone could track down some info on Club Babyhead too, which was where Club Hell is now. AS220 used to be were Jerky's is (upstairs from Club Hell) back in the day; you could hang out in the alley behind Babyhead and listen to bands at AS220.

Don't forget The Livingroom, which gets a mention in Rollins' "Get in the Van".

If I happen to come across anything I'll add it, but don't wait for me if anyone else can add something. maxcap 10:19, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Factory Records
--Allmodcons91 (talk) 00:04, 9 February 2008 (UTC)I noticed that in the section regarding Factory Records and the 'Madchester' scene, the Stone Roses have been listed as being signed to Factory Recrods, this is categorically not true. They release one single produced by Martin Hannet but it was released by a label called Thin Line Records (set up by Hannet when he fell out with the management at Factory). They're albums were both released on separate labels: Debut album 'The Stone Roses' was released on Silvertone, whereas 'The Second Coming' was released on Geffen.

I feel it's important this is changed because The Stone Roses didn't like being associated with the rest of Manchester, they felt alienated because of the austerity and pretentions of bands like New Order.

Allmodcons91 (talk) 00:04, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

---

Ok i've now edited that as well as adding some background info on were post-punk began in Manchester. I've also added all that info on the North East England, Sunderland scene. Mainly because it's my local scene and i actually practice with my band in 'The Bunker.' —Preceding unsigned comment added by Allmodcons91 (talk • contribs) 01:10, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

So, uh, this may be a stupid question, but...
What's a scene, exactly?

I am non-city folk. I think too many articles on specific aspects of culture are written both by and for those within that culture. As such, the article writers see no need to provide even a simple, basic definition of their culture's jargon word in the introduction. They jump right into all the different types and the details and what-have-you.

I would appreciate if someone would add to the introduction a couple sentences with the attitude of "scenes for dummies".

Any reactions to this comment like "What idiot doesn't know what a scene is?" will only illustrate my point. Mbarbier (talk) 13:16, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Rock Rock Rock — why ?!
Last time I checked, a "music scene" (which redirects to this) was not just bloody rock music, it can be any music type. Looking at the UK sections, and most others here, all they have done is list rock groups supposedly who have a following by young teenagers, who usually think they are more important than the actually are. What about the myriads of black music scenes, for example? This needs a major clean-up by someone older than 12 years old for sure! Absolutely awful as it stands. Jimthing (talk) 05:36, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Apart from the ridiculous ad hominem attacks of calling the fans of the listed bands all 12 year olds... I totally agree. The article is mixing the genre Indie Rock with the concept of independent Music and only lists Indie Rock bands. There are tons of electronic, all kinds of metal and I guess "black music" (whatever you understand as that) independent labels and scenes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.53.210.99 (talk) 23:05, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Sourcing & Reverting Content Needed
Amazing that this article survived a deletion nomination, only to be eviscerated by removal of all unsourced material. If you provided original material for this article, please source it and repost. You can find the original material by looking at previous versions on the history page prior to neon white deleting all the unsourced material. Since this article is a major source of links for some of the more obscure yet important bands in pioneering local scenes around the world, it's critical to get it fleshed out and up to proper editing standards. Thanks for all your help.

Problems with other contributors edits
User:Ridernyc seems to think all in Wikipedia should be sourced and erases every sentence in this article when a source is not present. That's not how things should go. You only delete info if you don't believe it. For instance Blonde Redhead, Yo La Tengo, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, etc are part of the scene of NYC. This is deleted, because it was unsourced. Anybody knows those bands are from NYC and play a key role factor in the indie movement and no sources are needed for mentioning those bands in a section about the NYC indie scene. I'd prefer if contributors use instead of this angry blanketing of pages constantly. Please insert all deleted info back in the article, UNLESS you doubt the band inclusion for being irrelevant (spamming of red unknown bands). Thanks, 94.210.222.154 (talk) 09:04, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
 * This is a controversial subject that needs to be properly sourced, end of story. This article will not go back to the massive pile of original research that it was. Your opinions on sourcing are wrong in this area. Ridernyc (talk) 18:52, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

