Empire of Dirt. Wendy Fonarow
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indie’s insistence on certain modes would be as absurd as the figures Swift satirized. However, indie’s ideology reproduces a significant and unresolved ideological conflict in Western culture, one not unrelated to Swift’s own satire.
The core issues of indie and its practices are in essence the arguments of a particular sect of Protestant reformers within the secular forum of music.6 The goals of both Protestant and Catholic churches were essentially the same: to experience a true relationship with the divine. The various sects of Christianity in Europe at the time of the Reformation had a common goal in the fundamental notion of redemption through a moral and mystical experience. The primary difference was the means of reaching this goal. The debates between Protestants and Catholics dealt with the fundamental questions about the nature of how a congregation connects with the divine: where religious authority is located (individual/independent parishes vs. centralized papal authority); how the divine is accessed (directly vs. mediated); how ritual fosters an experience of the sacred (austere vs. baroque); and how one’s elite status is measured (asceticism vs. aggrandizement). Which side of the egg does one crack first?
Within indie, we find similar arguments regarding the nature of experience, but in this case experiencing the divine is displaced onto the experience of “true” or “authentic” music. Should music be produced by a centralized authority (major labels) or by independent local operations (independent labels)? What form should music take to promote the experience of true music (the generic characteristics of indie vs. the generic characteristics of other genres)? How should listeners experience music to foster a true encounter with music (live vs. recorded)? How is one’s authentic musical experience measured? Indie’s arguments replace the experience of the true spirit of the divine with that of the true spirit of music. The common goal set forth for music listeners within indie cosmology is to have a communion with the sacred quintessence of music. Differences in musical practices are interpreted through a moral frame, producing an aesthetic system based on moral values.
Indie’s core values promote and replicate the doctrine of a particular brand of Protestant religiosity: Puritanism. The central tenets of Puritanism are simplicity of worship, asceticism, a high regard for education, high standards of morality, and democratic political principles based on the autonomy of individual congregations (Knappen 2005: 7518). Puritans did not reject the liturgy but instead what they perceived as the Catholic Church’s corruption of it. This corruption was seen in superfluous rites, intervention by a hierarchy of clergy, excessive adornment, outward pomp, and pandering to the worldliness of the body. The beliefs of Puritanism and its critique of perceived Catholic excesses are echoed in each of the defining aspects of indie music, a secular amusement that would have been banished, ironically, by the Puritans. Within indie, we find a Puritan distrust of authority, a preference for non-corporate, independently owned commercial operations, an avocation of simplicity in musical form, production, and style, a promotion of high moral standards regarding issues of sexuality and conduct, an emphasis on education, and an underlying theme of austerity and abstinence. Like the Protestants of the Reformation, indie fans continue the rebellious narrative first put forth by the punks, the paradigmatic British music reformers. They present a narrative of the deviation from true musical encounters through a hypertrophic growth of institutional machinery to benefit corrupt executives who exploit the faithful and debase music itself. As David Cavanagh writes of the “indie dream,” indie “described a culture of independence that was almost a form of protest” (Cavanagh 2000: viii). This protest was against the church of mainstream music. Indie calls nostalgically for a return to and restoration of “original” musical practices and ideals.
In general, the indie ideology’s appropriation of the theological arguments of Puritanism is not overtly recognized within the community. Rather, indie fans consider their participation to be wholly secular. There is some latent awareness of the Puritan foundation of indie ideology, particularly in the use of the terms “purist” and “puritanical” by indie fans and journalists regarding themselves. However, the notion that at the heart of indie lies what many feel to be a conservative and repressive religious ideology would be distasteful to those who embrace one of the fundamental and widespread folktales of youth culture, namely, that participating in a music scene constitutes a form of rebellion rather than a recapitulation of the dominant cultural ideology and narratives.7
Also within indie ideology is a parallel strand of Romanticism, with its characteristic cultivation of emotion, passion, and the spirit, its interest in artistic movements of the past, its preference for the natural, its acclaim for the exceptional man in the guise of the musical genius, its respect for local identities and the working class, and its distaste for middle-class society while being itself middle class. This Romantic manifestation is what Colin Campbell refers to as the “Other Protestant Ethic.” In his remarkably insightful book The Romantic Ethic and the Spirit of Modern Consumerism, Campbell argues persuasively that the Puritan abnegation of sensual pleasure and the Romantic valorization of extreme emotion are interdependent: “The very practice of one kind of conduct creates the circumstance necessary for the performance, as well as the positive valuations of the other” (Campbell 1987: 221). In indie also is the dissonance of these two complementary theological strains. Indie ideology lives within these culturally produced complementary and conflicting impulses by finding the uneasy common ground between them.
It is the persistence of these metaphysical cultural narratives that creates such consistency in the indie community’s discourse despite the changes in its personnel, the variations in its music, and the crossing of national borders. In the 2004 film Our Time, which looked at the American independent music scene of garage rock and the New York City music scene, issues and narratives are expressed by musicians and professionals that have consistently characterized indie music. The musicians claim that they are real and “organic,” while other forms of music are artificial and disconnected to local interests. They discuss the importance of DIY (“do it yourself,” a well-known phrase from the British punk movement) and how their experience is a return to the true excitement of the 1970s New York underground scene.8 In an economic and institutional sector considered by participants to be free from religious ideology, one finds the recapitulation of religious drama and a community shaped by similar concerns regarding authority, exploitation, and the nature of “authentic” experience. Indie ideology is generated by the cultural principles of the wider society. Indie is a musical community centrally focused on how an audience can have the purest possible experience of music. In this endeavor, indie fans locate themselves as the anointed disciples of music who, through their own system of authenticity, recognize true value in music. Indie aficionados are not called “purists” without good reason.
Indie as a Mode of Distribution: An Industrial Definition
Play me a song to set me free Nobody writes them like they used to, So it may as well be me … Belle and Sebastian
Indie, as a colloquial abbreviation of the term independent, reflects this community’s historic association with the products of small, independently owned record companies. Independent music is a category that is widely recognized by the British recording industry. From the industry standpoint, records or artists are considered independent if their music releases can be included on the independent retail chart. The charts are a weekly ranking of singles and albums in order of sales from retail outlets throughout Britain. Records with independent distribution, despite the size or nature of the ownership of the record label, are eligible for inclusion on the independent chart. In other words, if the artist’s record label utilizes a distribution network that is not owned by one of the four major transnational corporations, it appears on the independent chart.9 Releases by independent distribution companies such as Vital, Southern (SRD), or Pinnacle are eligible for inclusion on the independent chart. Therefore, the music industry defines independent music by a specific set of practices regarding the nature of ownership of the mode of circulation to the public.
One needs to turn to the history of the British music charts to understand why distribution is the key feature in determining independence. The history of the independent chart is intertwined with the national chart and the role of charts as a tool for marketing bands to the public. Having a record appear in one of the national charts is seen both as a means