Dark Was the Night
Various Artists; "Inspiration Information"; purchased from Discogs
Indie flourished in the early 00s, but by 2009 had taken the mainstream. For clarity, this is indie-the-genre-unto-itself, not “indie” as some kind of appellation (indie rap; indie rock; indie jazz) meaning independence or suggesting something outside the mainstream. When people collectively decide there is a word that bundles together a bunch of attributes, usually that means there is a cultural moment emerging.
And there was, sorta—people thought “hipster” and “indie” were cousins. The financial crisis had started to reverberate through the US from its epicenter in New York. Recent graduates from NYU and Columbia were feeling the ache of trying to find their first jobs. Housing was (probably?) affordable in Williamsburg, and the microbrewery and third wave coffee scene was taking off. Lots of young people were venturing into artisanal projects named with two nouns and an ampersand conjoining them, either funded by zero-interest rates or trust funds or both. Mumblecore was a thing people took seriously and was getting awards. Blog house and witch house and SoundCloud rap were genres of music that people were trying to put on the map. Animal Collective hit the top 40, almost the top ten, and Vampire Weekend wasn’t far behind. My generation’s music was twee and weird and everywhere.
This compilation captures so many artists and arrangements of music, people working out what their careers could be in real time. Some songs were covers of deep-cuts; others were non-album tracks that had been reworked for something special to appear here. I saw many bands perform these songs, whether it was their first show in the college town I was in, or prime placement at a music festival. To choose a favorite or tie this record to a specific memory from my life would be undermining what that musical-historical moment was. But to compress it: by the end of my college career I had seen all but nine of the featured artists on this compilation. One even kissed me—Sharon Jones, rest in power.
To paraphrase Hunter Thompson, eventually the wave receded, but there was a time where we were all spinning overpriced dance-punk comps from Urban Outfitters and loving every second. And if you walk to the right place in Park Slope you can see where it crested, maybe around 2010 when Bon Iver was on that Kanye album.
Verdict: Keep
Do you think “indie” is a genre?