(Untitled)

[theartfuldoger1]

What do you think is the difference between indie music and pop music? Does it have anything to do with song themes or overall sound?

Comments

[howa3327]

I really don't like to label music, as indie or as pop or whatever. I think it makes it less assessable to everyone

[_cerebralcandy_]

I think it is somewhat arbitrary, but I think of pop as the catchy drivel that 12-year-olds hear once and love immediately (think Britney or the Backstreet Boys). I mean, that is why it is categorized as POPular, right? To get a bit less arbitrary, I've read somewhere that pop songs tend to follow a very limited set of formulas - and that a computer program in Germany has analyzed enough pop songs that it can now crank out a hit pop song (following the formulas) at the push of a button. Whether this is completely true or not, I think it speaks volumes about the nature of pop music. Pop is the result of record producers creating a performer and a product that is designed to appeal to the masses yet is innocuous enough to not offend anyone

A computer program in Germany has analyzed enough pop songs that it can now crank out a hit pop song

[theartfuldoger1]

I agree 100% percent! Though I think this idea is still moot. Very nice .

[qu_is]

Very well explained!!

[the_dense]

practice, man, practice.

[pumilio2]

I don't think I know what either of those are.

[raintracks]

I agree with _cerebralcandy_, I've heard the same news about the computer program.

But there's another dimension, indie is indie because it's not pop. Meaning that indie artists will write something that is audibly different than pop, either by theme, by music or by decoration of the performance. The indie artist could get their inspiration anywhere but there's a very clear idea of what the result should not be.

Pop and indie wouldn't exist without each other and therefore they are influenced by each other. There's a certain amount of contamination that will introduce elements from the one into the other. Think of indie artists becoming big, or think Linkin Park for a nice example of rap/rock crossover (though there's not much indie about them).