Caroline Gil reacciona y comenta sobre el termino “indie.”
En una celebración de esta parcialmente concluida década, Pitchfork nos trae un artículo sobre uno de los temas más exasperantes y tal vez más debatidos de estos tiempos- la música indie.
Tan vago y esquivo como su raíz etimológica, la música indie es eso mismo, música confeccionada independientemente most commonly associated with unsigned or minor label bands that have a folk/alt/rock/electronic sound de eso a lo banal y quebrantadas que han quedado nuestras percepciones de la música indie es un salto. Nitsuh Abebe ilustra:
Soon enough any film, book, or cultural product that came anywhere near a certain sensibility– anything anyone would describe as “quirky” or cleverish or tender– fell in the indie bucket, too: Garden State with its hilarious Shins scene (donde Natalie Portman afirma que escuchar The Shins le cambiará la vida a Zach Braff), Wes Anderson movies, Dave Eggers (??), Juno, Zooey Deschanel’s general existence, private colleges, button shirts, the Internet, IKEA, Miracle Whip, literacy[…]
Abebe ofrece una pequeña narrativa de los comienzos de la musica indie, comenzando desde 90’s alternative rock (otro termino retorcido y capcioso) que con su inmensa popularidad de día a noche cargado de emblemas deslenguados, enérgicos e irónicos promocionó un movimiento de placas a posicionamientos más twee y lo-fi. Luego, al tiempo la audiencia indie se re-agruparía; surgen grupos como Elliott Smith, Belle & Sebastian, Air, Cat Power- shit most people like.
There were things about the songs that were comfortable and traditional, which was how consensus got built around them: They were easy to like. But there were also things about them that, in the context of their time, seemed rare and special and worth getting behind.
Esa cualidad de que la música vive contigo en tu claustro y comparte tu miseria, soft-spoken and intimately. De momento, a principios de la década, la música se torno predecible, everything tried to be so clever and cerebral and nice, el uso habitual del internet y foros de música favorecieron la queja y la búsqueda apuntando sus miradas a sensibilidades fuera de la orbe indie.
It’s funny how umbrellas work, though. Because the more some people wanted to dig down toward something fresher and rowdier– noise, metal, club music, weirdo back-shed clangers– the more they left that other indie sensibility, the allegedly polite and earnest and po-faced one, to sail its course. And its course was to get really, really popular. It became the kind of thing an average American teenager might casually listen to without feeling there was too much meaningful or different about that choice: It’s just guitar-pop, right?
It’s only rock and roll, but I like it. La sombrilla de la cual habla Abebe no pudo sostener el flujo abrumador de información e influencias, que nos ha modificado en una especie de confederate cool hunters, escarbando en los confines más ocultos de la red un boosting peak y luego revelarlo en el status de facebook o myspace o twitter o lo que venga próximo.
More and more, we define ourselves– or pride ourselves, or at least “express” ourselves– via our skills in picking interesting things out of that cloud of options. We probably shouldn’t be surprised that somewhere in this process, “indie” completed its trip from being the province of freaks and geeks to something with cachet– something that appeals to people’s sense of themselves as discerning. Something that is, in some quarters, enough of a staple of “cool” that people begin to feel oppressed by it, to the point where some people’s defense of liking it is no longer a defense against being weird, but a defense against being trendy.
Creando una tensión entre una audiencia cautiva y complaciente con la música indie –as is y luego una audiencia aburrida con ansias de de un boost de energía punk, más desconocido, más ruido. Y ciertamente lo positivo de esta tensión es que despierta una pasión enardecedora; I keep seeing that old punks-versus-wavers type of tension surrounding things– a real tension, a real desire for things to go in opposite directions. El autor finalmente lleno de positivismo prevé un espasmo avecinando de la tensión.
I don’t know what, precisely, to expect, but I can’t think of another time in my life this “indie” world has looked quite so ripe for shaking itself up. I’m excited for it– I think we’ll all enjoy it. It’ll be awesome. I promise. You’ll be there.
Al ser autor de Pitchfork, claro, es fácil darse ese lujo de ser tan positivo y a su vez lucido, pero algunos otros vemos el futuro de la música un tanto mas apocalíptico.