A suggestion
Move the article as it was to a sand box somewhere. Edit and work on it there, have other people look at it work on it and check the sourcing. This trying to bring the old horrible article back with really poor attempts at sourcing is not going to work. Ridernyc (talk) 19:24, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't know if that helps. I think erasing 10.000 words is not a solution. There must be a good guidance for endless spamming, I agree on that, but erasing all that is unsourced is not how things should go. You only erase when you doubt text or think it is too biased. Ignoring NYC is rather poor in result. Unsourced ennumerations of data is not OR. OR means you say something without being prooven. For instance The distance from the Moon to Earth is 234.623.451 km. Sonic Youth being a prominent indie band from NYC is not OR. It is unsourced, but a quick search will give you info about the existence of the band, the band is from NYC and is allready excisting for 30 yrs and has a wide known fame. You seem to confuse the term OR for what is actually is. When you doubt text you should use . If you think it is plain bullshit you erase it with an explanation why you deleted. Deleting because there is no source, before giving somebody the chance to put a source in is not a good way to cure and enhance an article. 94.210.222.154 (talk) 20:05, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
 * The term indie music in itself is controversial therefore every mention in this article needs to be sourced. You have your view point of what this article should be, someone else has theirs, then we end up with the mess that the original article was for years. The original article was tagged for years.  The original article was a mess and totally unencyclopedic.  The original was heavily edited.  Every statement in this article needs to backed with solid sources.  Your sonic youth statement, needs to be sourced.  Just because most people agree with it and no one has asked for it to be sourced will not exempt it from having to be sourced.  You keep describing original research,"well I know it's true, and most people know it's true,therefore there is no need to source it".  In this article everyone thinks they know what is true and that everyone will agree with it and guess no one will agree. Ridernyc (talk) 20:19, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
 * No, everybody is okay with the inclusion of SY related to NYC. Even without source you as well believe this. If you doubt it, flag it and other contributors will put in a decent link. If you doubt it and think it is spam, erase that particular part. Deleting NYC from your current article is rather ridiculous. It's better to go find sources than keep pushing on how to source. That's not what this article is for. Don't misuse an article to give a solid vision of how it is supposed to happen. Make it happen and include sources instead of erasing text, you yourself even know it is true, but only because the writer neglected to put in a source.

Missing info about:
 * The Smell
 * The Knitting Factory
 * The Kitchen
 * Todd P
 * No Wave
 * NYC in general
 * Sourcing problems with non English speaking countries (see next chapter on this discussion page)
 * 24 Hour Party People as a key role source about the Manchester indie scene
 * etc.

Do something about all of these aspects and the article will improve a lot.

Problems with sources outside English native regions

 * I use sources some contributors don't know, because they are not European. VPRO for instance is 100% reliable and reputable and third party. The occuring problem is similar to a antropological phenomenon called Male White Dominance or something (I don't know how it is called in English, please fix this red link, since I'm looking for it for a long time). This is an English language version of Wikipedia trying to uphold a NPOV. NPOV is only possible is you present the content with a worldwide POV and not only an American or English POV. Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Japanese, Danish, Dutch, French, German texts about a local indie scenes are considered (by English native contributors) as unreliable, unnotable 3rd party sources. However ignoring aspects occuring outside US and UK is not very neutral and highly inaccurate giving a distorted POV. 94.210.222.154 (talk) 09:47, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
 * The issue is not with that I don't know the sources,The issue is the sources do not say what you are saying in the article.Ridernyc (talk) 17:39, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Okay, what to do with this source: http://3voor12.vpro.nl/artikelen/artikel/42638621

A pretty good one explaining about the Amsterdam scene of 2009. Besides explaining the current activity within the scene it also mentions which bands are active, what the org S. is doing, info about the 15.000 circulation of the leading paper magazine about indie, they put out, How many visitors they've attrackted (50.000!!!!!). It summaraizes quiet some involved venues (I read 5 in the first minute running through the article. Please insert info or say this is a lame link. What is going on here? 94.210.222.154 (talk) 21:27, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
 * 2nd I feel like I'm in catch 22 situation and it is rather easy to trace every word I pick wrong, since I'm not a native speaker. If I interprete texts in sources wrong, or choose the wrong words, change the words and follow what is in the source. You just erase ALL TEXT ALL THE TIME, because it is 94.210.222etc. That's not very helpful and highly annoying. I'm bringing in tons of sources. Of course you can do something with it and reverting all the time is not very fair. 94.210.222.154 (talk) 21:37, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I delete your addictions due to sourcing, nothing more then that. Ridernyc (talk) 10:12, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Really need to add for North Am.
How about Athens, GA? Or Portland? Huge indie scenes. I'd add myself but I'm not terribly experienced with sourcing and whatnot. x( 68.83.219.110 (talk) 21:44, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

I would make an entry for Detroit, but its too obscure and none of you knows whats good here.

