Indie Rock Revolution?

Alright, so indie rockers/hipsters have adopted everything ‘redneck’ and made it cool. Trucker hats, Pabst Blue Ribbon, giant sunglasses, overalls, cowboy hats, …the list goes on.

Let’s forget them for the moment. Let’s focus on the music they (I) revere. I believe that the mainstream music scene is in the midst of a revolution. Slowly but surely, more and more people are realizing that what’s passed for “music” on MTV and most radio stations in the past several years is crap. Immediate evidence of this can be found in the newfound popularity of Modest Mouse. While they have been popular among the underground/indie rock scene for a while now, they now have a song (Float On) that has been on MTV and radio stations across the country.

The station I grew up with, 99x (wnnx99.7fm) in Atlanta, has recently adopted a new format. They now play a mix of good 90′s altern/rock, bubblegum punk (a misnomer, for sure…another post, another day), and great new rock n roll that has previously been reserved for hipsters, indie rockers, and other folks who wouldn’t take the crap that the major 5 labels fed them all too often. 99x’s list of “upstart bands” (basically, bands they’ve just started playing) include Modest Mouse, Interpol, Franz Ferdinand, The Streets, The Music, The Rapture, Jump, and more. This is the station that just a few years ago was focused on playing crap like Nickelback. The employees at 99x have taken their station out of the grasps of whatever giant parent company used to own them (maybe viacom?), and now the station is completely programmed and owned by folks who actually live and work in atlanta. Eat that, Clear Channel. And, imagine this. It’s still one of the most popular stations in the city.

Life is a little more grim up here in North Carolina — the “alternative rock” stations are playing shitty music that was released a couple years ago, the “rap” stations play shitty “gangsta” rap about $$, ho’s, and fortys, …need i go on?

I imagine a future not too far off where people as a whole listen to music for music’s sake, rather than listening to music because they like how the person dances or looks. Is that too much to ask?

Signing off for now, because it’s 2:30 in the AM. Thanks for reading.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 22nd, 2004 at 12:55 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.