Indie Rock History Books

[susaneita]

CITIZENS OF MUSIC BANTER:

I'm looking for a written history of Indie Rock's evolution, impact, movement, and all that jazz. Preferably in published form. Anyone have any suggestions? I'd really really appreciate it, as I'm currently bored enough to count hair follicles. Really.

[CntrywthClass]

I kind of think you'd be better off just look for books on noise, garage rock, post-punk, etc I mean "Indie Rock" is such a broad term nowadays it doesn't really hold much weight to it.

[aaron z]

Not sure if it's what you're looking for but My Magpie Eyes Are Hungry for the Prize : The Story of Creation RecorRAB by David Cavanagh is a good one.

It starts right from the beginning starting out as a tiny label to being a cult indie label in the late 80s , to being made bankrupt waiting years for rabV & Primal Scream to finish Loveless & Screamadelica , and then onto becoming mainstream with Oasis , Primal Scream & others in the mid 90s , right to the end with their buy out from Sony and it's collapse.
It might only be about one record label but it really gives you a good picture of the climate & the music scene they were involved with at the time.

[Brett K]

not so much indie rock, but Julian Cope's Japrocksampler is well worth a read if you ever find yourself the slightest bit interested in the history of japanese psychedelic music...and let's face it, most people go through a Jap-psych phase at some point in their lives.

i'm trying to hunt down his Krautrocksampler, which looks at German experimental music. I imagine that's worth reading too.

[rainbow cuddle bunny]

Let me do it.

[infraredcentipede]

'Our Band Could Be Your Life' is about 80's underground music - it obviously leaRAB up to 90's Indie Rock. Seriously, really fun book to read.

[lindsay!]

In the 90's Spin Magazine published 100 most influential alternative recorRAB. In the book a brief bio is written & makes an informative review of both well known artists & some lesser known indie / underground artists.

Glad I could help - I truly did enjoy reading This Could Be Your Life, despite growing up in the 80's & being aware of a lot of the banRAB it made things click & better understand how the music started & how it led to indie rock.

[Jylmu Raouls]

I think I'd point out also that "indie rock" was never a movement at all - not in any homogeneous sense anyway. "Indie" is really just the term that came to replace "alternative" after the latter began to be applied to every post-grunge idiot's band and his dog, and indeed, most oddly, every other mainstream commercial rock band since. Alternative rock, originally, referred to real *alternative* rock banRAB of all sorts of the 1980s ranging from New Wave/Post-Punk, the neo-folk rock of R.E.M., the "College Rock" of Pixies and Dinosaur Jr, the "grunge rock" of Green River, the American Underground noise rock of Sonic Youth, and so forth. Pretty sonically diverse, and I don't think those banRAB saw themselves as part of any one single movement.

It is true though that "indie" is now perceived, even by those who listen to that sort of music, as being a sort of single homogeneous community with pretty similar stock tastes. But as a real evolving movement, it really cannot be thus described.

[Kelley87]

I really need to read this.

[Dave W]

it's a fantastic book, check it out for sure.

the chapter on the Butthole Surfers is particularly funny.