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"Indie" music as a genre
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Many bands present themselves as "indie", both to describe the style of music and the current status of their music careers. First, and most obviously, independent bands are just that: independent. They haven't been signed by a record label and are do-it-yourselfers when it comes to recording, promotion, touring, and distribution. The vast majority of all musicians, many of which (thankfully) reside here in Austin, are indie musicians. Austin has indie rock, indie pop, indie rap, indie electro, and about every other combination of indie genres. The indie tag is indicative of more than just the lack of a recording contract, but things get muddy when music genres come into play.
There is a vague consensus that "indie rock" is a broad musical genre. It is characterized by an alt-rock guitar-led style, with an increasing dependence on keyboards and synths. Austin is packed to the brim with musical acts that fall into this vague category. When in doubt, describe your band as indie rock. If indie rock is a genre of music, is it possible for a band signed to a major label to play music in the indie rock style? Since that doesn't jive, let's create sub-genres!
This chart doesn't help. At all.
To get around the possible confusion of an indie rock back that isn't indie, we start to create sub-genres and sub-sub-genres. Modest Mouse isn't indie rock any more, instead they are part of the "lo-fi" movement which brings back the low fidelity recording methods and equipment of the 1980s. Once they got signed to Epic Records, the indie tag didn't seem to fit. The music didn't change a whole lot, yet the genre did. So if you are a poor band in Austin, you can now safely describe yourself as lo-fi if you can't afford modern recording equipment. Want to present an even grungier attitude? Describe yourself as "no-fi". Eventually when that movement grows too large, you can be" post-no-fi" or event "no-fi revival". The possibilities are endless.
The sub-classification goes on and on, and occurs in every broad genre (Rap, rock, metal, etc). Alternative rock used to describe a counter-culture movement until it moved into the mainstream. Now "indie rock" and it's myriad sub-genres can show that a band is not interested in selling out to the mainstream, or maybe that they just haven't yet.
As humans, we like to find patterns and put things into categories. Music that spans multiple genres is confusing; we feel better if we are able to give it a label. Some of the best music in Austin is from independent bands who defy standard classification. Genre is not necessarily a good tool to determine whether or not you will enjoy a particular act. All of this is to say: explore Austin for it's variety of music and don't worry too much about the genre. Leave that up to the people with way too much time on their hands.
