Further Reading
Alternative and Indie music is as much a philosophy as it is a sound: it is a way of life, an ethos, around which the music fits itself around. Alternative and Indie music is characterised by this, with a DIY ethic being the guiding principle as a supreme reaction against the mainstream. Basically, it is the music of people who want to do things differently, who want a slight change from the commercial nature of the popular status quo. In this way, Alternative and Indie music ends up always being defined against the mainstream of it’s particular moment: it is a reactionary subculture that owes it’s sound and style to the music of out and out pop and popular rock. From this it builds it’s own sound with a crucial and definitive twist that figures it as something foreign to the mainstream, as inherently ‘other’ to what has been decreed popular by the forces of commerciality and advertising. It maintains some of the ideologies of punk, but manages to look sharp and cool at the same time; it longs to make people dance and give them the all important pep, yet it has none of the saccharine disingenuousness of pop music; it’s trendy, yet badly washed; it’s heartfelt, but only with a heavy dose of irony and sarcasm; it sings about love, but in an interesting and new way. There are thousands of reasons why you should love the music of the alternative and indie genres, but we simply don’t have space to list them.
So why not see for your self and check out the vast array of tickets to alternative and indie music shows that we have on offer here at boxoffice.co.uk. From the genre’s biggest successes to hotly tipped new discoveries, we have everything here to compliment your alternative lifestyle in it’s musical aspect. Alternative shows often straddle the middle ground between pop and metal concerts, featuring a wide range of different types of people due to the eclecticism of the genre’s musical styles. You will not find exceptional yet self indulgent displays of technical prowess, nor will you be treated to tired rock-symphonies full of sonic gimmicks and ridiculous noodling. No, for Indie and Alternative music tends instead to focus on creating a human and believable sound that feels real, alive and breathing. With jangly guitars, simplistic Ringo-esque drums and vocals that reveal and embrace non-RP accents, Indie music is truly the music of the people. Musical talent is substituted for ability of expression, making it a very personal and individual style, whatever the band, for the genre requires one to turn themselves inside out. Perhaps this is why Indie and alternative music is so continuingly popular: it celebrates reality and integrity in an increasingly false and plastic world.
Andy Warhol and The Velvet Underground’s debut album together can be seen as one of the genre’s seeds from which it grew. Listening back to this album after more than forty years, it still sounds as fresh and ground breaking as ever. Warhol’s famous and now legendary production style emphasised a new immediacy and spontaneity in the technical aspect of recording and production. This was the beginning of ‘lo-fi’, where Warhol realised that all too often the less is far more formidable than the more. Thus the album is full of glitches, performances that eschew the note perfect, strange equalisations and ambient background noise: we are treated to the sound of conversations, room noise and even the sound of children playing. This is the album that gave Alternative and Indie it’s production values, in some way acting as a sonic manifesto for the Indie vision.
Nirvana are another band that have had a strong influence on the music of the genres of Alternative and Indie. With their raw, punk sound filtered into a more popular form of rock and roll, the aggression and self-expression of their music sounded wholly fresh and entirely original. This breathtaking innovation crossed with their disdain of mainstream popular cultural encouraged a generation of kids to think for themselves and to make new exciting sounds from their guitars.
The 90’s was then an exceptional breeding ground for the emergence of Alternative and Indie bands. Supergroups such as Oasis and Blur created vocal stylings that were incredibly British in their very nature, and celebrated the margins of society rather than it’s linguistic centres. With their guitar sounds and 60’s revivalist intentions, these two bands are at the definitive centre of the growth of Indie and Alternative music. Whilst Britain was fighting for this corner, America unleashed such bands as Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains to cement and continue the legacy of Nirvana. The chart topping success of The Offspring and Green Day showed that you could be alternative at the same time as being commercially successful, and so the genre’s influence grew rapidly.
From this history, a new wave of Indie has appeared in Britain and America in response to the late nineties and early millennium’s profusion of insipid boy and girl bands and conveyor belts of manufactured pop stars. This overexposure has led people to seek something that sounds less clinical and mass-produced, and so Indie and Alternative music has prospered once again. Bands such as The Libertines and The Strokes were pioneers in the resurrection of the excellent type of music, releasing albums that have since gone from being cult successes to legendary artefacts in the history of music.
Nowadays Alternative and Indie music is more popular than ever, with a huge range of bands bending the rules of the style to make it fresh and exciting. Why not explore boxoffice.co.uk to obtain tickets to see such bands as the thrilling Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, the rock and roll antics of 30 Seconds To Mars, the classic songwriting of Feeder, the downbeat beauty of Frightened Rabbit, the simply wonderful Kings of Leon, the dark and enticing Modest Mouse, or the new wave wonders Maximo Park. Whatever type of Indie you are into, we can find tickets for you here.
