Indie.

[Cocoa Christ]

Post the indie bands you listen to, and if you go to any particular sites for indie. I go to www.epitonic.com . They have a lot of onthelow math rock / math punk and jungle tech, too. But I liek teh 1ndie!

[Bombardier]

Dunno if you could call them indie rock, but Godspeed You! Black Emperor is a great band. Hell, I'm a metalhead and I like them.

[Pats]

I don't even know what's considered Indie, but I like Death Cab for Cutie, Sigur Ros, Interpol and Liz Phair (Back in her Indie days).

[dementia]

The Shins
yo la tengo
Cat Power
The Microphones
Murder by Death
Frou Frou

[Cocoa Christ]

Death cab for cutie's awesome, Murder by Death, Fou Frou, Cat Power and the Microphones I've heard of.

[Cats]

Sigur Ros and Godspeed You! Black Emperer are amazing bands.
The Delgados are a band that you might like if you want that kind of music but with a bit more 'body'.
Their latest album 'Hate' is excellent.

...I don't know what "Indie" is, exactly.
I think the term is slightly misleading.
When I hear it, I automatically think of a not-very-popular band with low production values.
Not that there's anything wrong with that, it can sometimes add a certain charm.
But when I hear people call Sigur Ros and GY!BE 'Indie', I get confused and scared and I run to hide under a table.

Unless it's like the term 'Underground'.
Which has become a very faded term if ever I heard one.
Also very vague.
Very, VERY vague.

[Bombardier]

It's probably safest to use "Indie" as a term to describe a band no one has ever heard of. Unless that's really "Underground..." but alas, both terms really don't hold any water anymore.

[Ihsiin]

As far as I can tell, Indie is generally crap. Well, that's what I think, anyway.

[Gunpei]

WTF are you queens smoking. Death Cab is NOT indie. Its fucking emo.

[Karavi]

The only one I know of that I listen to, that's 100% Indie.. Is Toploader.

If I listen to any others, then I don't even know it. I've never been one to look straight into Indie, I just listen to whatever I enjoy.

[yelworC]

All-Girl Summer Fun Band
...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead
At The Drive-In
Badly Drawn Boy
Bedhead
Belle and Sebastian
Blonde Redhead
Brainiac
Bright Eyes
Built to Spill
Burning Airlines
Camper Van Beethoven
Casiotone for the Painfully Alone
Cex
Clock Strikes Thirteen
Cranes
Death Cab for Cutie
Deerhoof
Dresden Dolls
Drive like Jehu
Eels
Elliot Smith
Flaming Lips
Grandaddy
Ida
Interpol
Iron and Wine
Jackie-O Motherfucker
Jandek
Kingsbury Manx
Low
Minutemen
Modest Mouse
Morrissey
Murder City Devils
Neutral Milk Hotel
onelinedrawing
Pavement
Pedro the Lion
Radiohead
Shellac
Snow Patrol
Sonic Youth
Spoon
Sufjan Stevens
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists
The Birthday Massacre
The Black Heart Procession
The Decemberists
The Fiery Furnaces
The Helio Sequence
The Mars Volta
The Microphones
The Moldy Peaches
The New Pornographers
The Pixies
The Postal Service
The Raincoats
The Rapture
The Shins
The Smiths
The Sounds
The Unicorns
Tortoise
TV on the Radio
Ugly Casanova
Vaselines
Wilco
Xiu Xiu
Yo La Tengo

[Cocoa Christ]

Death Cab is considered Indie Gunpei. It's not emo. Emo is emotional music. Feeling sorry for yourself. Death Cabs older albums are nothing like that. Transatlanticism almost goes there. But not quite.

I define Indie as music that has a unique style. If you think about it, most iindie music can be assigned a 'mood.' That's probably why the line between indie and emo get blurred at times. Whether the mood be angry, sad, annoyed, indie portrays some kind of feeling all the time. Also, I think of other indie as plain 'innovative.' Something that attempts to cross some kind of line or boundary.

For example, if you've ever heard the tune "Nothing is Invisible" by Gelcaps, it portrays sort of a lazy / stoned mood. It consists of (I believe) a tamborine, a bass drum, clapping hands, and a single electric guitar that sometimes fades completely away. While bands such as Pavement, STUN, and Dub Narcotic Soundsystem portray a more angry tone.

One of the best songs I've heard in a while "Melody of a Fallen Tree" by Windsor For The Derby can probably be defined as indie. It's long, however, and the mood fluctuates. It starts out very soft, consecutive, and without many instruments. More add in though. And by the time the songs over, you basically have a whole orchestra playing.

[yelworC]

Just to clarify things:

Emo is short for Emotional Hardcore. It formed in the late 80s out of the DC Hardcore scene. The first Emo band was Rites of Spring. They were the first definitive band to take the energy of Hardcore yet combine it with lyrics that were more like a personal catharsis almost. However, as of late, the term has become incredibly bastardized. It gets thrown around and applied to a wide variety of bands that sound nothing alike.

Indie used to just be a term for any artist that was on an independent label or produced their music on their own. However, since most of the genre was soon taken over by lo-fi rock bands the term has come to describe any lo-fi band. The independent-ness of the bands don't really matter any more.

[Pats]

Good definitions. I wish you weren't a racist.

[yelworC]

I'm racist?

[dementia]

I'm racist?

explanation. (http://randomforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3568)

[yelworC]

Yes, I know. Read my response.

I'm not racist. Nice assumption though.

[Cocoa Christ]

You're the one with the nazi in your sig Dementia.

[Pats]

Whatever.