Have you ever taken the time to ask yourself what indie rock is? Believe me, I have tried and in the end, I concluded that it is almost impossible to define indie rock, why? The reason is very simple, if you look at indie rock’s roots you will land on two ideas of what indie rock is.
On one hand, you have people who think that “indie” refers to India and others who think that indie music originated from alternative rock or vice versa. Now, this is where it gets weirder, you see the thing is, indie music emerged in the post-punk period back in the 80s. Back then the term indie was used to describe record labels, groups, or film companies that didn’t belong to or were not affiliated with major record companies. Today some indie bands belong to major record companies, so you tell me what indie rock truly is.
Whatever your definition of indie music is, one thing still remains most genres in music don’t have a solid definition. Some bands that have inspired indie music over the years in my opinion are:
Travis
If you are not a 90s baby you probably have never heard of these guys, Travis is a band that was formed in Glasgow back in 1990. It is one of the most popular bands in the United Kingdom for good reasons; in fact, they paved the way for bands like cold play.
The members are Fran Healy, Andy Dunlop, Dougie Payne, and Neil primrose. One of the top music these guys did was Travis: writing to reach you.
The writer Fran Healy admitted that he got inspiration for this song while listening to the Connell’s single 74-75.
Lana Del Rey
Known to many by her stage name Lana Del Rey, Elizabeth Wooldridge grant is an American born model singer and songwriter. Some call her fake and some call her amazing, according to Lana she gets her inspiration from jazz, music from the 70s and sometimes radio.
The Killers
The killers (an American rock band) was formed in Las Vegas back in 2001, the band has four members namely Brandon flowers, Dave Keuning, Mark Stoermer and Ronnie Vanucci Jr. “Mr. Brightside” was the first song the band ever wrote, the inspiration for this song came from Brandon’s cheating girlfriend.
The White Stripes
I’m sure you have heard ‘Seven Nation Army’ somewhere, maybe in a movie trailer, on the radio, or on television. The White Stripes was formed back in 1997 in Detroit Michigan and had two members Meg white and Jack white.
The song was inspired by jacks’ inability to pronounce Salvation Army.
The point of all this is, inspiration can come from anywhere, it can come to you when you are at a festival, at home watching TV, in class, from a book, a cheating partner or anywhere else you can think of. All you need to do is open up your mind and see the possibilities. I know you have better opinions on this feel free to share them.