Indie = independent or indie = emo?
I realize that indie is technically short for independent but in everyday usage (with respect to music) it seems to have lost this meaning. For instance when people here in Portland, Oregon talk of indie music or indie rock the majority of time they are referencing to Emo, Screamo, College Rock, or "alternative". I think some hipsters consider their music indie rock, and others consider it rock 'n' roll. Most punks do not consider themselves "indie", although they are independent. DIY or autonomous are more commonly used terms. I've reviewed a lot of back issues major of punk 'zines like Maximumrocknroll, Slug and Lettuce, The Defector, and Profane Existence and have not been able to find a single instance of the "punk" being used interchangeably with "indie". Likewise, in a review of underground hip-hop music and literature one would probably not find a reference to their scene as "indie". I think the article should be rewritten to "Music Scene", in which a revised indie music scene could be a separate, smaller article. XXVII (talk) 05:58, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Redirect
I do not believe the term "Scene kids" should redirect here. It is a completely different topic, no? —Preceding unsigned comment added by BriannaBledsoe (talk • contribs) 04:31, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

A Place to Bury Strangers? Really?
Why are they given as a representative NYC indie rock band next to internationally recognized bands like LCD Soundsystem? In fact, before them! They're not even like a big NYC band. Has anyone every heard of them? I think someone either from the band, connected to them, or a random fan decided to include them. I don't think they are an important or representative band at all for the scene. Unless I hear otherwise I'm going to delete them from the NYC section soon. THEMlCK (talk) 03:22, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

removed decade name apostrophes per Basic_copyediting
removed decade name apostrophes per Basic_copyediting--RichardMills65 (talk) 04:03, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

AFD
If deleted, fine. if not, i will be taking out all unsourced comments, and all links to BANDS. this is not about notable indie bands, but indie scenes. I will probably just make it a list of the half dozen or so articles on scenes linked to by the navbox, unless some of the refs mention scenes, not labels or bands. and remember, this is NOTABLE scenes. every major metro area in the western world has an indie music scene. some, like the scene around seattle back then, became notable. others, not so much. we are NOT a directory.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 00:25, 26 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Mercurywoodrose Yep, good idea. Nothing wrong with that. Supersaiyen312 (talk) 05:27, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
 * I have no problem with uncited material that you challenge being removed; per wp:v.


 * However, I do not think it makes sense to delete all links to bands. The indie scene necessarily includes reference to indie bands that constitute the indie scene.  See, for example, a better formatted article at Hungarian indie. I would urge you, if you think this a good approach, to first suggest it at Wikipedia:WikiProject Music.
 * And we do have all manner of lists of bands, and of musical artists. Best. --Epeefleche (talk) 14:29, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

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Attempted cleanup
The cleanup tag had been on the article since June 2009, I tried to get rid of some of the worst offending original research. Many of the examples were indiscriminate lists of artists from the city or country, often completely unrelated, with no source to suggest they were part of a defined scene. I tried to find reasons to leave things there, anything with a relevant main article, or any sourcing, or details about a scene's significance over and above "having indie bands". Setting these inclusion criteria for mention on this article would make it truly unreadable and non-maintainable. If there is any material you want to replace, please do but only with a source, not so much for whether the information is true, but for whether it is notable and relevant to this article topic. This article is still in poor shape and could probably do with a lot more cutting. Jdcooper (talk) 00:42, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Further to the above, some of the lists of bands were indie only, others everything, others something else, the general impression given by the article was that there were no criteria at all. Would welcome other editors thoughts on what some kind of criteria could be, that are consistent with wikipedia guidelines. Jdcooper (talk) 00:53, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Britpop
The bit about The Smiths in the Britpop part (below) needs re-writing as it makes The Smiths seem more important to Britpop than all the 1960s/1970s acts who were as important. Morrissey himself referenced a lot of 'guitar music of the past' during this period but was never Britpop maybe it was all the Rockabilly, maybe it was because he was thought of as a 'Yesterday's Man' in the eyes of the NME (there was a backlash in certain parts of the music press against Morrissey around 1992...)
 * The Britpop scene developed in the early 1990s as part of a larger British cultural movement called Cool Britannia. In the wake of the musical invasion into the UK of American grunge bands, British bands positioned themselves as an opposing musical force. Influenced by the key British band of the 1980s, The Smiths, and adopting the unashamed commercial approach to which the C86 bands had seemed sometimes ideologically opposed, Britpop acts such as Oasis, Blur, Suede and Pulp referenced British guitar music of the past and aimed at writing about British topics and concerns.