Perfect Competition of Indie Pop

This past July I was at a festival in Geneva, Switzerland waiting for Best Coast to come on stage when I realized that I was actually seeing Beach House and not the aforementioned surf-pop duo. When I told people which bands would be playing at the festival I would say, “Neil Young, Santana, Phoenix, Alt-J, and Beach House.” Strangely though, every time those last two words came out of my mouth, I would imagine the cat and ocean of Best Coast instead of the orange zebra pattern of Beach House. While it is possible that my mind simply could not wrap itself around the similarity of the two names, I saw the mix-up as indicative of something else.

Nearly seven years ago, The Shins’ “Wincing the Night Away” debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 sales chart. Four years later, The Decemberists hit the top spot with “The King is Dead.” The New York Times described Vampire Weekend’s set at the Barclay’s Center last month as the second most important show in the venue’s history, behind only that of hometown hero, Jay-Z, and, while Brooklyn’s coliseum-of-sorts has only been open since last fall, it has seen such acts as The Who, The Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, and Beyoncé. Indie went mainstream.

LCD Soundsystem’s “Dance Yrself Clean” is a party anthem as reliable as any and Arcade Fire is about to release one of the most hyped and anticipated albums of year. From The Dirty Projectors to Grizzly Bear, the best bands indie has to offer have continued to surprise and excite. Those myriad other bands which make up the bulk and base of the “indieverse,” however, fall short — an indistinguishable heap of old sounds rehashed into predictably successful, but inevitably forgettable, four-to-six minute arrangements.

EBay is often cited as a real-world example of perfect competition. Though empirically impossible to prove, I believe the emergence of big-market indie can be similarly explained through the lens of this elusive economic model.

The 21st century has seen the Internet grow exponentially and, with it, the ability to share information. Bands that in another decade might not have seen the light of day are now able to reach millions of people with a simple share or blog mention. It is easier than ever before ,b for more people to listen to more music. Indie sounds are generating real success or, in other words, there is a market for indie music and it is lucrative. As theory would suggest, firms (read: bands) have flooded in. Unfortunately though, theory also stipulates that production in such a market is homogenous.

I don’t think it mattered that I was waiting to see Beach House and not Best Coast. I would have enjoyed either show, but neither would have been remembered among the dozens of other shows I have seen. These bands are part of an all-too-prevalent trend of stasis and repetition. Someone found the formula for indie success and deemed any further sonic exploration unnecessary. In this age of immediate access one is forced to wonder whether people want genuine art or just a quick and easy fix.

This trend holds in other mediums as well. From the end of the original Hollywood storyline to Buzzfeed’s infinitely inane lists posing as journalism, the driving force behind modern media is quite clearly quantity not quality. This is not to say good stuff is not out there because it is. When embraced creatively innovation is possible, but such efforts are rarified and, with so much out there, it is getting harder and harder to find.

Pausing to speak to the audience between songs, Beach House’s Victoria Legrand asked the crowd, “Est-ce quelqu’un va faire l’amour dans le bois? C’est dommage si non. [Is anyone going to make love in the forest? It would be a shame if not.]” This empty and thinly-veiled attempt at recreating the emotion of the ’60s fell flat. Did she think her statement would somehow have meaning because she said ‘make love’ and not simply ‘have sex’? I used to think that indie stood above the rest and, at that time, I did not think I was wrong. Now, however, the real strides in sound and content are coming from Frank Ocean, Kanye West, and Kendrick Lamar. Hip hop and R&B, though often goldmines of derivative misogyny and homophobia, have produced the real gems of recent years.

Far too much of today’s indie will see longevity only as the forgotten backing track to some college freshman’s otherwise enjoyable drug-fueled haze of night. It is fun live, it is fun at first listen and Pitchfork likes it, but will any of that matter 18 months after its release? Indie has become pop music: what the people want to hear without challenging their expectations. If it were not so goddamn pretentious this would not matter but it is and it does. It is time for indie music to escape this Groundhog Day and live up to what it can and should be: edgy and unexpected.