Lets not Forget the Music

Admittedly so far, I have focused particularly on the more pretentious characteristics which I have seen to make up the Indie/alternative scene, absent minded to the fact I haven't actually really taken a look at the music and the bands themselves. Clearly knowing this is not something that should be skipped, I am going to take a look at indie music based on my friends new band The Haunts, who are playing their first EP 29.05.09 (not that I am self promoting) but here is their myspace link anway http://www.myspace.com/whosthegrove.

One of the main things I found about the Brisbane Indie band scene, which I do believe extends past The Haunts, runs contrary to the definition of Indie music by Hibbett that was in our lecture. Hibbett defined the Indie conscious as music that cannot achieve mainstream success. However it was quite evident from speaking to the band members that this was EXACTLY what they wanted to do. Infact the same could be said for quite a few of the local Brisbane bands aswell. Yves Klein Blue for example are clearly starting to make it big aswell playing at festivals like splendour and having one of their songs promoted through a Mitsubishi add. This is by no way a forum in which to judge these bands, but instead shows the differences between the Brisbane Indie Culture compared to the more tradition definitions of the term. But at the same time, it is extremely hard to base a culture now on a term that was defined in the early 90s, as times have clearly changed.

But none the less, the band still exhibits tradition forms of musical styles defined to associate with Indie. The Haunts in particular show influences from rock, punk and abit of pop. Listening to their songs I did get the impression that the Killers were an influence which related back to what was said in the lecture by Bourdieu, in that indie music has co-opted music by the mainstream and refreshed itself with "objects from the restricted field". How 'restricted' their music sense may be is up to the listener, but I can definately say that The Haunts can be defined as Indie.